Mercy triumphs over judgement.
Divine Mercy Sunday finished the Octave of Easter — the eight days we celebrate Easter from Easter Sunday through Divine Mercy Sunday. But remember, the Easter Season continues for fifty days! We finish up on Pentecost Sunday, May 24.
With the season of Lent, through Holy Week, and through Divine Mercy Sunday, the Sacrament of Reconciliation is one of the highlights of the season. We are able to receive forgiveness of our sins, and the confessionals have been a source of life-giving water…well-used these last few weeks.
Despite the upsurge, there are some who avoid confession. I read a recent story in a secular news site that pointed to a few reasons that Catholics stay away. Today, I would like to address three reasons often cited…and give responses to each. The first is that people who have been away from confession admit that they do not know how to go to confession. They forget the procedure, the “things that they are supposed to say and do…” Because they do not know what is expected of them, they would rather not feel foolish and embarrassed…so they don’t go…
This is perhaps the easiest reason to address. Priests are trained to help a penitent, not to make them feel foolish or embarrassed. Priests are supposed to help and compassionately inform a penitent how to proceed (it is fairly easy, “Bless me Father, for I have sinned it has been ____ years/months/weeks since my last confession…”) And then a penitent confesses sins. Sometimes, a penitent can ask, “Father, I am not sure what to do…can you help?” It would be hard to find a priest who would not answer such a question with great kindness and gentleness.
The second reason is that a person has simply dropped the habit of going to confession. With the demands and pace of our world, making time to go to church at confession times is not convenient, and is skipped. The habit is lost…two years becomes five years…then more…
We are creatures of habit. Good habits become easy and second nature and they lead to our flourishing as human beings. They often involve works of charity great and small. Bad habits take us away from what we are meant to be, and the list of these is lengthy. Foul language, gluttony, wasting time, overeating…and many more. These bad habits can even turn into addictions like alcohol, drugs, shopping, porn…and more… The good news is that we are creatures of habit. Bad habits can be broken with effort and grace. Here is more good news, the sacrament of confession actually helps us to break bad habits and form good ones. Why not try it?
The third reason is that people are often ashamed of their sins and are embarrassed to tell anyone, let alone a strange priest behind a curtain. This is a very human and reasonable fear, but the sacrament itself is an answer to this fear.
Priests are people who live in this world with all its wonder, beauty, and with all its weakness and sin. We all have weaknesses and we all sin, and with this in mind, the sins that are confessed reveal weaknesses and our common humanity, prone to sin. Nothing much shocks a priest in the confessional. He knows sin.
In addition, the priest sits in a confessional in persona Christi, a Latin phrase that means in the Person of Christ. The penitent is meant to think of that priest behind the screen as Jesus…speaking to Jesus…confessing to Jesus. Every priest knows that there is a sacramental seal around the confessional and that nothing mentioned in that sacramental place can be uttered or even inferred.
In conclusion, after many confessions during the Lenten and Easter season, please get the word out to friends, family and neighbors — Confession is a beautiful and helpful sacrament in our lives…we need confession. And as Pope Francis so aptly wrote, early in his papacy: “The confessional is not a torture chamber, but the place in which the Lord’s mercy motivates us to do better.” Good priests know this.
-Rev. Christopher Uhl
