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I would like to begin by reflecting for a moment on why we are here. I won’t ask you to answer this question, or at any rate not out loud, but I can tell you that there are two reasons for my being here. The first is that a number of people have asked me about confession, or told me about their problems, difficulties and feelings of dissatisfaction. The second reason is that, from my own experience, I am aware of a certain dissatisfaction, a certain feeling that things are not as they should be, that this sacrament does not feel as beneficial, as positive an experience, as it should. So, I am here to try and help people who have asked for help, but also to try and explore the sacrament in a way that enriches my own spiritual life. Just in case you are feeling very optimistic at this stage, let me say we are unlikely to come up with any revolutionary insights that solve all our problems and assuage all our fears in the course of this evening - if I could do that I would be a very famous priest indeed! I am quite prepared for the possibility that the wisest and most helpful remarks will come from among you. But I do hope that we will at least go out from this session feeling more hopeful, more positive about the sacrament, and more determined to do all we can to enrich our experience of it. Just as important as that it seems to me that the process, whereby together we try and move forward, is a valuable and worthwhile one. I have tried to address some of the questions that people have raised, but of course there may be others and we can try and look at those later on.
Let me start with a very little bit of history. The Sacrament of Reconciliation as we know it today does not date back to apostolic times. Then, as now, the primary instrument of reconciliation was baptism. As time went by, however, something needed to be done about people who sinned, especially those who sinned in a very serious way, after baptism. Had they forfeited the chance of eternal life? For several centuries it was possible to be reconciled with the Church (and of course with God) after serious sin, but only once. It involved a lengthy period of penance during which one was excluded from the Church, before a public reconciliation. Even then, after the reconciliation, for the rest of his life the penitent was bound to extensive penitential practices. Little wonder many people chanced the danger of dying unprepared, and put off reconciliation until they were on their deathbed.
By the sixth century Irish monks introduced a change, and repeated absolution following confession became possible; in spite of resistance, by the end of the first millennium this had become the norm, and it has remained so ever since. From time to time people say the Church managed without confession as we know it for some centuries, so why do we need it now? Well, we cannot go back in time, we do not live in the fifth century, we live in the twenty-first, and in this century we use all the gifts that the Church has uncovered in the course of time. Furthermore, the practice of the Church in those early days was far more rigourous and demanding than it is today. Would you rather go back to one chance in a lifetime to repent of serious sin, and even then with heavy penances until the day you die?
One difficulty that people have with confession is a certain confusion about what the Church teaches: what must we do, and what should we do?
We are obliged to confess, in kind and in number, all grave sins committed after baptism (Canon 988, Code of Canon Law; Catechism of the Catholic Church para 1456). We are obliged to confess all grave sins at least once a year (c.989; CCC 1457). We are not obliged to go to confession even once a year if we are not aware, after careful examination of conscience, of any grave sins. We are not to receive holy communion if we are aware of having committed a grave sin, until we have been to confession.
While we are not obliged to confess venial sins, sins other than grave ones, it is strongly recommended that we do so (c.988). This is because even venial sin damages our relationship with God and with the Church, it weakens love within us and by making us more attached to things that are secondary, it prevents us from growing in virtue and in the end disposes us to mortal sin.
One of the most frequently asked questions is, what counts as serious sin? There is no definitive list - and indeed there could never be because the world is always changing and the ways in which we are able to damage ourselves and one another are always shifting and developing. Perhaps the starting point is, what is sin? Sin is a failure in genuine love of God and of neighbour, caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods (CCC 1849). Sin wounds our own self, as well as injuring human solidarity (wounding others) and it turns our hearts away from God’s love; we make ourselves ‘like gods’, deciding for ourselves what is good and what is evil (ibid; CCC 1850). At the heart of sin is selfishness. Sometimes this is fairly trivial, perhaps even thoughtless or through lack of care or diligence; sometimes it is more serious, reflecting a decision, conscious or otherwise, to put ourselves at the centre of the world, where God should be. Everything around us then has importance only in so far as it makes me happy, or pleases me, or satisfies me: the property of others has value only in so far as it is useful to me - leading to theft; the bodies of others are of value only in so far as they gratify me, leading to sexual sins; even God is only of any interest when it suits me, leading to idolatry and apostasy. Sins which affect the heart of who I am, and involve me usurping God’s place at the centre of my life, are grave sin. St Thomas Aquinas said:
“When the will sets itself upon something that is of its nature incompatible with the charity that orients man toward his ultimate end, then the sin is mortal by its very object...whether it contradicts the love of God, such as blasphemy or perjury, or the love of neighbour, such as homicide or adultery...But when a sinner’s will is set upon something that of its nature involves a disorder, but is not opposed to the love of God and neighbour, such as thoughtless chatter or immoderate laughter and the like, such sins are venial.” (CCC 1856)
I think this is not a good place to get bogged down. As a basic test, the ten commandments identify grave sin, and it always involves making love of myself the guiding principle instead of love of God and of neighbour. But we must also remember that for a sin to be mortal not only must there be ‘grave matter’ (a serious sin) but also full knowledge and deliberate consent. There is a very important danger here, though: the more serious a sin is, the more we are likely to try and delude ourselves, to persuade ourselves that it doesn’t really matter.
