The Sacrament of
Confession
When I was in college a
baseball teammate of mine tried pretty hard to convert me to his ‘Bible
Church.’ Unfortunately I wasn’t the
Catholic I should have been at the time, but somewhere along the line I had
learned that the Catholic Church is the Church that Christ founded. Frustrated, my teammate gave up on me for a
while, until one day after practice, when he asked me if I still attended “that
Catholic Church.” I told him that I did
and his response I thought was a little odd: “But where is Confession in the
Bible?” I pointed him to John
20:21-23. He was totally unfamiliar with
the passage, but that was the last exchange we ever had about religion.
It is interesting that as
Catholics, when our Faith is challenged by Protestants, almost invariably one
of the first things they will bring up is Confession. They seem to think it is a medieval invention
by priests intended to maintain control and to humiliate the Faithful, as well
as make themselves necessary mediators, usurping the unique mediation of
Christ, the ‘one mediator between God and man.’ (1 Tim. 2:5)
This being the case, we should
have a solid response so that when we are challenged we will be able to share
the Truth with our brethren, and so that we will not be led astray. As always, I must first confess that I am not
qualified to give a completely comprehensive defense, and would recommend
seeking other resources as well. Catholic Answers has quite a few.
This week I would like to
focus on this incredible Sacrament. I
intend first to show that it is Scriptural, and then to demonstrate that it is
one of the most amazing gifts of love our Savior has given us. Finally, in ‘The Fathers Speak,’ at the end
of the week, I will give ample evidence that this Sacrament dates to the early
Church and not simply to the Middle Ages.
I will begin with the
Scripture passage that I gave my friend those many years ago - John 20: 21-23: “[Jesus]
said to them again, ‘Peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ And when he had said this, he
breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and
whose sins you retain are retained.”
This is a very clear text
showing Jesus giving the Apostles the power to forgive sin, but a deeper
examination may help our challengers see even more clearly what is going on.
Jesus begins by saying,
‘As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’
In other places in Scripture He tells the Apostles that whoever hears
them hears Him, and whoever rejects them rejects Him. He gives them the power to bind and loose
(Mt. 18:18). Clearly Jesus, in many
places in the Gospels, shares His authority with His Apostles. And when Jesus healed of the paralytic He
made it perfectly clear that He had the authority to forgive sins (Mt. 9:2),
not just as one man forgives another, but as God.
By immediately telling the
Apostles in verse 23 that whose sins they forgive are forgiven and whose sins
they retain are retained, it is clear that his ‘sending them as the Father sent
Him’ includes the forgiving of sins, in His Name. That is why He breathed on them and gave them
the gift of the Holy Spirit. Only with a
power that comes from God can they forgive sins in His Name, so that they are
truly forgiven.
St. Paul recognizes this
in his second letter to the Corinthians.
He tells the people that God has reconciled the world to Himself through
Christ, and given the Church ‘the ministry of reconciliation’ (2 Cor. 5:18). He says it includes a message of
reconciliation and also implores the Corinthian Christians, who have already
been baptized and accepted Jesus as Lord, to ‘be reconciled to God’ (verse 20).
In James 5:13-15, the
Apostle gives us a beautiful description of the Sacrament of the Anointing of
the Sick. He clearly indicates that this
Sacrament is to be performed by the priests and includes the forgiveness of
sins. Though it is not Confession, it
shows that the priests have the power to forgive sin. Immediately after, he tells people to confess
their sins to one another. It does not
specifically tell them to confess to a priest but reading verses 13-16 together
it makes a lot of sense in light of the Sacraments of the Church.
Why, then, did Jesus give
us this Sacrament instead of allowing us to just ‘go directly to God,’ as many
people Catholic and non-Catholic alike, claim to do?
Certainly we go directly
to God with our sins and contrition for those sins, and we should make an
examination of conscience at least daily.
But when we go to Confession, we are not confessing to a man and hoping
he will forgive us, we are taking our sins to Christ and through the authority
received at his ordination, the priest is the minister of Christ’s own
forgiveness.
But again, why? We can’t completely understand, with our
limited minds, why God does something, but we can certainly understand to a degree.
First, sin makes us
slaves, and keeps us in darkness. It is
easy to tell God we are sorry for our sins, but in Confession, we have no
choice but to bring them into the light.
As with all darkness, once it is brought into the light, it loses its power. Confession forces us to face the ugly
realities about ourselves, and to take power over them.
It also forces us to
examine our consciences. If we are to
make a good Confession, we have to honestly look at our weaknesses and
failures, which blesses us with self-knowledge and humility. The humility it requires to go to Confession in
the first place allows that necessary virtue to develop in us. The Sacrament also allows us to benefit from
the counsel of a priest. Certainly the
fields of psychology and counseling are very valid and valuable, but many
professionals in the field will admit that what many of their clients need is
Confession. They confess to a counselor
who can not give them true peace and forgiveness, when what they really need is
a priest. Again, this only refers to a
percentage of people seeking counseling and a good counselor may benefit all of
us at times. But a counselor will never
be a substitute for a spiritual director, or a Confessor.
I tell my students that
one of the greatest predictors of their future happiness is whether or not they
make regular Confession a habit. Nothing
else keeps us grounded, or gives us peace in the same way. These are only a few of the blessings of the
Sacrament of Confession, and I have not even yet touched on the incredible
blessing of hearing the words, “I absolve you of your sins,” which I will speak
about later this week.
Finally something should
be said to those Catholics who refuse to go to Confession because they tell God
they’re sorry for their sins privately, on their own terms, and have decided
that He must have freed them from their sins regardless of the fact that the
Church tells us that at least mortal sins must be brought to Confession. If not, it’s His fault.
God has given us everything. He died so that we would be freed from sin
and have everlasting life. Even after
accepting Him sometimes we fall, perhaps even very seriously, and He has given
us a Sacrament with so many blessings and Graces that frees us again, and
again, and again. Yet there are those
who are members of the Church, and know that they should go to Confession, yet
refuse.
If we were dying from a
deadly disease and a doctor were to prescribe a treatment guaranteed to cure
us, if we were to refuse to take it, could we blame the doctor? Would it be rational to say, “No, I will not
take this treatment that I know will cure me, but I do want to be cured. If I am not, it is not my fault; it’s the
doctor’s?” Of course that would not be
rational. The truth is, in that situation,
it would be true to say that we did not really want to be healed, at least not
enough to take the necessary treatment.
The same is true for
Confession. If we refuse to receive this
great gift, it is silly to say we really want to be freed from our sins. If we did, we would take the treatment. That being said, I know it can be scary. I am not judging Catholics who don’t go to
Confession. I have been there. But I want to encourage them to go. Just go.
Our trust must outweigh our fear.
In
a few days I will share a true story of the healing power of Confession that
was told to me by a priest. It is one of
a million such stories. I will also
share some audio of another priest sharing his perspective on Confession that
is incredibly beautiful and reminds us that all the priest wants to do is bring
us back to God.
I
will finish today with this thought: A man was complaining to his Catholic
friend about how cruel it is for people to have to go to Confession. “My nephew goes to Confession regularly,” he
said, “and he’s always nervous before going.
Why should he have to go through that?”
“I believe you,” said the man’s Catholic friend, “that your nephew may
be nervous going into Confession. But
what is he like coming out?”
That is a feeling, a
reality, that can be found nowhere else in the world.
