Reconciling Confession

Note: This post is adapted from a talk I gave several years ago at a retreat. Every time I go to Confession, I sit in the pews, trying to convince myself that I’m miserable because I’m examining the darkest corners of my conscience and should be miserable because of what a horrible sinner I am, and not at all because my mind is wandering while asking myself why I came here.

We confess to our sinfulness every Mass in the penitential rite. We admit, “I am not worthy to receive you” every consecration.  So why do we have to go sit down in a formalized one-on-one with a priest.  What’s so different about the Sacrament?   Couldn’t God just give us the grace at Mass? And He does! He forgives venial sins every time we take the Eucharist.  So why does the Church say we should go to confession every month?  I’d like to think the Church doesn’t assume I commit a mortal sin each and every month.

During Reconciliation, I’m unavoidably alone with God.  It’s me and Him. I can’t keep my sins locked away inside, and saying them aloud makes them somehow more real.  But no longer do I have everyone else around me so I can say, “at least I don’t do that.“ No one else can tell me it’s all okay, because “we’re all human, after all.”  No one’s there to justify and give a dozen reasons why it’s not my fault. It’s me and Him. 

And when I look up and see Him on the cross, my justifications can only fall silent.  What am I going to say—he’s asking too much?

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians, “That I might not become too elated, a thorn in my flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan, to beat me, to keep me from being too elated.  Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ “

In confession, we confront our sins, our weaknesses.  We have no strength to fight this battle.  We must face the countercultural fact that without God, we are nothing.  It is to God’s glory that He turns even our sin—our intentional rejection of Him—to an expression of humility, of faith, and of love.  And that’s why I go to confession.   It is in confession that His glory is revealed in a personal love too powerful to imagine.  A love that can transcend my brokenness and my weakness.  A love that can conquer, and will make me whole.

No wonder, when I leave, I always know I’ll be back.