St. Finnian too prescribes:
“Si quis rixam faciat de clericis aut ministris Dei, hebdomadam dierum poeniteat cum pane et aqua et petat veniam a Deo suo et proximo suo, plena confessione et humilitate et sic potest Deo reconciliari et proximo suo”.[17]
The synodical canons de Arreis, in one decree declare as the substitute for the penance of a year:
“Tres dies cum mortuo sancta in sepulchro, sine cibo et potu et sine somno sed cum vestimento circa se, et cantatione psalmorum et oratione horarum per confessionem et votum sacerdoti”.
And in another case they enact a similar penance:
“post confessionem peccatorum coram sacerdote et plebe post votum”.[18]
The penitential of St. Cummian commands him who had innocently told an untruth “to confess his fault to the person whom he deceived and to the priest”.[19] Again, youths before their twentieth year committing certain sins, were ordered for the first offence “having confessed, to do penance for twenty days before they should approach the holy Communion”.[20]
St. Columbanus is even more minute in treating of this sacrament. Thus, in canon the fourteenth, he lays down the penance for the sin of adultery, and adds that this penance being performed by the sinner “culpa illius per sacerdotem abstergatur”. Should his sin be a sin of desire, “Confiteatur culpam suam sacerdoti et ita quadraginta diebus in pane et aqua poeniteat”.[21] Special diligence, too, was to be observed when preparing to approach [pg 479] the Holy Eucharist, and not only the heinous crimes, but even the venial faults were to be confessed. “Confessiones autem dari diligentius praecipitur, maxime de commotionibus animi, antequam ad missam eatur, ne forte quis accedat indignus ad altare, id est si cor mundum non habuerit”.[22]
In the ancient collection of canons made for the use of our Irish Church about the year 700, there is one book (the 48th) entitled de Poenitentia. The thirty-three chapters into which it is divided are for the most part moral or disciplinary: as, for instance, the twenty-fifth chapter, which enjoins that all penitents should receive imposition of hands from the priests during Lent, moreover, should carry the dead to the place of sepulture, and there inter them, and, in fine, should present themselves kneeling at all the functions of the Church from Easter to Pentecost. There are, however, some incidental passages which beautifully illustrate the idea entertained by our fathers of the necessity and advantages of sacramental confession. Thus in the third chapter the words of St. Augustine are adopted:
“Why will the sinner seek to conceal what he committed in the presence of God? Why will he blush to confess those sins with which he did not blush to stain his own soul? Therefore, let him defray by confession what he has contracted by sinning; let him by satisfaction wash away the stains which defile his soul; let him by vigilance supply for his former neglect; let him for the future be a follower of Christ by virtuous deeds, as hitherto he had followed Satan by his sins; and he may rest assured that God will not punish him for those crimes which he has confessed”.