Posted on 09/16/2010 2:47:33 PM PDT by NYer
While in Rome recently, I went to confession at St. John Lateran. It's the cathedral of Rome, and I'd heard the grace was better there. I got an old Irish priest, soft-spoken, deliberate, patient, and with a habit of sighing frequently as you spoke. He sounded -- and looked, when I saw him a little later -- like the old Irish priest from central casting who loves dogs, is patient with rambunctious boys and ironic to the old women, and is never surprised by any wickedness this world can produce.
I soon realized that I could confess to stealing a dime or murdering an abbess, and he would have sighed in the same way. The sighing may have been a technique, but it worked on me. The absolution came more powerfully because he had sighed, and put me in my place far better than some earnest priests I've had, whose very earnestness made me feel important and my sins dramatic.
On the other hand, when I told an Irish friend of my experience, he said, "I hate it when they do that." He then muttered something about Ireland and Jansenism.
Confession ought to be a great selling point for the Catholic Church. Years ago, I saw some young Evangelicals ask an older Catholic convert about confession, with the guarded but lurid interest of college freshmen in an anthropology class studying comparative sexual practices. As they kept talking, however, many of them seemed to long for the certainty of forgiveness the Catholic had.
A friend of mine recently spoke to the theology class at an Evangelical Protestant college. Both Catholic and Protestant friends had told him that the students would grill him about theological issues, particularly justification by faith, and he spent hours preparing himself to answer their questions. They didn't mention the subject at all: What they wanted to know about was confession, and more the practice and experience than the theology. They really wanted to know what you did and why you did it, and how it felt to tell some man what could be your deepest secrets. They approached my friend as sick people approach someone who's been cured of the same disease by an established but still alternative and fringe treatment.
One can guess the reason. Many people who believe they can simply pray to God and be forgiven, whatever they've done, long for the chance to tell someone out loud, someone who will then declare God's forgiveness and give them some penance, some way of expressing their sorrow and growing closer to God at the same time.
They want what Catholics have. In Rome, I knelt, listening to the priest sighing, in that place where prayer has been valid, with Our Lord in the Sacrament about 30 feet away, and the relics of St. Peter and St. Paul about 70 feet in the other direction. I felt the usual mixture of shame and relief and the sense -- this I've only come to see after several years as a Catholic -- that, as my Evangelical friends like to say, I'm really here to do serious business with God.
I would think others will feel just as I did. Confession ought to be one of the things that draws people in, that brings them to knock on the pastor's door and ask to be received. Yet it doesn't seem to, or at least not very often. Confession, and the understanding of morality and the Church of which it is a part, actually leaves the Church at a disadvantage.
A few months ago, I happened to attend a chapel service in an Evangelical seminary, where I was teaching a short course on writing. The dean preached a powerful sermon in the high Calvinist mode on forgiveness, and called anyone who felt he had sinned too greatly to be forgiven -- he mentioned adultery among other sins -- to remember God's grace, to repent, and then to go out of the chapel to love and serve the Lord without a second thought, and to come to the Communion service the next day to receive the sacrament.
I could see how someone paralyzed by guilt would find it liberating. God's grace is free, direct, and immediate. Your life can change on a dime. You can simply let go, and Jesus will take away the crushing burden of your sins. It sounded like the Gospel. A man across from me sat up straight and began to smile.
And yet, I realized with a jolt, the dean was calling people who had committed mortal sins simply to say a private prayer and go on. No waiting for confession, no taking the time and effort to get to the church when confessions were being heard, no abstaining from communion until then, no sense of alienation from God till then, no having to tell the priest (and God through him) what you'd done, no having to accept whatever penance he ordered. The dean's declaration of God's grace didn't include all the inconveniences and pains of confession.
The dean's sermon was not, I want to stress, an example of cheap grace. He did not let his hearers think that repentance was not required, nor that it was painless. But though not cheap grace, it was inexpensive grace, and perhaps discount grace.
It wasn't a sermon a priest could preach in a Catholic church. In comparison with the dean's proclamation of God's offer of immediate forgiveness, the priest who talked from the pulpit to the adulterer oppressed by guilt and pointed him to the confessional would only seem to be adding burdens to his life and making him suffer more.
It's not immediate enough; it's too much a part of a system, too routine and mundane. Indeed, ex-Catholics have told me how liberating it was to find out (as they thought) that they didn't have to go to the priest for forgiveness, that without moving from their seat they could wipe the slate clean and start over right, without telling anyone.
The Church has a great treasure in confession, but not one many people want to acquire. We can do some things to change that.
First, priests must preach as if confession were the crucial and regular part of the Catholic life that it ought to be. They have to talk about it frequently and keep telling their parishioners to go. I have heard too many sermons where the lessons of the day or the direction of the sermon led to the confessional, and the priest instead trailed off into some words of affirmation or moral exhortation. I have heard priests lament the small numbers who came to confession who never spoke of it from the pulpit.
