A Healthy Necessity

The following is a pastor's pen written for my parishes.  It is a follow up to last week's pastor pen, which is also available on this blog.

When I was a child, I hated taking medicine.  I hated its taste.  Some of them made me drowsy.  I was like most children.  I was a Petri Dish with legs.  Try though my mom would, convincing me to willingly take my medicine was a chore.  However, without that medicine, the illness could stick around and even morph into something that might well be more serious.

Truth be told, I still don’t like taking medicine.  The way I avoid it is by making healthy choices about diet and exercise.  Even with this, there are times that I still get ill from some bug going around.  I will begrudgingly take the medicine needed, if for no other reason, so that I do not infect the people around me.

What is true for the body is true for the soul as well.  Our souls get sick.  An outside agent we have introduced into our system causes an infection which simply cannot be ignored.  Last week, I talked about this illness: sin.  I talked about the difference between mortal and venial sin.  I talked about the effects they have on our souls.  There is medicine that must be taken to cure these illnesses.  They come through the grace of God.  For venial sins, there is the need to ask God for forgiveness, which we do at Mass during the Penitential Rite.  But not all sin can be forgiven there.

Why?  Like human illnesses, not all illnesses have the same effect.  We don’t treat cancer with baby aspirin nor do we treat a simple headache with chemotherapy.  The medicine is dictated by the disease.  Venial sins do not require confession.  But they must be forgiven nonetheless.  Unattended they become a habit that leads to mortal sin.  They are like the sniffles left unattended that morphs into pneumonia.  Mortal sin, because it has severed the relationship with God requires a greater medicinal application.

When we mortally sin, we have lost the sanctifying grace given us at baptism.  Venial sin damages it, mortal sin destroys it.  As the grace is originally given through the sacraments, it is given again through a sacrament.  Without that sanctifying grace, we forfeit heaven.  Hence we have a need to reach out again for that grace.  This is what the Sacrament of Reconciliation affords us the opportunity to do.

What is needed to make a good confession?

1)      Sorrow.  I must understand that my choice has born a rift between God and me.  I must understand that it has caused a rift between me and my fellow members of the Body of Christ.  I must regret the harm done.  I must be sorry. 

2)      Humility.  I must be honest.  In speaking the truth about my sinful actions, I am taking ownership of those actions.  Humility keeps me from shifting blame.  In the confessional, if I deliberately withhold the confession of a sin because of embarrassment or stubbornness, I introduce the sin of deceit into the confession and negate the entirety of the confession.  Think about it, if I go into a doctor and give him or her the symptoms of my illness but leave a symptom out because I am embarrassed to say it or too stubborn to admit it, I have left the doctor no choice but to misdiagnose the disease, give me the wrong medication, and only guarantee that I do not get better.

3)      Amendment of life. I must understand that in confessing a sin that I do not want to go back to said action.  For any serious illness to be cured, it often requires a lifestyle change.  Sometimes those changes are hard: stop smoking, giving up certain foods, exercising more.  If we don’t change the habits, we end up back where we began.  By the same token, in restoring that relationship with God through the outpouring of sanctifying grace, I must want to change my future actions so that I do not sever that relationship again.

4)      Penance. I must understand that as I used my free will to break the relationship, I must also use my free will to undo the damage of the sin.  To give an example:  If I willfully damage your car, regret my choice, ask your forgiveness, and am forgiven by you, I am still responsible for the damage to your car and have an obligation to repair the damage.  While no action of ours will ever be sufficient to undo all the damage, a show of good faith is important.  Penance shows I am willing to use this sanctifying grace to amend my life.

Each confession gives us the chance at a new beginning.  That state of grace is restored.  While it is possible that I will never have to go again, it is not probable.  This is why humility is a good thing.  It helps us understand when we have crossed that line and once again lost that necessary sanctifying grace.

Some Christians argue that we are, ‘once saved, always saved.’  This is a nonbiblical teaching.  If we are saved once and done, then St. Paul’s Letters and the warnings to the 7 churches in the Book of Revelations make no sense.  If we are once saved, always saved, then Jesus giving the Apostles the duty to forgive sins in His name (see the post resurrection story in the Gospel of John, for example) is an empty and meaningless gesture.  The fact is that we can lose what we were given through baptism.  If that stays lost, we choose hell over heaven.

In all of this, I am aware that for the better part of a half century most would get the impression that the Church found confession unnecessary.    I think it says much that the only scheduled time for confessions in most places is 45 minutes on Saturday afternoon, regardless of the size of the parish.  I know there is the ubiquitous ‘or by appointment’, but good luck with that!  It is why I greatly expand the times offered.  In SS. Peter and Paul, confessions are ½ hour before all weekday Masses Tuesday through Saturday.  There is also the customary 45 minutes on Saturday afternoon.  On 1^st Fridays, I am available from 8:50-11:45.  At St Joseph, I introduced a regular confession time from 5:30-6:15 before the Wednesday evening mass.  Truth be told, unless I am going to give Last Rites, I will drop what I am doing if asked whether I have time to hear a confession.

If it has been a while since you have been to confession, do not worry about what to do.  I will walk you through it.  I will not shame you for the length of time.  I will not yell at you.    I will not think less of you.  I have been doing this for 20 years and have felt nothing but joy when someone returns to the sacraments.  It worth remembering, that a confessor is bound by the seal of the confessional.  He may not speak about what happens to you or anyone else.  If God has forgiven you, the priest must recognize that as well.

Just as taking medicine is important to curing diseases, so confession is to curing the effects sin leaves in our souls.  This week, I have talked about curative medicine.  Next week, I want to talk about preventative medicine.