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

Reconciliation: A Sacrament of Healing

Reconciliation: A Sacrament of Healing

            At the end of the day, the Sacrament of Reconciliation is all about healing.  That’s why it is one of the two Sacraments of Healing (the other being Anointing of the Sick).  Sometimes I think that point gets overlooked when we actually go to confession.  Not by the confessor, nor by God, but by the penitent.  For the penitent, it’s often rather like going to the doctor.  I can honestly say I have never heard anyone say, “I get to go to the doctor!”  It’s always, “I have to go to the doctor.”  The same is true of confession; at least for most of us.  It’s something we are obligated to do.  If we have committed a mortal sin, it’s something we must do, at least before receiving the Eucharist, and certainly before we die.  Because all Catholics know if you die in a state of mortal sin you go to hell.  It sounds harsh, I know, but it’s true. 

            One reason why it’s hard to view reconciliation as a Sacrament of Healing is because the process is an uncomfortable one.  Much like going to the doctor is.  No one likes to undress and put on that little paper gown.  In reconciliation, we have to bare our inmost secret offenses before God.  We have to name them out loud.  That’s uncomfortable.  And it’s supposed to be.  Sin should make us feel uncomfortable.  The fact that we have committed sin should make us feel uncomfortable.  It should make us feel contrite.  We should feel sorrow for having offended the One who loves us most.

            Another reason it’s hard to view reconciliation as healing is because we get caught up in the details.  If we are trying to live the Christian life and we honestly don’t want to commit a mortal sin, then sometimes we get so afraid that we have committed a mortal sin that sometimes we see mortal sins where there are none.  We forget that for a mortal sin to be a mortal sin, it first must be a serious sin, a grave matter.  Not praying for a day is not a serious sin.  Not praying at all for twenty years, in my opinion, would be.  But not only does the thought, word or deed have to be a grave matter, you have to know it’s a grave matter before you do it.  Then you have to willingly do it anyway.  In other words, if you did something years ago you didn’t know was a mortal sin and you just realized it was a mortal sin, then that act was not a mortal sin.  However, if you do it now that you know it’s a mortal sin, then it is a mortal sin.  And you can never accidently commit a mortal sin.  But we forget that.  And so we view reconciliation, not as a healing, but as a judgment.  We don’t allow grace and mercy to be grace and mercy.

            The examination of conscience that we do before going to reconciliation isn’t something we do to try to remember every little thing we ever did, whether we knew it was sinful at the time or not.  The purpose of the examination is to enable us to see where we have fallen during the month or so since our last confession.  It’s to show us what we need to bring to the Great Physician for healing.  It is our way of asking the Holy Spirit to show us where, specifically, we need the grace and mercy of God applied to our lives; where we need healing in our souls.  That’s why we confess out loud our specific sins and how often we commit them.  When we do that, when we withhold nothing in the confessional, we withhold nothing from God. 

            The Holy Spirit does point out those areas to us, if we are willing to listen.  If we are humble and contrite, he will give us the strength and the courage to confess whatever needs to be confessed; all of our mortal sins, and even our venial sins.  Once we have confessed them and been granted absolution, then the grace of God and the mercy of God flows into our hearts and our souls and our minds.  The process is completed when we complete our penance.  All is cleansed.  All is healed.  And we leave, once again, restored to full union with the Church, and with Christ, who loves us.