Answers to your Questions
The catechism says that "sorrow for our sins, because by them we have lost heaven and deserved hell, is sufflcient when we go to confession." But I have also read that it Is necessary, even for sacramental absolution, to have SOME love of God In our SOITOW. Can these statements be reconciled?
THE reconciliation surely lies in the answer also to be found in the catechism on the glory and happiness of heaven-defined as "to see, love and enjoy God forever." Sorrow because we have lost that plainly does include love of God. It may be a love centred very much on ourselves and what we hope to receive from the object of our love; and we can by God's grace attain to a love of Him which thinks less about ourselves, But this imperfect love is enough to give us a supernatural sorrow for our sins. sorrow that we have lost Clod, the object of our love. To be sorry merely because we fear something unpleasant is going to happen to us is not contrition at all-even if we label the "something unpleasant" with the word "hell."
The essential thing about hell is that it is the loss of God; so if it is really hell we are fearing. and not just "something unpleasant" (which might just as well be a physical thrashing), our fear of it must imply a certain love of God, even though very imperfect; for the loss of Him is what hell actually is.