THE SACRAMENT OF CONFESSION

A. Introduction



    Before our Lord began his preaching to the Jewish people, the first thing He asked them was to repent for their sins and believe in the gospel (Mark1:15). Likewise before we proceed in studying our faith, it is important that we cleanse ourselves of our sins through the sacrament of confession so we can repent for our sins and be ready to listen to the word of God with open heart. If we remain unrepentant of our sins there will be two obstacles that will hinder us from listening to God's word: one, we will lack the grace of enlightenment that will make us understand the word of God and take it into our heart and two, our selfishness will oppose the acceptance of the truth that God will reveal to us. There are a lot of things that God will tell us that go against our self-love and if we are attached to our sins, it will be difficult to accept those truths that will deny ourselves of the satisfaction that our sins bring. It is therefore important that we go to confession so that we can get rid of our attachment to sin and lessen our selfishness. If we can still remember how we wished to disobey our parents when they demanded from us to avoid certain friends whom they believed would be a bad influence to us, we did so because we like those friends whose company we enjoy a lot. This is precisely what will happen to us if we don't repent for our sins – we won't heed the word of God and will stick to our own opinion and liking.

    Confession is analogous to taking a bath. If taking a bath means cleansing the physical body of dirt, confession is cleansing the spiritual soul of sins. What do you think would happen if one does not take a bath for one day? He will smell bad, feel unpleasant and look dirty. What if he does not take a bath for one week? Yakk! He will surely smell like hell, feel terrible and look very untidy. What if he fails to take a bath for one month? Eeeww! That is terribly gross! But you know what, here is the catch. After one month of not taking a bath, he is already used to his smell. He is already comfortable with his dirt and has accepted his untidy appearance. I have seen several times in MetroManila some poor beggars who are like that. I stayed in Munich, Germany for two years and I also experienced seeing a poor German fellow who smell so bad that when he entered the underground train, everyone's attention fell unto him. Initially they thought it was me who smelled bad because I was the only exotic Asian inside the train. Fortunately, they immediately realized where the stinking odor was coming from. The poor German has become so accustomed to his smell that he can no longer recognize his stinking odor. Well, the same thing happens in the soul when one does not repent for his sins for a long time, when sins remain in the soul unrepented and unforgiven. If we can get used to the dirt that we can see, feel and touch; to the grime that we can smell, what more to the sins that we cannot see, neither touch nor smell. If a person has not gone to confession for months or even years, he surely has become accustomed to his sins and will continue doing sins unscrupulously. He is already used to having impure thoughts, dirty looks at women, saying curses and green jokes, making rash judgments, telling lies, etc. When we were still young we rarely did them, but upon the age of puberty we started to commit them. Initially we felt guilty because we were not accustomed to doing them. But since we enjoyed them we began accepting them as part of our life and stopped ignoring our conscience until we really got used to them. And now after so many years of living with our sins, we hardly feel guilty or have remorse for  them because they become second nature to us like eating when we feel hungry, sinning when we feel like it. We don't even notice that we are doing something wrong for our conscience has grown callous.

    Again our body behaves similarly to our soul in many ways. When I was a student scholar in Germany, I met a Chinese scholar from Red China who was a Kung Fu practitioner. Since I was a martial art enthusiast before, I inquired many things about his Kung Fu training. He told me that jumping above one's height from a stationary position is possible if given proper training. To enable him to do this, he has to carry about 10 kilos of weight  attached to his thighs and waist, and those weights cannot be removed from his body for two years except only when taking a bath. Even during sleep, those weights have to remain attached. Initially, 1 kilo is put on his thighs. After a few weeks of physical adjustment,  additional weights are attached until they totaled to 10 kilos. At the beginning, one feels heavy and uncomfortable. However the body adapts and very soon, he can walk normally  again as he used to. After two years, the weights are removed and one feels so light that he can jump above his height. A very similar phenomenon happens to the repentant soul whose long-time sins have suddenly been forgiven and removed from his conscience. When one commits a grave sin, one carries the heavy burden of a serious guilt in one's conscience. However, as days and weeks passed, he grows accustomed to that guilt and learns to live with it. Time passes and one commits again another grave fault. His heart feels heavy once more with that guilt, but then again, he learns to live with it and gets used to it. Once he confesses and repents for these sins sincerely in his heart, he senses a heavy load taken off from his conscience and begins to feel very light. This has happened to a lot of my students in the school where I have been teaching for more than 8 years now. They always tell me that they begin to feel happy and light right after they confessed their sins to the priest.

B. Scriptural Basis of Confession

    Where do we find in the Holy Scriptures the teaching on the sacrament of confession? This sacrament was established by Christ when He told His apostles “Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven, whose sins you retain, they are retained.”( John 20:23). With these words, He gave His apostles the authority to forgive sins. When did He say this? He said this on Easter Sunday, the day of His resurrection, when he has proven that He has risen from death and therefore, He is the Christ, the Son of God. He did not teach this doctrine before His resurrection not only because people won't believe Him since they recognize Him only as a servant of God, but especially because the pharisees   won't accept it due to their pride which makes them blind to the truth.

