Lately, I've really been getting into the Sacrament of Reconciliation (what we Catholics call "going to confession"). I'm thinking what a confusing and conflicting message we Catholics send about this sacrament! Where does it come from? How did we get here?
I remember as a kid going to confession and how scared to death I was of the priests who waited for me behind the confessional door. (But wait! Back in those pre-Vatican II days, Catholic school children had very good reason to be scared!!) I recall one day at my elementary school, Immaculate Heart of Mary, I had to confess to a priest from "outside" the parish. I couldn't even fall back on my easy familiarity with our mildy rummy, Irish Catholic pastor. No, this priest was of German descent, Fr. Heintz, I think his name was. He probably served at St. Boniface or one of the other German parishes of the diocese. He was a tall, thin, severe-looking man, and he wore a long black cloak that, from the back and with his collar turned up, made him look eerily like Count Dracula. My God that was a scary confession! I quiver still remembering the gruesome details some fifty years later ("You did what!?! How many times??"). But I'm getting off topic.
I think most Catholics at least in the U.S. do not "like" the Sacrament of Reconciliation. It's not an "easy" sacrament like Eucharist. We know the Catholic Church has long taught us to feel guilt for our sins (how else could you feel? when you here the oft-stated but profoundly misunderstood statement, "Christ died for our sins"). So in this country and probably in other places too, Catholics do not like Confession. They stay away from the sacrament in droves. If you ever want to catch a priest at one of the loneliest moments of his ministry, try 3:00 on Saturday afternoon.
Now on the face of it, this fear and loathing of Reconciliation is ridiculous. Here's a few reasons why.
No matter what you did, what you do, (what you've done for fifty years and have tried, so far unsuccessfully, to stop doing), the priest is going to absolve you of your sins. Then he is going to give you "penance". Nine times out of ten, the penance that he gives you is this: he is going to ask you to pray. You been a little bad, he'll say "Pray an Our Father and a Hail Mary". You been really bad, "Pray ten Our Father's, ten Hail Mary's". That's it. Now for most faithful Catholics, that is, the kind who even bother going to confession at all, saying some prayers on a Saturday afternoon is not a horrible thing. Saying prayers is something devout Catholics do all the time. Many Catholics even admit that they kind of like to pray and would do so even if they never went to confession in the first place!
Another thing. A lot of Catholics who like to do things "the easy way", they say, "I just like confessing my sins directly to God". That's pretty lame. Not to mention profoundly unsatisfying. You know why? Because it really doesn't demand anything of you! Even Jesus Christ, fully divine and fully human (and a wonderful human being he was), even Jesus demanded a confession from St. Peter ("Simon Peter, do you love me?") More to the point: How do you know that God absolves you of your sins? Does a voice come out of the sky, "This is my beloved child, of whom I am well pleased"? No? Well, in the confessional you will hear the priest's absolution, you will see the priest's Sign of the Cross (if you receive the sacrament face to face). And when you hear those words, you will feel how you always do, when you've asked someone to forgive you, and have gotten that forgiveness. You will feel at peace. You will feel wonderful! You will feel that everything is going to be all right!
Gee, maybe the Catholics didn't screw up the sacrament after all.
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