To do this well, they must speak much more of sin than they do. Not of failing and weakness and all the ways by which priests avoid speaking about sin; they have to tell us in ways we can't ignore why we need to go to confession. They need to say, preferably with examples relevant to the day's lessons and the congregation's lives, "This is the kind of thing you do," so that they can then say, "And in confession God will forgive you and help you stop."
We are happy to be helped to forget that we've done things even we can't justify, but even so, we have that nagging, inescapable, unsilenceable feeling that we have not done what we ought, that we are not who we ought to be, that we have hurt those we love and others. Being told that in plain words will be a liberation for many, and a needed challenge for others.
Second, confession times ought to be listed prominently in the bulletin and on the parish's Web site. Many parishes hide these times several pages down, as I found when travelling. You can find the days and times of the AA meetings the parish hosts more easily than the times the priest will hear your sins.
Third, we need to recover the use of the word "confession," while quietly dropping "the sacrament of reconciliation." We need to hear the blunt word, because, before everything else, we want to say, "I did this and I'm really sorry." That's the appeal of confession, the chance to get it all out in the open. To emphasize the result is a bit like renaming the emergency room the "healing center." It's true, but not as helpful or as encouraging as you'd think, particularly when you really have an emergency.
Finally, the laity need to speak about it and to urge their peers to go. Most of us will ask a friend with a chronic illness how he's feeling and when he last saw the doctor, and if he's taking his medicines and watching his diet. We ought to be just as quick to ask him -- original sin being a chronic illness -- if he's been to confession recently.
In confession, the Church can give her people something they will not get anywhere else, something that will make them happier in this world and better prepared for the next. It gives them something they really want, even if they don't know it. But it's a hard sell when the alternatives claim to give the same results with so much less effort. The only thing to do is push it harder.
Ping!
David Mills ping
An old colleague was quizzing me about confession one day while putting down the Catholic church, by the time I finished with him he was crying and asking if he could go to confession. I had to tell him no, I felt really bad for him unless he wanted to become Catholic. Maybe some day....
It should be remembered that the very first thing that Christ did after His Resurrection, when He was with His Apostles, was to institute the Sacrament Of Reconciliation! (Confession).
Why? Because His Mission is one of Reconciliation and Redemption for all of mankind.
Might you encourage your friend to call and make an appointment and just go talk with the priest?
Perhaps this is a conversion in the wings! (We never know, do we?)
Why Go to Confession? (Part 1) - Pastoral Letter of Archbishop Bruno Forte
Why Go to Confession? (Part 2) - Pastoral Letter of Archbishop Bruno Forte
How To Make a Good Confession (especially if you haven't gone in years)
Why Go to Confession? (Part 3) - Pastoral Letter of Archbishop Bruno Forte
Pulling Sin up by the Roots: The Need for Mortification
Reasons for Confession [Sacrament of Reconciliation]
Cardinal Stafford's Homily at Penitential Liturgy With an Examination of Conscience
How to Go to Confession
Fr. Z’s 20 Tips For Making A Good Confession
Learning to Confess
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Selling Confession
The Sacrament of Penance: (also known as "Confession" or "Reconciliation") [Catholic Caucus]
The Sacrament of Healing: Perfect and Imperfect Contrition [Catholic/Orthodox Caucus]
Confession (Catholic Caucus)
Part 3 of 10: Sacrament of Penance, Why do I have to confess my sins to a priest? [Catholic Caucus]
The Same Old Things.
Importance of Confession During Lent - Making a Good Confession
Need for Annual Confession - (is it necessary?)
Around the clock Confession to take place in New York City
Friday Fast Fact: Friday Penance
The Essentials of the Catholic Faith, Part Two: Channels of Grace, Penance
[Catholic Caucus] Confession – Is It Still Necessary?
Confession to God Alone? Scripture Alone?
Pope: There's an Answer to Empty Confessionals [Catholic Caucus]
Pope alarmed by decline in confessions
Part 2 of 10: Sacrament of Penance, Church’s symbols help explain penance [Catholic Caucus]
Part 1 of 10: Sacrament of Penance, Jesus placed great value on forgiveness [Catholic Caucus]
Confession Questions From the Pew [Catholic Caucus] Introduction to 10 Part Series
Part 1 of 10: Sacrament of Penance, Jesus placed great value on forgiveness [Catholic Caucus]
Beginning Catholic: The Sacrament of Reconciliation: Rising Again to New Life [Ecumenical]
It’s Confession Time (Dioceses Nationwide Promoted the Sacrament of Penance This Lent )
Why do I have to confess my sins to a priest?
