By Todd Inman, Catholic Evidence Guild of
Guam
Last week we discussed the difficulty we
often have confessing our sins to a priest. Many non-Catholics claim that there
is no reason for us to suffer this humiliation. We need only confess our sins
to Christ! The Church in her wisdom has, however, always understood that Christ
instituted sacramental confession when he breathed on the Apostles and said,
"As the Father has sent me, so I
send you.... Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,
whose sins you retain are retained" (John
One such impediment to forgiveness of sins is a lack of contrition in the
sinner. This leads us to the second major reason people avoid going to
Confession. If the first reason is the difficulty and humiliation of
confessing, the second is that they have not repented of their sins. Now there
are only two reasons why a man will not be sorry for his sins. He is either
ignorant that he has sinned, or he loves his sin more than he loves God.
Pope Pius the XII declared, "The sin
of the twentieth century is the loss of the sense of sin." This loss
is perhaps even more pronounced today than it was when Pius XII made his
statement in 1946. We are inundated with lies telling us not only that there is
no sin, but also that sinful actions are virtues. Euthanasia is called
"mercy killing." Homosexuality is called “a dignified, loving
life-style choice.” Some mothers actually convince themselves that they are
teaching their daughters to be responsible when they put them on the “pill.”
Young girls and working women are counseled to have abortions so that they do
not "ruin their lives" raising children. The list of lies goes on.
When we look closely, we see clearly that
every rationalization we make to justify our sins is a lie told to keep us
ignorant --or at least forgetful--of our sinfulness. Our tendency to
rationalize away our sins is one reason we need the sure authority of the
Church to instruct us in matters of faith and morals. It is also why Confession
to a priest for forgiveness was given to us. Left to us, we will often err--or
even deceive ourselves--about what is right and good. If we confess only to
God, we have no one to help us overcome our self-deception. God gives us his
priests as aids to our union with Jesus.
Now, some will complain that this focus on our sinfulness keeps us from the
essence of the Gospel message, which is Christ’s love for us. The focus on sin,
however, is really for the sake of the love of Jesus. We may repent of our
sins, overcome our sin, and be joined with Christ in the love of the Father. We
do not dwell on our sin for the sake of chastising ourselves as though that
were the purpose of faith. No, we chastise ourselves for our sins, so that we
might be changed because we want to come into our inheritance as sons and
daughters of the living God. Ideally, we repent of our sins because we
love God and we want to be reconciled with Him.
We have faith and hope in the love of Christ crucified, so we do not despair of
forgiveness, but we must be careful not to fall into the opposite sin of
presumption. Presumption is the belief that we can be forgiven without
repentance. Why then would we be in need of repentance? Didn’t Christ die for
our sins and make reparation for us? Is that not sufficient? Jesus suggests that this presumption is not
true in his lament over Jerusalem as recorded in Saint Matthew’s Gospel:
“Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how many
times I yearned to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her young
under her wings, but you were unwilling!
Behold, your house will be abandoned, desolate” (Mt
St. Thomas Aquinas explains that it is contrary to God’s nature to forgive us
without our repentance. Mercy and justice are married in all the works of God,
so it would be incomplete to forgive an unrepentant sinner. The sinner must
co-operate with God’s merciful grace to turn away from sin. The sinner does
this by repenting of his sin and resolving to sin no more. God in his mercy is
willing to forgive any sin, but when a sinner is determined to continue in his
sin, he thereby refuses to accept God’s merciful grace and thereby condemns
himself. Let us sincerely repent of our sins, confess them, and enjoy the
generosity of our Heavenly Father.
Next week we will discuss how to make a good confession.