The Gospel of today: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever would believe upon Him, would have life everlasting.”
Here I am standing before an array of DC cherry blossoms. It seems to be a good image of everlasting life. In the second chapter of the Song of Songs Bible book, it has God speaking of Himself like a floral display: 1 I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys... 10b Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me. 11 See! The winter is passing….12 Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land.
Can you hear the doves cooing as you make a good Spring or Lenten confession? A part of getting to life everlasting is to receive the graces that Jesus is imparting to you, whom He does call His “beautiful one.” That’s me and you He is talking about. We get beautiful in being bathed in His love and mercy. One such cleansing by grace is in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, of which I preach about today.
I would like to use the example of a Christian convert to Catholicism, about what she learned about Confession as she turned from being in a different denomination (with no Confession sacrament practice in it) to her entry into Catholicism. It was asked of her: What does the Sacrament of Confession means to you? Here is what she said.
I quote her: “I will start by saying I love Confession. Love it. It’s awesome. Let me first start by explaining a bit about what Confession is not to me. Then I’ll give three examples of big plusses of what Confession is to me, and how it helped me convert to the Mother Church, the original Church of Jesus.
I will put her testimony in first person for you in the homily, and we’ll call her Sugie.
#1 Sugie says: I was on the outside looking in at Catholicism. Confession was explained to me, mistakenly, in my former church as having a man and priest forgive you instead of God. That was a bad misrepresentation of the Sacrament of Confession. They’d say to me: ‘Don’t go to a man, go to God.’ Well–my past Christian friends had it quite wrong. I found out instead that Catholic priests absolve, in God’s Name, they do not forgive. God does, of course. The priests act as appointed ambassadors of reconciliation, as used by God for communicating His work of mercy. St. Paul, a priest and apostle, called himself just that—an “ambassador of reconciliation.” He was one of the original appointed men chosen for this work of Christ. So it is biblical to have priests doing confession, and the power communicated via them is from The Lord Jesus Christ and of His forgiveness and love. We all know that ambassadors represent their leaders and are entrusted to stand as the one imparting what the king, queen, president or leader has decreed them to do or say. Ambassadors can serve wonderful things, but it’s all in the service of their country, not of their own power or personhood. The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations says how ambassadors are diplomats of the highest rank, formally representing their head of state, with plenipotentiary powers (that is, full authority to represent the government). So are priests by Jesus to represent His priestly work ongoing on earth, as ambassadors. I recall how I knew how Ambassador Solomont was greatly involved in helping the USA help Spain avert a national economic disaster, of about a decade ago. He was acting not on his own, but for the Obama administration. It’s a likewise thing with Jesus and His appointment of priests as holy ambassadors; they are not men working on their own nor in substitution for God. Rather, it is a Sacrament of Healing in God’s priestly service. Similarly, our USA Ambassador to Spain did a lot of work in his office, as middle-man, but all knew who he was working for. For Jesus, He has His servant priests to help people via the Sacrament, in Jesus’ Name and work on earth, to help people get untangled and freed from the snares of sin. He uses priests (middle-men) to pass on soul healings. Jesus said to His apostles: “As the Father has sent Me to you, so now I send you. Go in My Name.”
We are not to reject God’s middle means workers. We don’t pass by doctors and prescriptions and such help to our physical health, as if to rather only go directly to God for medical assistance. God is the healer, but He can use people in that answer to your needs.
Jesus knows what it’s like to be rejected as One sent by the Father. He was appointed mediator of heaven and earth, as Divine Son, but many people spurned Him, saying that they instead were ‘going to God directly.’ They said that the God of Israel would not send help like His to forgive sins or heal people in some Son of Man middle-man. He couldn’t be The Messiah. In fact, Jesus was sent to the Cross for this blasphemy sin—yet He came to seek and save the lost. He came to bring healing—He really was doing a divine work among us. But they turned away from Him and He was crucified for it. Yet His grace broke open and was poured out from His Crucified Self, and into His Church’s ministry. His ongoing priesthood work goes in the world, in a particular way, as via Sacraments. It is amazing and great that Jesus commissioned workers for this healing grace in special matters necessary for a united and holy people of God. One also has to believe that Jesus is still working among us here, and keeping His Word to share an “I am with you always” promise to the end of the world.
