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Why Go to Confession
Pastoral Letter of Archbishop Bruno Forte
CHIETI, Italy, FEB. 17, 2006 (Zenit.org).-
Here is the pastoral letter for 2005-2006 written by Archbishop Bruno Forte of
Chieti-Vasto, a member of the International Theological Commission, on the theme
"Reconciliation and the Beauty of God."
Why Go to Confession?
Reconciliation and the Beauty of God
Together, let us try to understand what Confession is: If you really understand
it, with your mind and heart, you will feel the need and the joy of experiencing
this encounter, in which God, granting you his forgiveness through the ministry
of the Church, creates a new heart in you, puts a new Spirit in you, so that you
can live a life reconciled with Him, with yourself and with others, so that you
also will be able to forgive and love, beyond any temptation to mistrust and
weariness.
1. Why go to Confession?
Among the questions that my heart as Bishop asks, I choose one that I am often
asked: Why must one go to Confession? It is a question that is posed again in
many ways. Why go to a priest to tell one's sins and not do so directly to God,
who knows and understands us much better than any human interlocutor?
And, in a more radical way, why speak of my affairs, especially of those that
even I myself am ashamed of, to someone who is a sinner like me, and who perhaps
assesses my experience in a completely different way than I do, or doesn't
understand it at all? What does he know is a sin for me? And some add: Does sin
really exist or is it only an invention of priests so that we will behave well?
I think I can answer this last question right away and without fear of being
refuted: Sin exists, and not only is it wrong but it does evil. Suffice it to
look at the daily scene of the world, where violence, wars, injustices, abuses,
egoisms, jealousies and vengeance burst out (an example of this "war bulletin"
is given to us today in the news in newspapers, radio, television and the
Internet).
He who believes in the love of God, moreover, perceives that sin is love that
falls back on itself ("amor curvus," closed love, the medievals said),
ingratitude of the one who responds to love with indifference and rejection.
This rejection has consequences not only in the one who lives it, but also in
the whole society, to the point of producing conditionings and interlacements of
egoisms and violence that become authentic "structures of sin" (think of social
injustices, of the inequality between rich and poor countries, of the scandal of
hunger in the world …).
Precisely because of this, one must not hesitate to emphasize the enormity of
the tragedy of sin and how the loss of the sense of sin -- very different from
that sickness of soul that we call "guilt feeling" -- weakens the heart in the
face of the spectacle of evil and the seductions of Satan, adversary who tries
to separate us from God.
2. Experience of Forgiveness
Despite all this, however, I do not think I can say that the world is evil and
that it is useless to do good. On the contrary, I am convinced that good exists
and is much greater than evil, that life is beautiful and that to live correctly
for love and with love is really worthwhile.
The profound reason that leads me to think this way is the experience of God's
mercy that I feel in myself and that I see shine in so many humble people: It is
an experience that I have lived many times, both giving forgiveness as minister
of the Church, as well as receiving it. I have been going to confession
regularly for years, several times a month, and with the joy of doing so.
The joy stems from feeling myself loved in a new way by God, every time that his
forgiveness reaches me through the priest who gives it to me in his name. It is
the joy I have seen often on the face of those coming to Confession: not the
futile sense of relief of the one who has "emptied the sack" (Confession is not
a psychological relief or a consoling meeting, at least not primarily), but the
peace of feeling well "within" oneself, touched in the heart by a love that
cures, that comes from above and transforms us.
To ask for forgiveness with conviction, to receive it with gratitude and to give
it with generosity is a source of inestimable peace: Because of this, it is
right and beautiful to go to Confession. I would like to share the reasons for
this joy with all those whom I may reach with this letter.
3. Confess to a priest?
You then ask: Why must one confess one's sins to a priest and not do so directly
to God? Of course, one always addresses God when confessing one's sins. However,
that it is also necessary to do so to a priest is something that God himself
makes us understand: In sending his Son with our flesh, he shows he wants to
encounter us through a direct contact that passes through the signs and language
of our human condition.
Just as He came out of Himself for love of us and has come to "touch us" with
his flesh, we are also called to come out of ourselves for love of Him and to go
with humility and faith to him who can give us pardon in his name with word and
gesture. Only the absolution of sins that the priest gives in the sacrament can
communicate the interior certainty of having been truly forgiven and received by
the Father who is in Heaven, because Christ has entrusted to the ministry of the
Church the power to bind and to loose, to exclude and admit in the Covenant
community (cf. Matthew 18:17).
He it is who, risen from death, said to the Apostles: "Receive the Holy Spirit.
If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of
any, they are retained" (John 20:22-23). Therefore, to go to Confession to a
priest is very different from doing so in the secret of one's heart, exposed to
so many uncertainties and ambiguities that fill life and history.
