After confession QUESTION from Aurora on January 16, 2003 'The Lord is good, his mercy endures forever'..
Are these the words one says after the priest gives his absolution?
I was told this is what should be said. Or at least along the lines of this.
Thanks
ANSWER by John-Paul Ignatius, OLSM on January 23, 2003 Dear Aurora:
Yes, words like that is what we should do depending on what the priest does.
Paragraph 20 of Misericordiam suam (Introduction to the New Order of Penance), promulgated by the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship, Feb. 7, 1974, states:

When he has been given absolution, the penitent proclaims the mercy of God and offers thanks to God in a short invocation taken from Scripture. Then the priest bids him to go in peace.
After this is is appropriate to say something like, Thank you Father or Thank you Father and God Bless you.
I have noticed that in the descriptions of how to say confession that are published even from good orthodox sources often seem to skip the proclamation of God's mercy that you mention, and go straight to a Thank you Father.
But according to Church legislation, we are to offer some scriptural acknowledgement of the mercy of God and thanksgiving.
If the priest says after the words of absolution, Give thanks to the Lord for He is good, then answer, For His mercy endures forever.
Or the priest may say, The Lord has freed your from your sins. Go in peace. To which you answer, Thanks be to God.
If the priest does not say anything like this, then we may say the whole phrase ourselves: Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever.
This invocation, by the way, comes from Daniel Chapter Three (verse 89 in the NAB; verse 67 in the RSV-CE)
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