#2 The convert woman Sugie says: Here is another misrepresentation or misconception I had to get corrected that people presumed of Catholics: Confession is not a guilt-induced act that is forced upon someone by a strict and rigid institution. Wow! That couldn’t be further from the truth, so I’ve learned! Confession is an act led by the Holy Spirit for us to glorify God with our lives. He does the convicting, not some rigid institution! This is a healing work that Jesus is doing for His Church, so that we all can have ongoing conversion, more virtuous living, closer love and unity, and common growth of moral goodness. God so loves us that He gives us grace. (Ref: God so loved the world that He gave…John 3:16a). We need grace daily, not just in one lump. My consideration of Catholic Faith was arriving at a revelation, of how I needed not just a kick-start for my faith (back at 12 of age of my baptism start in an independent church), but a continuous cooperation with the Holy Spirit, like the Catholic faith practices. I read Jesus’ words in John chapter 16 of what the Spirit of Truth has come to do. The Sacrament of Confession supports that calling of life of following Christ Jesus and living in the Holy Spirit. Sin and fear is something I must keep working against, and there are times that Confession is the best help for this aim for holiness.
Growth in holiness didn’t seem much necessary of a plan if I were already good to go for Heaven in a one-time thing, as a first had and followed. A leader in that church of my past said: “One repentant prayer is all that’s needed, and then you’re done. If you were to die tonight, then you’d be all ready for God as so to stroll on in to Heaven and go find your mansion. “Well, as an adult, I found that a bit arrogant of a Christian position to take. Could I think that I just needed to accept Christ once, and that once I was this pre-teen Christian, my past, present and future sins were all forgiven, with my needing not to care much how much I sinned anymore?! But what about all my sins done as a Christian, post 12 years old of my baptism? As a young adult and adult, I was making so many sins! But for a long time I justified it all because I was ‘covered’ and ‘finished’—and was good to go straight to heaven. It was not surprising—with that view of faith—of just how casual and regular my sinning grew and grew when in my late teens and young adult years. I knew there were holes in my theology then, but did not properly see Christ as head of the body, the Church.
#3 Sugie has a third point of one more misconception told to her by outsiders who knew not what they were talking about with Catholicism. Confession is not one’s “only means” of being connected with God (as they accused it to be), nor is it one’s only means, in most cases, of being forgiven by God. She says: “I am pleading God’s mercy in many manners, outside a confessional room, and even regularly in nightly bedside prayers in my home before turning in. In the same home, I am telling my family how I am sorry for those times that my temper or pride get in the way of family love. I love their way of forgiving me; they surely recognize that I am no perfect person! We don’t call the priest for these house calls. He’d be never able to keep all such appointments in a parish!
Yet sometimes my actions are serious enough to my faith to merit my going to Jesus in Confession and asking His help that I uphold my part of being an honest believing member of the Church and to be accountable or responsible to my co-believers there. We are linked together, but I was mostly a weak link until I used confession to submit to the Spirit of Truth. Here’s an admission: As a soccer coach I was seen for a few seasons screaming terribly at my child, who was on the high school team but not an enthusiastic player on it, and the crowd at our games witnessed these wild outbursts from me put upon her. Lord, have mercy! It was all done in my keeping reputation as a top coach in the league, with her no-nonsense coaching. Dear God, and all this with my excusing such poor treatment of my dear daughter. I thought I’d better ask Jesus to restore my community identity in His upcoming conversion work in me, to rout out the quick temper in me, and use confession to conform my life to Christ. I had forced my daughter, who was an ok soccer player, to be on my national ranked soccer team, when all the while she was more interested in science and reading. When she did not live up to my standards on the soccer field, I literally shamed her for it publicly, and embarrassed her in all my pushing and screaming at her. But that all has changed now. I came to nip in the bud the source of my pride. My regular confessor priest was quite the instrument of the conversion Christ was doing in me.
Sugie tells of three plusses of the Sacrament of Reconciliation that she has found. I am so glad to be a Catholic convert and using Confession in my faith practice.