You will never know absolutely if what has touched you is the grace of God or
your emotion, if you have forgiven yourself or if He has forgiven you in the way
He chose. Absolved by the one the Lord has chosen and sent as minister of
forgiveness, you will be able to experience the freedom that only God gives and
understand why going to Confession is a source of peace.
4. A God close to our weakness
Confession therefore is the encounter with divine forgiveness, which is offered
to us in Jesus and transmitted to us through the ministry of the Church. In this
effective sign of grace, meeting with endless mercy, we are offered the face of
a God who knows like no one our human condition and comes close to it with very
tender love.
Innumerable episodes in the life of Jesus demonstrate this to us, from the
meeting with the Samaritan woman to the healing of the paralytic, from the
forgiveness of the adulteress to the tears in the face of the death of his
friend Lazarus. … We have immense need of this tender and compassionate
closeness of God, as a simple glance at our existence also shows: Each one of us
lives with his own weakness, goes through sickness, draws near to death, is
aware of the challenge of the questions that all this poses to the heart.
No matter how much we wish to do good, the frailty that characterizes us all,
exposes us continually to the risk of falling into temptation. The Apostle Paul
described this experience with precision: "I can will what is right, but I
cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is
what I do" (Romans 7:24).
It is the interior conflict from which is born the invocation: "Who will deliver
me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:24). To it responds in a special way the
sacrament of forgiveness, which comes to rescue us always again in our condition
of sin, reaching us with the healing power of divine grace and transforming our
heart and our behavior.
Because of this, the Church does not tire of proposing the grace of this
sacrament to us during the whole journey of our lives: Through it Jesus, true
heavenly physician, takes charge of our sins and accompanies us, continuing his
work of healing and salvation. As happens in every love story, also the Covenant
with the Lord must be tirelessly renewed: Faithfulness is the ever-new desire of
the heart that gives itself and receives the love offered it, until the day that
God will be all in all.
5. Stages of the encounter with
forgiveness
Precisely because it was desired by a profoundly "human" God, the encounter with
mercy that Jesus offers us takes place in several stages, which respect the
seasons of life and of the heart. At the beginning, is listening to the Good
News, in which you hear the call of the Beloved: "The time is fulfilled, and the
kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Gospel" (Mark 1:15).
Through this voice the Holy Spirit acts in you, giving you docility to consent
and believe in the Truth. When you are docile to this voice and decide to
respond with your whole heart to Him who calls you, you undertake the journey
that takes you to the greatest gift, a gift that is so valuable that it leads
Paul to say: "We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God!" (2
Corinthians 5:20).
Reconciliation is precisely the sacrament of the encounter with Christ who,
through the ministry of the Church, comes to help the weakness of the one who
has betrayed or rejected the Covenant with God; he reconciles him with the
Father and with the Church, he re-creates him as [a] new creature in the
strength of the Holy Spirit.
This sacrament is also called of penance, because in it is expressed man's
conversion, the way of the heart that repents and comes to invoke the
forgiveness of God.
The term confession -- used normally -- refers instead to the act of confessing
one's faults to the priest but it also recalls the triple confession that must
be made to live in fullness the celebration of the reconciliation: the
confession of praise ("confessio laudis"), with which we remember the divine
love that precedes and accompanies us, recognizing its signs in our lives and
thus understanding better the gravity of our fault; the confession of sin, with
which we present our humble and repentant heart to the Father, acknowledging our
sins ("confessio peccati"); the confession of faith, finally, with which we open
ourselves to forgiveness that liberates and saves, which is offered to us with
the absolution ("confessio fidei").
In turn, the gestures and words in which we express the gift that we have
received will acknowledge in life the wonders realized in us by the mercy of
God.
6. Celebration of the encounter
In the history of the Church, penance has been lived in a great variety of ways,
communal and individual, which nevertheless have maintained all the fundamental
structure of the personal encounter between the repentant sinner and the living
God, through the mediation of the ministry of the Bishop or the priest.
Through the words of the absolution, pronounced by a man who is a sinner who,
however, has been chosen and consecrated for the ministry, it is Christ himself
who receives the repentant sinner and reconciles him with the Father and in the
gift of the Holy Spirit, renews him as living member of the Church.
Reconciled with God, we are received in the vivifying communion of the Trinity
and receive in ourselves the new life of grace, the love that only God can
infuse in our hearts: The sacrament of forgiveness thus renews our relationship
with the Father, with the Son and with the Holy Spirit, in whose name we are
given absolution from our faults.
As the parable of the Father and the two sons shows, the encounter of
reconciliation culminates in a banquet of tasty dishes, in which one
participates with a new robe, a ring and shoes on one's feet (cf. Luke 15:22f):
images that express all the joy and beauty of the gift offered and received.
Truly, to use the words of the Father in the parable, "let us eat and make
merry; for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found"
(Luke 15:24).
