Repentance and Certainty of Salvation

Luther taught that a repentant person only has his sins 'covered' - he did actually say 'like a dunghill covered with snow'. The Catholic Church teaches that, after repentance & confession, our sin really is erased. All the way. And to satisfy justice, we might have some penance or reparation to make. If we do more penance than our own soul needs, God will distribute it to somebody else. Nuns spend their whole lives working towards this.

"How can a good person know they are good enough?" The Catholic Church teaches that, if we keep God's Commandments of Love and frequent the Sacraments, we have every 'Good Christian Hope' that we will die in a State of Grace and go to be with Him. But we are not given the prescience NOW to know as a certainty that we will go to Heaven LATER. This is a very dangerous untruth that is taught by some Protestant sects, and opens the door to many serious errors, including Spiritual Pride and Presumption. We are supposed to live the way God has commanded, love our neighbour, and really not bother too much about our eventual fate (that would be too self-centred): but we do need to examine our conscience each day, saying, "If I died today, where would I go?"