When You Come to Where You're Broken Within

Confession, as Catholics know the word, is not understood by most people in the world.

Really, Catholics are brought up with a mindset considered very strange. Most people don't like to be reminded that they were wrong. Even if some people are willing to admit their sin at the time it was committed, they don't want to remember it or talk about it. They want it blotted out, forever forgotten.

This impulse is natural, but Catholics make themselves remember their sins until confession, which is quite opposite from most people. We deliberately dredge up our faults from the dregs of our minds so that we can verbally confess them to the priest.

Most people shirk from both parts, for the following reasons. 1) Why do you want to keep going back to that awful thing you did, and 2) Why would you want to actually tell someone?

To the first, the benefit of remembering is very strong. If you are conscious that sin is wrong, and you are ashamed of doing it, you don't want to do it again, right? You cannot remember what you'd like to avoid doing if you can't remember what it is.

So WHY try to forget sins and sinful tendencies? To quote a book, "If there's a wasp in the room I like to be able to to see it," The natural conclusion to this is so that one can avoid the wasp. We want to know what our sins are so that we can be on the watch within ourselves for the problems that we have a tendency to fall into. That's the reason to examine and remember.

As for confessing, the genuine belief of Catholics is that God is acting through the priest. God is the one offended by our sins, so he's the one to apologize to. Therefore, if you take it that you are actually confessing to God when confessing to the priest, then we're verbally apologizing for our sins, for offending him.

Why not, though, just apologize to God silently, in a prayer in our heads?

Let’s give another example: why don’t we write someone a note to apologize for wronging them? Of course, we could. But isn’t the apology so much more tangible and personal when said face to face? And if the person has specifically asked for your apologies to come personally, then shouldn’t you oblige them if you’re really sorry?

Besides, what are we shying from in either instance? Embarrassment. An example here could be that we stole something from a person, and they haven’t noticed. It’s extremely embarrassing to let them know that we wronged them, and we wouldn’t look stupid if we just let sleeping dogs lie—but it’s the right thing to do to tell them. In the same way, we don’t want to tell someone else that we’ve messed up in confession. That’s not a good reason to forego apologizing, though.

So: the first step in apologizing is admitting to yourself that you were wrong, that your sin was wrong. The second is telling God so—admitting it to Him and apologizing.

That’s what the penitent’s side of confession is; apology. God’s side is forgiveness, and you know what is really marvelous? After we’ve confessed our sins, we can do what our instinct was to do all along: forget them. Why? Because God already did after giving His forgiveness.

-Tina