7. Return to the Father's House
In relation to God the Father, penance presents itself as a "return home" (this
is in fact the meaning of the word "teshuva" which the Hebrew uses to say
"conversion"). Through becoming aware of your faults, you realize you are in
exile, far from the homeland of love: You feel ill at ease, sorrow, because you
understand that sin is a rupture of the Covenant with the Lord, a rejection of
his love, it is "unloved love," and because of this is also source of
alienation, because sin uproots us from our true dwelling, the Father's heart.
It is then that we need to remember the house in which we are awaited: Without
this memory of love we would never have the necessary confidence and the hope to
make the decision to return to God. With the humility of the one who knows he is
not worthy of being called "son," we can decide to call at the door of the
Father's house. What a surprise to realize he is at the window scrutinizing the
horizon because he has been waiting for a long time for our return!
To our open hands, to the humble and repentant heart responds the free offer of
forgiveness with which the Father reconciles us with himself, "converting us" in
some way to ourselves: "While he was still at a distance, his father saw him and
had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him" (Luke 15:20). With
extraordinary tenderness, God introduces us in a renewed way in the condition of
sons, offered by the Covenant established in Jesus8. Encounter with Christ, Dead
and Risen for Us
In relation to the Son, the sacrament of Reconciliation offers us the joy of the
encounter with Him, the crucified and risen Lord, who through His Pasch, gives
us the new life, infusing His Spirit in our hearts. This encounter takes place
through the itinerary that leads each one of us to confess our faults with
humility and sorrow for our sins, and to receive forgiveness with gratitude full
of wonder.
United to Jesus in His death and on the Cross, we die to sin and to the old man
that has triumphed in Him. His blood shed for us reconciles us with God and with
others, demolishing the wall of enmity that keeps us prisoners of our solitude
without hope and without love. The force of His resurrection reaches us and
transforms us; the Risen One touches our heart, makes it burn in us with new
faith, which opens our eyes and makes us able to recognize Him beside us and His
voice in which there is need of us.
All our life of sinners, united to Christ crucified and risen, is offered to the
mercy of God to be healed of anguish, freed from the weight of guilt, confirmed
in the gifts of God and renewed in the power of His victorious love. Liberated
by the Lord Jesus, we are called to live like Him, in freedom from fear, guilt
and the seductions of evil, to accomplish works of truth, justice and peace.
9. New Life in the Spirit
Thanks to the gift of the Spirit that diffuses in us the love of God (cf. Romans
5:5), the sacrament of Reconciliation is source of new life, renewed communion
with God and with the Church, of which, in fact, the Spirit is the soul and the
force of cohesion.
It is the Spirit that drives the forgiven sinner to express in life the peace
received, accepting above all the consequences of the fault committed and the
so-called punishment, which is like the effect of the sickness represented by
sin and which must be regarded as a wound to be healed with the oil of grace and
the patience of love that we must have toward ourselves.
The Spirit then helps us to mature the firm intention to undertake a journey of
conversion consisting of concrete commitments of charity and prayer: the
penitential sign required by the confessor serves precisely to express this
choice. The new life to which we are thus reborn, can show more than anything
else the beauty and the force of forgiveness invoked and received always anew
("forgiveness" means precisely renewed gift: to forgive is to give infinitely!).
I ask you, then, why do without such a great gift? Draw near to Confession with
a humble and contrite heart and live it with faith: It will change your life and
give peace to your heart. Then your eyes will open to recognize the signs of the
beauty of God present in creation and in history and from your soul will rise a
song of praise.
And also to you, priest, who read me and like me are a minister of forgiveness,
I would like to address an invitation that springs from my heart: Be always
willing -- in season and out of season -- to proclaim mercy to all and to grant
forgiveness to him who asks it of you and of which he has need to live and to
die. For that person, it might be the hour of God in his life!
10. Let Us Be Reconciled with God
Thus the invitation of the Apostle Paul becomes mine also: I express it by
making use of two different voices.
The first is that of Friedrich Nietzsche, who in his youthful years wrote these
impassioned words, sign of the need of divine mercy that we all bear within.
"Once again, before leaving and turning my gaze on High, remaining alone, I
raise my hands to You, in whom I take refuge, to whom from the depth of my heart
I have consecrated altars, so that every hour your voice will call me again . I
want to know You. You, the Unknown, that you penetrate the depth of my soul and,
like a tempest, shake my life. You who are elusive and yet similar to me! I wish
to know you, and also to serve you" ("Scritti Giovanili," I, 1, Milan, 1998, p.
388).
The other voice is that attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, who expresses the
truth of a renewed life by the grace of forgiveness: "Lord, make me an
instrument of Thy peace: Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is
injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where
there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be
understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love." These are the fruits of
Reconciliation, invoked and heard by God, that I wish all of you who read me.
With this wish, which becomes prayer, I embrace and bless each one of you.
+ Bruno, Your Father in faith