Confession heals us interiorly

 WE need to restore the true face of confession whose

public image is getting very distorted. This is unfortunate because

confession actually plays an indispensable role in a believer’s life.

It’s where Christian life is recovered, or at least strengthened.

             Of course, confession has to be understood as a doctrine

of faith. One misses the truth right at the source if he considers it

as just one more practice, religious but mainly social, its nature

determined more by its practical aspects than by that it was

instituted by Christ and taught and promoted by the Church.

             This is actually our main problem these days. Many

believers have a watered down attitude toward faith and religion, and

of course toward the Church and the sacraments. They rely more on

their reason rather than of faith to lead them in their Christian

life. They believe and they follow only when they understand things

and see them useful in some way. Faith is subordinated to our reason.

             Again, we have to take our faith seriously and live it as

consistently as possible. We don’t flaunt it when it is politically

correct, and junk it when it is inconvenient. And this seriousness in

our faith should also be shown in our attitude toward confession.

  

            As sacrament, confession is not just a human institution.

Though it uses human instruments, it is Christ to whom one approaches

and from whom one asks and obtains forgiveness in confession.

  

            Though it takes only a few minutes, the truth is that the

whole drama of Christ assuming our sins, dying to them and rising from

them, victorious over sin and death, and expressing the most exquisite

version of love in his mercy for us,  takes place there.

  

            This is what happens in confession if understood and done

well. We need to expand our mind and heart to accommodate this

tremendous reality of confession as taught to us by our Christian

faith.

  

            If we today pride ourselves of having gone nuclear, of

having covered a vast area of worldly knowledge, then we should do

something similar with respect to truths of faith. We cannot remain in

the kindergarten level in our appreciation and practice of confession,

for example.

  

            Of course, all parties should do their best here. The

priests and the penitents should play their respective parts well.

Pope Emeritus Benedict once said that confession is where that

intimate and life-changing “dialogue of salvation” transpires.

  

            Priests should realize that as confessors they lend their

faculties to Christ who is the one who forgives sins. They should be

truly identified with him, effectively and affectively. Thus,

they—we—should be competent and truly holy, because only in this way

can we dispense God’s mercy and effect inner healing in the penitents.

  

            This is, of course, a very dynamic, never-ending effort,

with its ups and downs, twists and turns. But as long as there is

determined effort to be faithful to Christ, the sacrament can be done

as it should be in spite of our defects and miseries.

  

            Hearing confessions is a very privileged moment for any

priest. That’s where he enters into the inmost part of a person, that

part where one is supposed to face Christ to ask for the most

important thing in life—God’s mercy. We can need many and endless

things, but in the end what we most need is none other than God’s

mercy.

  

            Priests should do their part really well. They have to

know how to be at one and the same time a father, a friend, a judge

and doctor. They must know how to advise as well as to handle the many

intricacies of the internal forum.