The Sins and the Fathers
by Elizabeth Scalia - February 8, 2008
Reprinted with permission from our good friends at InsideCatholic.com, the leading online journal of Catholic faith, culture, and politics.
The confessor is not the master of God's forgiveness, but its servant. The minister of this sacrament should unite himself to the intention and charity of Christ. He should have a proven knowledge of Christian behavior, experience of human affairs, respect and sensitivity toward the one who has fallen. He must love the truth, be faithful to the Magisterium of the Church, and lead the penitent with patience toward healing and full maturity. He must pray and do penance for his penitent, entrusting him to the Lord's mercy.
– Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1466
A young college freshman in my family was complaining about those social and romantic issues that take up much of an 18-year-old's energy. Noting that he seemed unfocused and undirected, I suggested he go to confession. "It will take some of that off your shoulders, and the sacrament imparts graces that will help you."
My advice was answered with a meticulously raised eyebrow that meant either I was brilliant or I was quite mad and should be ignored, so I was surprised when, a few weeks later, this young man casually mentioned that he had gone to confession.
"The priests were in the dorms offering it, and you'd mentioned it. Figured I'd just do it."
I asked him if he felt better, if he believed engaging the sacrament had helped.
"Well, it's funny. I didn't, like, confess. I just talked to him. Told him what was going on. It was good. I decided that I didn't want to ask for absolution, though."
It seems our protagonist and his priest had enjoyed a lengthy back-and-forth about the nature of sin, what constitutes sin, and what role conscience plays in that definition. "Some of the things I've done, I know I'm going to do them again. I didn't mind confessing, but it seemed wrong to say an Act of Contrition when I'm not even sure I'm contrite. I know what the church teaches, but God knows everything; He understands my mind and heart. He knows I'm not out to defy him; I'm just living my life, and exploring and growing up. Me and Jesus, we're okay."
Apparently the priest enjoyed this. He told the un-penitent that he appreciated this thoughtful confession over the "lip-service" he so often heard. But there was the matter of absolution. "I don't know how to do a 'partial' absolution, and it seems pointless. Your venial sins are absolved in the Mass, anyway."
"I know," the young man agreed. "I'll just have to stay away from Communion until I can get this all sorted out."
The idea of anyone withholding himself from Communion for what could be years threw me, but he explained, "I'm not going to live a casual, sloppy faith. I believe God would rather have me play fair and be respectful than make a rote confession. So many people just mouth the right words and only half mean it – as if you can game the system or fool God into thinking you're alright. Who's alright, anyway? Isn't that why God is merciful, because none of us is alright? I love the Eucharist; I won't treat it so carelessly. I can still make a spiritual communion. If it's true, the grace should be able to sneak in."
He had me there.
"Don't worry about it," he reassured me with a charming smile. "It will all work out. After all, the Father is very fond of me."
"The Father is very fond of me," is the last line of an old Irish story he loves, but the young man was serious. He was peaceful, and his focus and optimism had returned.
G. K. Chesterton has written of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, "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."
That excellent description is as accurate today as it was in 1922 when Chesterton, an old man in a young century, entered the church. In explaining his main motivation to convert – "to get rid of my sins" – he took a deep theological and sacramental point and made it very simple.
That 80-some years later a young man in a new century – approaching confession from the same place of truth – could take the simple sacrament, make it rather complex, and still manage to find solace and grace therein, is a tantalizing mystery.
It was not so very long ago that confession was an integral part of a Catholic's life and culture, and the unquestioning practice of weekly confession went hand-in-hand with meatless Fridays, parish novenas, and Benediction. My parents – who were a decade behind Chesterton – would tell stories about the scrupulous confessions wrung out of them by stern priests who wanted to hear a thorough recounting of the week's fumbles and faults, and who would brook no double-talk or omissions.
"They knew us," my mother would grimace. "They knew who was drinking away the rent money, who was flirting with someone's wife, who was playing the numbers with the grocery change. There was no getting away with anything so we were better off just coming clean and doing the penance. No one thought anything of it, because we were all in the same boat."