Confession begins with examination of our conscience, with looking back on our life since last we went to confession and trying to identify the sins we have committed. Here, right at the beginning, the problems start. We are often not sure quite how to go about this. Even if we go to confession frequently, it can be hard to remember what has happened over the last month, say. We might have a book that contains one of those long lists of questions: have I done this, have I done that? For some people these are very helpful, but for many of us they feel rather forced and contrived. They don’t seem to be describing our life. If you find them helpful, all well and good, but if not then try something else. I would say that examination of conscience begins each day; if we look back over every day as it comes to an end, thanking God for our successes, and expressing sorrow for our failures, not only do we get used to making an examination, but also we become more sensitive to what is going on in our lives; we become aware of patterns, of repetitions, of our ‘besetting sins’ of all the ways in which we fall short, and this all feeds the fuller examination of conscience we make before confession. If you don’t find those shopping lists of sins helpful, try another way. Perhaps hold your life up to the mirror of the life of Jesus, because he reveals to us what we are truly designed to be; become familiar with him through the scriptures, see what you are meant to be, and see where the gap between what you should be and what you are is widest. Or, another way, try and see yourself from outside: how do you appear to yourself, how would you describe yourself? How do you appear to others (both in general and specific others), how would they describe you? How might you appear to God?
Once we have examined our conscience, we are required to have contrition - which we will be asked by the priest to express in an act of contrition. It is worth realising here that this is an act of the will, not of the feelings. I am asked to commit myself to regretting my sins and trying not to repeat them. I may not feel sorry as an emotional reaction - which probably means I don’t feel guilty. That is ok. I am not asked to contrive an emotion of sorrow, but to direct my will, by a free choice, to sorrow. The two are not the same at all.
People sometimes ask: why do I need to confess my sins to a priest at all? Why can’t I just confess them direct to God? Well, the first question is, would you? Would you actually make a full examination of conscience and then spell out your sins one by one to God - or would you put it off to another day, or just half do it? Secondly, our sins damage the body of Christ, the Church. The Church is weakened by our fall, and it is right that we acknowledge that and seek to make amends in front of the Church, through her minister the priest. Thirdly, because confession is a sacrament it is a real meeting with Christ and a channel of his grace - so it enriches us in a way that saying sorry to God in private never can.
It is when we come to actually confessing that the problems seem to multiply. I am not quite sure what to say. It seems that I say the same things every time, and somehow this seems unsatisfactory - but on the other hand I’m not sure I want to add new things because it looks as if I’m getting worse, not better! A catalogue of ‘I’ve done this twice, that three times, that once’ doesn’t seem to reveal much of the real me, it seems rather superficial, but ‘I’ve been angry, selfish, rude and sworn’ seems so vague, so unrelated to real events, that it is just as unsatisfactory. This, probably, is the biggest issue for us to think about. If I have robbed a bank and am now stricken with remorse, that is one thing: I can give the money back and come to confession. But what if I have just been the usual old mix of good and bad that I always am? This is made that much harder because the society we live in is obsessively afraid of accepting guilt and admitting blame. It is hard to think of any part of our Catholic faith that challenges so squarely the culture in which we live, because in this sacrament we say “It was my fault, I was to blame”. We are all children of our times, and this feels very difficult indeed.
Perhaps we need to take a step back for a moment, before considering what we are going to say, and ask, what is actually happening here? Is this some merely human event, two people talking together, or is there a third dimension? If it is merely two people talking, little wonder we are unenthusiastic. There will be some benefit from talking, some therapeutic rewards for being forced to confront our sins, to name and shame, but is that enough to motivate us? I think probably not. One of the real problems is that, largely unconsciously, we have lost sight of the fact that going to confession is a real and personal encounter with the living God. In confession Christ says “Your sins are forgiven” (Mk 2.5) and “Go, and do not sin again” (Jn. 8.11). If what you are doing is dragging yourself out on a cold evening for a chat with me, or any priest, and a few more or less wise words of advice, I can’t blame you for staying at home; but if, instead, you are coming to meet Jesus, as really present as he is at mass, and to hear his words of forgiveness, isn’t that rather different? You may say the same old things, and they may sound dull and dreary, but it is Jesus himself who you meet. You present the same you again and again for holy communion, so why not do the same at confession? It is Christ’s wish, and indeed his right “to meet each one of us in that key moment of the soul’s life constituted by the moment of conversion and forgiveness” (John Paul II in Redemptor Hominis).