C. Practical Reasons For The  Institution Of The  Sacrament

    But why did our Lord institute this sacrament of reconciliation? Do we really need this sacrament?  Isn't confession direct to God sufficient for us? Or will the sacrament be a better option than confession direct to God? Before we answer these questions, let us observe some human behavior related to this.

C1. It Helps Release Tension In Your Soul.

    What do you do when you encounter a big problem in your life? Don't you go to a friend and share it to him? You do this because perhaps unconsciously it helps you to unburden your concerns to him. Even if the problem is not yet solved you feel lighter than before because you felt that someone shares your feelings, that someone empathizes with you. The same thing happens when we say our sins to the priest. Somehow the tensions gripping our soul is lessened once we speak out  to the priest. Why does this happen?.. because that is how God made us, that is our nature. The most natural thing to do when we are facing some problems in life is to unburden ourselves by speaking it out to others and ask for help. And for a Christian who takes his faith seriously, a sin big or small is a big burden for him and thus a priest, who is an instrument of God for the forgiveness of sins,  becomes a great relief to his soul. It is difficult to face one's problem alone. Sometimes, when one can't handle it well, one turns to alcohol or drugs to forget his problem. And if it is really very heavy, one can even commit suicide. That is the reason there are some charitable institutions in the US like the 700 Club which has organized a telephone brigade so that people can speak out and unburden their problems to them and avoid unnecessary tragedy in their life. 

    Won't confession direct to God also help you relieve the tension that sins bring into your soul. If you have a strong faith in your prayer to God, then most probably yes. But if the faith is weak, you might think or feel that you are just  speaking out in the air. Nevertheless, if you have faith in the sacrament, that will be a better option because you have someone whom you can see and who will respond to you directly face to face. Moreover, even if the faith is weak, the mere presence of the person listening to your problem is already a big help because you felt that someone sympathizes with you.

C2. It Gives You An Objective Advice.

    Has a friend or anyone shared his or her problem to you and asked for your advice? What did you feel about it? Did you find it difficult to solve his problem? Perhaps no, and most probably, you found it easy. If not, if you found it difficult finding a solution to his problem, what more if it were your own problem? It is harder to solve one's problem than to solve someone's problem. Why is this so?..because you become very subjective when it comes to your own problem which makes it more problematic, while, when it is another person's problem, you are not affected by it and you become objective in dealing with it. You are without emotions, unaffected, when the problem is not yours. This is what happens when you confess to the priest. There is someone who can see your problem objectively and  give you a well thought advice.

    On the other hand, if it is your own  problem, you can be very emotional about the issues and cannot think properly. If you confess direct to God, who will give you advice? You may say that you hear God's voice in your prayer. How do you know that it is the voice of God you are hearing. The devil also speaks to us and disguises himself as a good angel. Who will determine that? IT IS YOU who will determine whether the voice comes from God or from the devil. Of course, you would like to believe that the opinion that favors you comes from God and the opinion that bothers you, you want to believe that it is from the devil. Everything becomes very subjective.

    Even a very good lawyer prefers another lawyer to handle his own case rather by himself because he becomes very affected and subjective with his own personal case. So he let other lawyers handle his case. That is a wise decision and we should recognize this with common sense.

C3. It tells Whether Your Sins Are Forgiven Or Not.

    If you confess direct to God, who can give you an objective advice? Who will tell you that your sin is light or grave? Who will tell you that you are forgiven? Does God appear to you and tell you what He thinks? Does He send His angel to give you advices? The answer is a big NO! Because that is not His way, that isn't His style. His way to forgive our sins is through His priests as He mentioned it in John20:23. A protestant can protest and say that he hears the voice of God in his conscience, that deep inside his heart he knows that he is forgiven, that he hears His advice in his prayer. But how do you know whether you are hearing the voice of God or the voice of the devil? Who will tell you that? Isn't it true that it is also you who will determine that? What if you have done that sin a hundred times – don't you think your apologies are not true; that they are mere lip service; that you are not truly sorry. You just say sorry to God so you can feel better. But of course, you don't want to believe that! Then everything becomes very subjective. How do you know if your sin is big  or small? How can you answer this question correctly, you are not even an expert in the Bible. From whom will you receive an advice?... from no one else but from the voice you hear in your prayers which again becomes very subjective. There could be an instance in your life that you might think that something is very wrong with you because you are getting more enemies every passing day. You might believe that the devil is possessing your soul and that is the reason you always have a bad temper. You did not realize that the reason you are always moody is because you just lack sleep. You do not expect miracles from our Lord to send you His angels to tell you that, when your fault is just lack of common sense (which  to ordinary people may not be very common but to the priest, they are second-nature-knowledge). Many problems of the soul will be solved if people will just open their hearts to the priest who, with his learning and experience and specially with God's grace, can easily and readily give them objective advice and solutions to the things that bother their soul.