What Are You Looking For? Part 2: The Liturgy and the Sacraments

Reconciliation: What's In It for Me?

Reconciliation: What’s In It for Me?

                Whenever someone comes into the Catholic Church from another Christian Tradition, if they were previously validly baptized, they are required to make a general confession.  This is a confession of all of the sins they have committed since baptism and up to that current moment.  In converts, I have seen the reaction run all the way from, “I can’t wait for my first confession!!!!” to “I have to do what???!!!”  Perhaps the reason for the wide difference in reactions depends on how well the convert understands the sacrament prior to doing it.  Perhaps it depends on just what kind of past they have.  Or maybe it’s a bit of both.  Even in Cradle Catholics, I would think that those who go to confession frequently - once a month or more -understand the sacrament better than those who only go once or twice a year –if that.  So let’s look at what is in it for us beyond the obvious absolution of our sins. 

                If I were to sum up the Sacrament of Reconciliation in two words they would be grace and mercy.  That is what the Sacrament of Reconciliation is all about.  It’s not about humiliating or embarrassing us.  For converts, it’s not about making sure we are “good enough” to join the Church.  It’s about bringing all of us, no matter whom we are or what our background is or what we have done to the mercy seat of Christ.  In Romans 3:23 St. Paul writes: “For there is no distinction; all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God.”  That’s why everyone from the Pope to the convert to the Cradle Catholic who just decided to return to the Church five minutes ago goes to confession.  We are all sinners.  Fortunately there is a sacrament for that.

                If we are in a state of mortal sin, if we have knowingly committed serious sins and broken one of the 10 Commandments, reconciliation is necessary before we can receive the Eucharist because when we receive, we receive into ourselves the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ.  And how can we worthily receive our Savior, if our relationship with him has been severed by our sin?  Through reconciliation, God looks on us with mercy and grants us the grace of forgiveness and absolution, thereby restoring our relationship with him.  Once we are in what us Catholics call “a state of grace”, we can worthily receive our Lord, hidden in the bread and the wine. 

                If we have committed venial sins, the Sacrament of Reconciliation is still a good idea.  Our venial sins do damage our relationship with God, but they don’t break it.  Venial sins are kind of like the sand on your windshield when the wind is blowing.  It may be a fine layer, or it may be a lot, but either way, in obscures your vision.  That’s what venial sins do.  They obscure our vision.  We can’t see or hear as clearly because we are kind of dirty.  True, the Penitential Act during Mass, if sincerely said, asks for forgiveness of our venial sins, but, while “forgiveness” and “absolution” may be considered synonyms in a thesaurus, they just don’t feel synonymous.  When we acknowledge the specific venial sins we are sorry for, we bring them to the forefront of our minds as things we want to change.  We acknowledge that we are not truly living the Christian life we want to live.  We know we are called to be the light of the world, but our light has gotten dim.  It takes us from, “I’m okay just as I am” to “I’m okay just as I am, but I can do better.  I can be closer to God.  I can be more truly his.”

                The other thing confession does, if we do it frequently, even for venial sins, is that it grows within us an ever greater awareness of God’s great love, mercy and grace for us.  Not just “us” collectively, but “us” as specific individuals.  We learn that mercy and grace are always available, if we make ourselves available to receiving it.  Through the penances assigned to us, which usually don’t seem nearly harsh enough for the gravity of our sin, we learn that God doesn’t want us to beat ourselves up over what we have done.  Grace and mercy aren’t complicated.  They are simple.  They aren’t hard get.  They are easily obtainable, no matter whom you are.  You don’t have to search for them.  All you have to do is walk into a confessional and confess your sins.  Just lay them at the foot of the cross.  Jesus has already done the work.  He has provided the priest to say his words directly to you, “…may God grant you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”