CONFESSION

WHY GO TO CONFESSION?

As Christians we believe that there is no sin too large for God to forgive. This should fill us with great hope that, regardless of our past, God wants us to choose to be with Him in Heaven. 

That said, we need to balance our hope in God’s mercy with the practical steps of availing ourselves of it. 

This is not an automatic process; rather, it involves two important steps of repentance and asking for forgiveness. 

GROWING POPULARITY OF CONFESSION

As of late we have noticed a tremendous uptick in the number of confessions at both St. Francis and St. Philip. This is a blessing, and speaks volumes about the grace of the Holy Spirit and the faith of our parishioners. 

As busy as our confessionals have been, however, my suspicion is that the majority of parishioners haven’t been to confession in a year or more, and many probably couldn’t begin to say the last time they confessed to a priest.

ADVANTAGES OF GOING TO CONFESSION

While it is true that venial sins can be forgiven outside of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, there are still advantages to taking our sins to Jesus in the sacrament He entrusted to the Church for this purpose. The biggest advantage is the sacramental grace that always comes with a good confession. Along with this, regular examinations of conscience helps us be more aware of our sins. Then too, we should start growing in humility, and maybe even take in a bit of wise counsel. 

MORTAL SINS

As for mortal sins, recall that these are ordinarily only forgiven through sacramental Confession. Mortal sins check the three boxes of (1) grave matter, (2) done with full consent of the will, and (3) full knowledge that what you are doing is wrong. If one of the three is absent, what is “objectively” mortal is, in that case, only venial. However, this does not excuse “vincible ignorance” — in other words, sticking one’s head in the sand about the gravity of a sin that you could easily find out about. (Think: sexual sins, skipping Mass, harming the reputation of another…) 

I fear a great many Catholics fail to take to heart Jesus’s words about the difficulty of making it to eternal life verses the relative ease of going to hell. Most of us tend to invert this: that Heaven is for the majority, and only the worst of the worst go to the other place. But this is the exact opposite of what Jesus tells us. Please take this to heart! 

HOW TO GO TO CONFESSION

As for the practical parts of Confession, begin by making an examination of conscience. This should be done before you get in line for the confessional, and definitely before you enter and are sitting across from the priest. Ask the Holy Spirit for enlightenment as to what sins you need to confess and if there is something you might be forgetting. There are excellent examination of conscience guides out there, and you can no doubt find many online. 

If it has been a long time since your last confession, recognize you aren’t going to remember it all. Your confession is still “valid” so long as you are not deliberately withholding a sin you know to be mortal. Write your sins down if you need to. 

The next step is simply to go to confession, wherein you state your sins simply to the priest. Think in terms of listing your sins, such as in bullet points. The priest does not need a whole lot of details. What he needs is a general idea of what you are confessing — that is, enough detail that he can give you some counsel. For instance, it is way too vague to say something like “I did something I shouldn’t have.” The priest has no idea what you are confessing! At the other extreme, you don’t need to go into several minutes worth of details about your day or what the other person or people involved did, if (for example) you can simply say “I lost my patience and yelled at my spouse.” 

This is not to say that the priest is insensitive to the struggles a person may be going through, only that when the lines are long, we need to remember that confession is about the absolution of our sins, not spiritual direction. 

With a little practice, you should be able to confess ten to fifteen sins in about a minute or two. 

Once you have finished stating your sins, let the priest know you are finished. You will receive a little spiritual advice, followed by a penance, which is typically some prayers to pray after you have left the confessional. After the priest gives you a penance, you will be asked to pray aloud an Act of Contrition. We have copies of the prayer in our confessionals, or you can pray it in your own words. After you have prayed this, the priest will pray the prayer of absolution over you, which always ends with “I absolve you from your sins, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

 You are then free to go and do your penance. 

One important point is to try to spend most of your preparation time not coming up with your list of sins but stirring up true contrition for your sins and asking the Lord for help to break from those sins in the future. 

ON FREQUENCY

A final note about the frequency of confession. How often should we go? Is there such a thing as going too often? 

The Church wants us to go to the sacrament at least once a year, specifically if you are in a state of mortal sin. (I would advise at least once a year, regardless.) 

“Frequent” confession would be considered once a month. Most penitents, most of the time, probably do not need to go more frequently than this if mortal sin is not a part of your life. 

That said, there can be times when we sense that things are a bit “off” spiritually, emotionally, etcetera, and so there may be reasons to go more frequently, perhaps even weekly, if this is on a short-term basis. I would not advise weekly confessions on a long-term basis for most people. Reasons for this are multiple, but could include adding to the length of already long lines, (which could deter other penitents from waiting); the danger of scrupulosity setting in, wherein an individual becomes obsessed with being “clean”; and the presumption of grace, where an individual repeatedly sins without a real effort of conversion, thinking they can simply wipe the instance of sin away a day or so later, only to keep repeating the cycle.  

For the penitent for whom habitual mortal sin has been part of life for a long time, priests and moral theologians realize that it may take a while to reduce that force of habit. Mortal sin is such a horrific thing that we want to be restored to a state of grace in a timely manner, which could mean weekly confessions for a while. It is imperative, however, to have a firm purpose of amendment. While we may sin again out of weakness, it is never okay to be content to have our sins forgiven only for a time (such as to receive Communion) while still planning to fall back into that same sin. Yes, a fall may occur, but the plan has to be to combat temptation through prayer and practical steps. 

Again, change can take time, which is why we need to pray to God regularly for a firm purpose of amendment. 

God bless, 

Fr. Craig