#1 It has me thinking much more relationally. I look not just in selfish lenses at things, but get to be more other-centered. My prayer of “help me to see, Lord” has become answered dynamically.
Now I take more time to review my behavior and thinking through things interpersonally, so that whenever I prepare for going to a Church confession, this good practice comes forth. The review of life is quite good for me, she says, and it brings me peace and healing to say it aloud to Christ with having His minister present to listen to me. Heh—I probably save hundreds of dollars from needing a therapist to open my life up! The Holy Spirit charges nothing, and the priest doesn’t either. I have become a contemplative person, and open to become more anew in Christ.
#2. I see sin differently now. I sin less or I sin with less enjoyment as I’ve come to understand how it wounds one’s soul and relationship with our Creator. God is there, all the time, but when I turn away from Him and do my own thing, it is bad for me… left unchecked, it will contribute to my walk with God becoming unhealthy over time… sick even. So I use an exam of conscience in my night prayer, and I take God’s hints when I need next to go to Confession. I just don’t want sin to have dominion over me; I am meant to be a child of light. Many of humanity’s own classic tales reveal what happens when someone is overcome by sin in their own life. Take Ebeneezer Scrooge and his greed, or the Beast and his lack of charity, or the Grinch and his desire for revenge. But now I see the Lord more in my life, as the One leading me higher and deeper and of being more authentic. The Sacraments help me curb that tendency to flippantly engage in sin. I now affirm how the Sacraments are instituted by Christ Jesus for making our experience of God and His Grace as more tangible. It’s something we can see, smell, taste, touch, or hear. I can audibly hear the priest speak in Christ’ Word in Confession. The priest prays the absolution formula: “God the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of Christ, pours out the Holy Spirit for forgiveness of sin, so through the ministry of The Church, I absolve you of your sins, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” The priest may put his hands out in the air forward over me, to indicate the Spirit’s coming, and then he makes the sign of the Cross in that absolution prayer, and I make the cross sign to myself too, and I feel that I have been engaged in a spiritual gift to use from God for my combat upon sin and pride. I also feel like I am started anew in a washing (pouring) of grace in God’s Spirit. With my turning from sin in some regular and official action, I show how I am meant to be a child of God and a part of God’s family in the Church. That’s great. It’s not just a confession thing: Now I see that my marriage as a Sacrament puts Jesus more clearly in the middle of the spousal relationship I have going. Jesus is made present. It’s how I can describe it. It is much different from my prior Christian view. I am being drawn to more of Christ in my life. Christ’ Presence.
#3 A part of Confession that I like, maybe in some bizarre way (!), is being given a penance. It’s given as an expected prayer or action from “father” that I was serious about this confession. I find the penance worked shows, then, some sign from me to God that I don’t easily want to fall into those sin habits again, but that I want to work at disciplining my will to be more with God’s will. This is really part of the encounter I have in the Sacrament.
Some call it the Sacrament of Penance, for this reason, I guess. There are ‘weird’ people like me, I suppose, of who does like to do a penance so that I can show God some immediate proof of how I really want Him first in my life. I go most of the time to the same confessor priest, and he spends a bit of time talking to me about some of my ongoing struggles, or new challenges, and then he ‘reacts’ with some prescribed penance. It’s never a severe one! The worst I’ve got was to do the Stations of the Cross.
Let me explain what penance is for me, too. Just as unrepentant sin can hurt our walk with God, and even make our souls sick, penance is a sort of medicine that helps me to turn back to God in the areas in which I struggle. Example. If someone hurt me and I am struggling to forgive them fully, my penance for that might be to spend some time praying for those people. Penance is simply helping me turn back to God and let Him into more of my life, in the areas where I am blocking him out through my actions. And I leave the Confessional full of the Holy Spirit, and then exit the church (or father’s drive-through confession), I am so thankful for God’s redeeming work in my life. I leave with joy, and I always look forward to going. It helps keep me tuned into and focused on my Savior, and helps me be more aware to walk more closely with Him. More than ever before. And that, is why, I, Sugie, tell you, of why I love Confession.