4 minute read
Questions of Faith
Comment
Father Joshua Rodrigue, S.T.L.
What about those who want to confess to God only?
I have a friend whose teenage son, born and raised a Catholic, has decided he doesn’t have to go to confession anymore. He feels he can just confess his sins to God. What do you think of this?
It is true that God alone forgives sins and can grant forgiveness outside the sacraments. Jesus, being fully divine, has the authority to forgive sins and even declares in the Scriptures, “Your sins are forgiven” (see Mark 2:5, 10; Luke 7:48). Since only God has the power to forgive, it would appear that confessing directly to God would be the way to obtain forgiveness. However, reconciling all of humanity with God through his suffering, death and resurrection, Jesus establishes the sacrament of reconciliation when he appears to the apostles gathered in the locked room.
“Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained’” (John 20:21-23).
By virtue of his divine authority, Jesus then gives the power to forgive sins to the apostles, continuing Jesus’ mission of reconciliation and exercising it in his name. St. Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians teaches, “And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation” (5:18).
Nevertheless, that power to absolve was not just for the apostles. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) states, “Since Christ entrusted to his apostles the ministry of reconciliation, bishops who are their successors, and priests, the bishops’ collaborators, continue to exercise this ministry” (1461). Therefore, confessing our sins to a bishop or priest is the ordinary means of obtaining forgiveness and the remission of serious sin committed after baptism.
Additionally, if our sins harmed only our relationship with Christ, then perhaps one could argue that seeking forgiveness from Christ alone would be sufficient; however, we know that our sins also impact the body of Christ— the church—and so require a means to admit our faults and facilitate reconciliation with the community. In his letter, St. James instructs, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed” (5:16). Imagine if we had to stand before the church community at Mass and declare to all present how we have sinned and harmed the body of Christ. I would dare say, few of us would choose to be reconciled with the community.
In the sacrament, the priest then acts both in the person of Christ and in the person of the church in order to mediate reconciliation. “The confession (or disclosure) of sins, even from a simply human point of view, frees us and facilitates our reconciliation with others. Through such an admission man looks squarely at the sins he is guilty of, takes responsibility for them, and thereby opens himself again to God and to the communion of the church in order to make a new future possible” (CCC 1455).
Not only is it necessary for us to confess our wrongdoings, but also out of simple justice, the harm our sins cause must be repaired. Absolution removes our sin, but it does not repair sin’s effects. “Raised up from sin, the sinner must still recover his full spiritual health by doing something more to make amends for the sin,” which we do when we are given a penance in the sacrament (CCC 1459). How many, when confessing to God alone, actually apply some act of reparation for the wrong done? It is like breaking a neighbor’s window with a ball, feeling bad about it, saying I’m sorry, and walking back home. The window is still broken. We have to work out some way to pay for the new window. If we confess only to God, how do we repair the damage done?
Likewise, who do we see when we are ill? Confessing to a priest is like going to the doctor. Just as we go to a doctor, who is trained to diagnose and treat us when we are physically ill, those spiritually ill because of sin go to a confessor who is trained to diagnose and treat us with the correct spiritual medicine—giving spiritual guidance and imposing a penance according to the gravity and nature of the sins confessed. If we are not trained in medicine, we can easily misdiagnose our physical ailments or prescribe the wrong medicine; imagine the same happening in our spiritual life.
St. John Paul II beautifully summarizes the necessity of the sacrament in the Christian life and the certitude of forgiveness we receive:
“It must be emphasized that the most precious result of the forgiveness obtained in the sacrament of penance consists in reconciliation with God … . But it has to be added that this reconciliation with God leads, as it were, to other reconciliations which repair the breaches caused by sin. The forgiven penitent is reconciled with himself in his inmost being, where he regains his own true identity. He is reconciled with his brethren whom he has in some way attacked and wounded. He is reconciled with the church. He is reconciled with all creation” (Reconciliation and Penance 31:V).
Who would want to forego these results given by the grace of the sacrament? BC