In confession we too easily succumb to the spirit of the age, to seeing things simply at face value - two people chatting. Sometimes I’m afraid we priests make it worse by dispensing too much advice, which can distract from the simply beauty of Christ’s words of forgiveness. Confession is about setting people free. The angel said to Joseph “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Mt 1.21). Setting people free from their sins is part of the identity of Jesus, it is the heart of his mission. Sin distorts things. It prevents us from seeing the world as it really is, and from seeing Christ as he really is. Confession sets us free from this. After a good confession, well prepared and well made, one of the graces we receive is being able to see the world more clearly, to see what really matters, and what is merely peripheral; our eyes are opened, and we are set free.
Let’s return to the question: what shall I say? Perhaps I can begin by asking from what I want to be set free, and how it is that it has such power over me. Saying “lost my temper twice” sounds too superficial; saying “I’ve been angry” sounds thin, and reveals little about me. But how about “I’ve lost my temper several times with other drivers, because I’m always in a hurry and try to do too much; I also once really shouted at the children when all they really wanted was some attention that I was too busy to give” - how does that sound? How about this: if we see confession as a list of things that seem rather remote from our heart, from the deeper me, it will always seem remote and unimportant; but what about if we see it as a cry for help? Lord, help me, Jesus save me? Then, perhaps, it begins to take on new life.
Once we have finally settled on what to say, the priest gives us absolution, the guarantee of forgiveness not only for all the sins we have named, but also for those we have forgotten - for all our sins except any we have deliberately concealed, and he gives us a penance: either some prayers to say, or some action to do. What is this all about? Our sins have damaged us, harmed our true selves and tarnished the image of God within us; they have also damaged our relationship with God, and with other people; they have somehow upset the balance of the world, disrupted its harmony, and our penance is our chance to do something positive to correct that, to counterbalance the harm we have done. It is our way of showing we are truly sorry, and something concrete we can do as a sign of our commitment to trying to do better in the future. Once more, it is not a burden set on us but a gift, a gift to help us take to ourselves the benefits of the sacrament.
I hope that all I have said so far has helped at least to make you look again, and think a bit about what this sacrament has to offer. Certainly it has made me think again, and in particular encouraged me to be more diligent about a nightly examination of conscience, and to try and see confession less as an embarrassing admission of failure and more as a call for help, a call for salvation. I also think I realise once more how unsatisfactory it is to aim for going to confession ‘as and when’ - which in practice usually means nothing like often enough. Of all the many things we do, can you think of anything easier to put off until another day than going to confession? If I am going to make it a part of who I am, something central to my life rather than an added extra, I have to say “I will go every week, month, two months - whatever - and stick to it. Why is it so easy to put off? I think this has something to do with our capacity for self-delusion. The more we persuade ourselves that we don’t really need to go, that there is nothing to say, the more likely it is that, probably subconsciously, we do not want to face the truth. People who are in touch with their true selves, with what they are really like, both good and bad, are well aware of their need for forgiveness; but the rest of us kid ourselves. It was in the last century that Pius XII said “The sin of the century is the loss of the sense of sin”, but it is every bit as true about the new century. When we do something wrong, we are faced with an awareness of guilt. We can admit our sin and seek forgiveness, which will remove the awareness of guilt; but the modern way is to say ‘it wasn’t really your fault, don’t feel so bad, anyway everybody does it, it doesn’t really harm anyone, if it feels right just carry on’. Faced with the awareness of guilt that comes from doing something wrong we can either follow the road of repentance and conversion, or justify ourselves and say it wasn’t really wrong in the first place: which of these seems most truthful?
I hope that I have covered most of the questions people raised. One thing that I know I haven’t touched on is the relationship between confession and spiritual direction. Clearly both have something to do with a person’s internal life, with what is going on between them and God. Regular advertised times for confession are not usually the best opportunity for spiritual direction because of time constraints - spiritual direction is a time-consuming business, and because it is to some extent unpredictable it is necessary to allow more time than is reasonable when a queue of other people are waiting. However, anyone who takes their relationship with God seriously enough to seek spiritual direction will also want to make use of this sacrament, which is one of the tools of the trade in growing closer to God, so there is something to be said for the two going hand in hand. The few words a priest can speak in the regular confessional will never be enough to amount to spiritual direction properly so-called, but use of the sacrament will clearly be appropriate in combination with direction - time spent with a director may help someone examine their conscience, or issues raised in direction may also need the healing touch of the sacrament.
Many of our problems with confession stem from a weakness of faith: a failure really to believe it is an encounter with the living God, that there is another present beside priest and penitent, that we are actually changed through this encounter and our souls are restored through absolution. If our belief in God’s involvement with the whole thing is weak, it does all seem rather pointless and meaningless - just as when we lose sight of his objective presence at mass that ceases to have any value other than as entertainment. We have to hold fast to the truth of God’s unseen and unheard presence in this (and every sacrament), and then we can begin to appreciate the magnitude of what we are doing.
I’d like to end with some words from G K Chesterton:
“When a Catholic comes from confession, he does truly, by definition, step out into that dawn of his own beginning...in that brief ritual God has really remade him in His own image. He may be grey and gouty; but he is only five minutes old.”
Peter Newsam
St. Richard’s church, Chichester
18th March 2004