The Fever Chart

Grace Three: Reconciliation

Once, after I had been received into the Church, my mother, who is not Catholic, asked me, “Why do you have to go to a priest to receive forgiveness of sin?” My answer was the one I’d heard apologist Scott Hahn offer on several occasions: “I don’t go because I have to, I go because I can!” Of all the gifts I received upon becoming Catholic, the most surprising and among the most precious was the gift of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, or Confession.

Confession is in a very real sense no different than taking a shower. When the grime and grit of modern life has accumulated in my life and my heart, when I’ve stepped into the muck – whether deliberately or inadvertently – and come up smelling like a sewer, it is a joy to know that Christ waits patiently, ready to cleanse every part of my being from the stain and stink of sin. But Confession isn’t just about the cleansing, it’s also about empowerment. In Confession, Christ not only forgives me for what I have done, he sends me back out into the world clothed in the fresh garments of his grace, thereby enabling me to live as I should. And here’s where the parallel to a physical shower breaks down, because when I step out of the tub, I know I’ll be back. That’s the way the world and flesh are. But after every Confession, there is at least the promise – a promise predicated on the sufficiency of grace – that I may never need to return. And so I often wonder after the Sacrament: Is this the time? Is this the last one? Can I do it? Or, rather, can I let him do it in me? Will I squander the gift I’ve just received, or will I remain in it for the rest of my life, as he desires?
Of course, I’m usually back sooner rather than later. But he’s always there, too, pleased to see me and eager to do it all over again. And, truth be told, there has been progress, though it’s so miniscular that only he and I can testify to it. But that’s enough. He knows, and I know, and I know that he knows, and that’s worth everything.

Some might say, “Well, that’s all very fine, but you still haven’t told us why it takes a priest. Why can’t you simply go to Christ directly?” My answer is two-fold. First, I go to the priest because my mother told me to. No, not my earthly mother, but Holy Mother Church. I am a member of the Body of Christ, and as St. Paul points out at length in Romans, no part of the body exists by and for itself. When my hand is bleeding, my feet take me to the hospital. When my eyes can’t see in the dark, my finger flips the light switch. When I injure myself through sin, I have wounded the Body of Christ, the Church, and it is entirely appropriate that I should seek the help of that Body in ameliorating the damage I’ve caused. As Christians, we are called to a personal, individual relationship with Christ, but that relationship takes place within the context of the Church. If we are Christians, we are members of Christ’s Body, and to the extent that we are not, we cease to be Christians. I go to a priest because the feet say, “You must let us take you to the hospital … you cannot do it on your own.”

But more than that, there is a genius in sacramental reconciliation that is rooted deeply in the psychology of the human person. The capacity for self-deception is so great in us that without a mechanism for personal accountability, we are liable to lapse into forgetfulness or, worse, self-congratulation. There is a liberating quality to the requirement that we sit or kneel down in front of another person and confess our deepest, darkest secrets. In the confessional, there is no room for dissembling. I’ve had many priests look at me and say “That’s not all, is it?” But even if they hadn’t, I knew it wasn’t all there was and before they ever asked I had already wondered “What the hell am I doing here if I’m not prepared to get it all out?” The Scriptures command us to “confess your sins, one to another” precisely because it makes us so uncomfortable. Accountability is uncomfortable, and that’s the surest sign that we really need it.

I’m still a bit mystified by the disregard with which some – certainly not all, but some – lifelong Catholics hold Reconciliation. At best they consider it a distasteful chore; at worst, an invasion of privacy and an insult to their dignity. But it’s a false privacy they are trying to protect and a mistaken dignity they are defending. After all, do they think their sins are unknown to God, or that their dignity derives from pretending not to be sinners? Here, I think, is the source of the problem, not only among contemporary Catholics (who, let’s admit, have abandoned the Sacrament of Reconciliation almost entirely), but among the wider community of Christians, as well: A denial of the reality of sin.

In 1 John, the disciple Jesus loved writes: “If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive our sin, cleansing us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.” In today’s therapeutic culture, when everything that’s wrong with us is ascribed to one psychological illness or another (for which we are not responsible, by the way), John’s words seem like an affront, an insult. But the dignity we possess as human persons comes precisely from the fact that we are sinners. That dignity is not attributable to the sin itself, of course, but to the fact that in spite of our sin, God loved us enough to send his Son into the world to suffer and die so that we might overcome that sin and live with him forever. When we deny the reality of personal sin, we make a mockery of the Cross, and empty the Gospel of any meaning. If Christ died for sinners, then Christ died for ME, and there is no greater dignity than to be one whom Christ loved that much.

On this weekend thirteen years ago, I attended a retreat run by the Franciscan Friars of the Primitive Observance. Though I was not yet confirmed and had not received First Communion, I had made my First Penance, so I was able to avail myself of Reconciliation during the weekend. I met with a priest, Fr. Pio Mandato, who listened patiently to my confession and then, when I had concluded, spoke words that resonate within me to this day.

“You are so arrogant,” he said.

I was stunned. “But, Father,” I replied, “I just confessed everything to you.”

“Oh, yes,” he continued. “You made a good confession, but you are so surprised by it all, and that’s your arrogance. When are you going to realize that you love sin, that we all love sin? That’s the way it is with us. We love sin. That’s why we need grace.”

I thought about what he said for a long time. I’m still thinking about it. Fr. Pio was right. In essence, my disposition during that confession had been like this: “Father, you won’t believe it, but I did x, y, and z.” I was letting myself off the hook as a lover of sin, conferring upon myself what Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls “cheap grace” by maximizing the gravity of the offense while minimizing the culpability of the offender. Without Fr. Pio’s bracing correction, I may have never uncovered the spiritual arrogance at the bottom of my half-hearted contrition. A better example of the Body coming to the aid of the member I have never found.

“We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, for by your Holy Cross, you have redeemed the world.”