Why do Catholics have to confess their sins to a priest instead of praying straight to God? [Ecu]
When did confession to a priest start? [Ecumenical]
Confession, Confession Everywhere (Cardinal Says Youth Day Is Reviving the Sacrament)
In One Church, Confession Makes a Comeback (Catholic Caucus)
Priests should encourage recovery of Sacrament of Reconciliation
A Gift That is Always in Season (Sacrament of Penance) Catholic Caucus
[Sacrament of]Confession
Make a Good Confession
Those in Mortal Sin Can't Go to Communion, Says Pope
Holy Week Recovers Celebration of Penance (at St. Peter's Basilica) - photos!
Reasons for Confession [Sacrament of Reconciliation]
Lesson 19: Confession (Part 1) BY FATHER ALTIER
Lesson 20: Confession (Part 2) BY FATHER ROBERT ALTIER
Serious about God? Then get serious about confession
St. Ephraim the Syrian: On Repentance
What happened to confession – Changing mores reflective of use
Repentance and Confession - Introduction [Catholic/Orthodox Caucus]
The Spiritual and Psychological Value of Frequent Confession
Pick a sin, any sin (Confession gone awry)
The Early Church Fathers on Confession / Reconciliation - Catholic/Orthodox Caucus
Catholics called from the idiot box to confession
Benedict XVI Extols Sacrament of Penance - Says Priests Need to Make It a Priority
Confession’s Comeback
Priests say more Catholics returning to confession
Pope Hears Confessions of Youth
MESSAGE FOR ALL CATHOLICS (in preparation for Divine Mercy Sunday - April 15)
Salvation: Just click and confess
CONFESSION AND CONFUSION
Get Thee To A Confessional! (beautiful insight for those who dread going to Confession)
Emerging Trends: The Return to the Confessional
Confessing to 'sins' is booming in America (Evangelicals and Protestants take up practice)
What You [Catholics] Need to Know: Penance (Reconciliation, Confession) [Catholic/Orthodox Caucus]
A Comeback for Confession
MORTAL SIN and HOLY CONFESSION - The Antidote of Death
Thinking Inside the Box: An Attitude for Confession
Confessional Advice
The Epidemic and the Cure [The Sin of the World and the Sacrament of Reconciliation] (Confession)
Oh, I did, I haven’t seen him in over 3 years but maybe he did.
Thannks for the ping. Now I need an elbow in the rubs :o}
I mean ribs.
I should add, I have always counted it as one of those times when the Holy Spirit gives you just the right things to say at the right time. I am no where near as eloquent as I was that day.
One of the things they could do is offer it more often, and for a longer period. An hour before the vigil Mass on Saturday for a parish of thousands doesn’t send the message that the priest thinks it’s too darn important.
Freegards, thanks for all the pings
I recall a priest who regularly hears confessions at St. Patrick's Cathedral in NY relate that a Jewish man was a frequent visitor to his confessional. The priest explained that he could not administer absolution. The Jew was fine with that. He simply wanted to confess his sins.
Thank you for the excellent post and ping!
So far I am enjoying every post in this thread :-)
Thanks for the post, NYer, and thanks to all for the great comments so far.
I’ll take a risk here. As you know, no evangelical can possibly speak for “evangelicalism”. But I will say that confession is seen as scriptural, and a requirement where possible without doing damage. Public confession if possible, and private confession when its not possible (and to God alone when even a private confession isn’t possible).
The best thing that can happen, though, in most cases, is for you to confess as openly as possible. An important part of repentance is you admitting you did wrong. The more openly you do this the more powerful the medicine.
We don’t typically have any formal way of getting it done, though. I have heard more than one pastor over the years comment from the podium that this is one area where the catholics have it right, creating a structure for getting done what we agree has to get done.
One of the things I hear pastors talking about these days is the need for “accountability”, especially in larger churches where people don’t know each other well. They are always experimenting with various methods for helping people to be “accountable”. There is more than one way to skin a cat; but the catholics have had theirs in place a long time. It works when its used and I agree they should push it harder.
Confession is a wonderful Gift from Our Lord, Jesus Christ, Amen!!!
Matter of fact, it does. It is filling a void for many.
Half hour. Maybe, if he’s there. I used to go to Confession every week, or every two weeks, when there were better opportunities. Now, sometimes many months pass.
We have an hour, and the priest is always there unless there is something more important going on like the “parish picnic”. I try to go at least once a month, the church is 30 minutes away. I try to show up at least 10 minutes early, sometimes it’s just me but sometimes there are a lot of folks in front of me, usually a few big families who are all axe murderers in the throes of conversion wrestling with their conciences judging by how long they take (that’s some of the sins I struggle with, impatience leading to uncharitable thoughts and lack of piety). If you show up a half hour in, then you don’t get to go before Mass starts, the time runs out. We do have a big confession gig around Easter where they get a few more priests in. I went once, and tried to my best sitting on a folding chair next to the priest as others milled around in the line mere feet away.
I often wonder what would happen if 25% of the parish would show up on any given Saturday.
Freegards
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