What is the nature and format of a Lenten Penitential Service in the Catholic Church?
score:1
but unlike Ash Wednesday it's not an obligation
Ash Wednesday is not a day of obligation.
The primary purpose of a penitential service for Lent (or Advent as well) is confession. Everything in addition to that is to aid in making a good confession and encouraging people to go
- Is there a document from Vatican governing the format, or can it vary depending on country / diocese? If not, what are the necessary elements?
There is the Rite of Penance, a book published in 1973, which describes the Sacrament of Confession as it is to be ordinarily practiced in the Roman Rite. Chapter IV-B details the rite for multiple penitents each receiving individual absolution. It can vary in accordance to the existing norms on variance from the Editio Typica of a given ritual. For example at a parish run by a Latin Rite diocese, they would use this rite. At a parish run by an Ecclesia Dei community, they would instead use the 1952 Rituale Romanum.
- What is the sacramental nature of this service?
The Sacrament itself is the confession and absolution. If the priest does not say "I absolve you" (Ego Te Absolvo), there is no Sacrament. Everything aside from that is a sacramental. Which is, in short, a thing which is a source of actual grace subject to the Sanctifying power of the Church (some of which remit venial sins). The video you linked depicts no Sacrament. As the description says, individual confessions followed.
- Is the text of the prayers in the service standard? Is the choice of Bible reading correspond to the assigned reading of the day, specially standardized for this service, or at the bishop/priest's discretion?
Readings should be chosen which illustrate the following: a) the voice of God calling men back to conversion and ever closer conformity with Christ; b) the mystery of our reconciliation through the death and resurrection of Christ and through the gift of the Holy Spirit; c) the judgment of God about good and evil in men’s lives as a help in the examination of conscience
So, officially it's at the discretion of the presiding cleric (or more likely, whoever is the "liturgical planner"). But technically he ought to in good faith pick a passage fitting the above criteria.
- Why is it separated from Ash Wednesday? What was its origin?
As to the latter, I'm not sure of it originating sooner than the publication of the Novus Ordo Missae. Prior to this it seems people would simply go stand in line for confession, and maybe sometimes there'd be special occasions where a bunch of priests went to one Church and advertised it so people would be encouraged to go.
Ash Wednesday is Ash Wednesday and penance services are penance services. Ash Wednesday is quite ancient, appearing in the Gregorian Sacramentary around the 8th Century. There's not really a relation between the two aside from their place in Lent and their penitential character.
- What is the purpose behind this service?
To encourage people to go to Confession, and to make a good confession.
- Does a parish offer it more than one time per year? Can it be conducted upon parishioners's request?
It happens during Advent as well for similar reasons as in Lent. In some places a diocese will coordinate multiple services in the season, spreading them so that everyone will have at least one within reasonable distance at least once during the season. The service is meant for a large group of people, so it doesn't make much sense for just one person to request it for themselves. They can simply go to confession at the usual times.
More post
- 📝 A set of traits common for all protestant believers
- 📝 What is an overview of how contemporary Christians discern that God is giving them instructions to follow a very specific course of action?
- 📝 How does Matthew 25:31-46 ("The Sheep and the Goats") reconcile with salvation by faith?
- 📝 Why would Catholics believe that being kind to one's father will bring reparation for sins?
- 📝 We're only in heaven for a short time?
- 📝 Why should Christians strive to live long lives? At what lengths should they go to do so?
- 📝 Did Mary know she was sinless, according to Roman Catholic teaching?
- 📝 Scriptural Basis for different kinds of marriage
- 📝 Revelation 18:4 - Should we leave Babylon if we are in the "Great Babylon"?
- 📝 What is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit?
- 📝 What is the status of "The Will to Believe" among contemporary philosophers?
- 📝 How do Continuationists rebut Tom Pennington's 7 arguments for Cessationism?
- 📝 How does a Catholic theocracy differ from other Christian theocracies?
- 📝 What arguments are there that, by him who is Logos, life was not - immediately and purposefully - created on earth?
- 📝 UMC dividing over gay marriage?
- 📝 Masses timetable
- 📝 Six-hundred-sixty-six or six-six-six or six-one-six
- 📝 Are my feelings altered when I enter the Kingdom of Heaven?
- 📝 Why is the Notre Dame Cathedral not a Major Basilica?
- 📝 What is the Roman Catholic view on using the term 'orthodox', particularly in regard to Eastern Orthodoxy?
- 📝 According to Catholicism, who is the leader of devils?
- 📝 How does one explain that the Church is the Bride of Christ?
- 📝 What is the history and explanation as to why the "diaconate" was MIA in the Western Church over a certain period of time?
- 📝 God won't give us more than we can handle?
- 📝 Moses' age when before the burning bush
- 📝 What help exists to help a LCMS Lutheran deal with h*m*sexuality?
- 📝 Does God know me personally?
- 📝 Why did the RLDS start giving the priesthood to women?
- 📝 Why was the gift of the Holy Ghost not operative during Christ's mortal ministry according to LDS doctrine?
- 📝 Would organisms genetically descendent from humans fall under the purview of the Catholic defined God?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 What is the nature and format of a Lenten Penitential Service in the Catholic Church?
- 📝 What is the Catholic Church's answer to Nancy Pelosi's argument of a double standard between abortion and the death penalty?
- 📝 What are the differences between Roman Catholic and Irish Catholic?
- 📝 What is the Catholic understanding of the first sin committed by Adam and Eve?
- 📝 What is the nature of the theory for Pope Joan and the evidence that substantiates it?
- 📝 Does the Catholic Church teach that it has the authority to change what is morally right and wrong?
- 📝 What does it mean that Jesus, Father, and Holy Spirit are of the same nature but different personas?
- 📝 What is the official Catholic position on same-sex marriage and same-sex civil partnerships?
- 📝 Since when did the Catholic church accept Protestant baptism, and what was the original rationale for accepting?
- 📝 What is the Difference between a Heretic and a Schismatic, according Catholic and Orthodox tradition?
- 📝 What are the main differences between the Catholic and Protestant definitions of Biblical inerrancy?
- 📝 What is the Catholic Church's position of a marriage between a menopausal woman and an impotent man?
- 📝 What do the words Catholic and Protestant mean?
- 📝 What is the biblical and traditional support for the Catholic Marian devotion?
- 📝 What is the Catholic teaching on technology and faith?
- 📝 What is Roman Catholic Church's official view on the nature of Christ?
- 📝 What is the very least a Catholic needs to believe about Genesis 2 and 3?
- 📝 What is the Catholic definition of meat for Lenten Fridays?
- 📝 What is the current and historical viewpoint on universal salvation as a doctrine in the Catholic Church?
- 📝 What were the common exonyms of the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox churches leading up to and after the Great Schism (1054)?
- 📝 What is a gospel, and how many gospels are there in the Catholic Bible?
- 📝 What is the Catholic Church's view of Anne Catherine Emmerich - can her visions and prophecies be trusted?
- 📝 What is the Catholic understanding of "the thousand-year reign of Christ and his people"?
- 📝 What is the Catholic Church's position on the relationship between science and religion?
- 📝 What is the Ontological Difference between the Catholic and the Orthodox View of God?
- 📝 What is the Catholic biblical or canon basis saying some moral works without grace (transient or permanent) are good (or not have the nature of sin)?
- 📝 What is the origin and basis for the Catholic teaching regarding Mary's vow of celibacy prior to her betrothal?
- 📝 What is the difference between the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches?
- 📝 What is the biblical basis for the Catholic and Eastern doctrines of the Assumption of Mary?
- 📝 Why wouldn't a practicing Catholic joke about the Sacraments and what would happen if they did?