Dear Reader,Something that I find very interesting is how prevalent psychologists, counselors, shrinks, and psychiatrists are this day in age. You can’t watch television anymore without someone consulting a “shrink” as they typically refer to them. They usually are struggling with some sort of interpersonal or intrapersonal issue. Many of them struggle for intimacy, past abuses, lack of forgiveness, guilt, anxiety, or narcissism. These people are always looking for answers; in fact they pay large sums of money for answers and for someone to explain to them what is going on with them and how to fix their problems. Some people stay in counseling for years or even decades. They are constantly struggling to find their path; to find truth. Don’t get me wrong, mental illness is real and deeply painful. Counseling and medication help many afflicted people. I just cannot help but wonder if perhaps the answers they seek are as old as Mankind and rest only in God. Even Carl Jung thought that most people’s problems could be solved through religion.
One of the many brilliant features of the Catholic Church is its understanding of the human person, thanks to God’s continual divine revelation. Who knows us better than ourselves? Who knows what we need? Who knows how to bring us healing? God, and how does he reach us? He reaches us through the Church. What did Adam and Eve do after they sinned for the first time? Two things of real significance for this discussion: First, they hid from God out of shame AND out of fear. Second, they did not look to God for a healing solution rather they wanted to do it themselves. Yes, the old sin of pride getting in the way even then. What do you usually do when you sin? Do you cover yourself out of shame and fear? Fear that God won’t forgive you and fear of reprisal. That’s what sin does. It causes us to feel shame so we run, fear that we are irredeemable, and pride that we can fix it ourselves. After all didn’t we sin out of a desire to be God? We rebuked His laws in that moment or the many moments we sin.
I have been thinking about Confession for a few weeks now because of a sermon my husband heard at what probably will not remain our parish for long. I am not going to name my parish or the person who gave the homily. There are issues we will take up with the parish and bishop ourselves, but I have no interest to point fingers in this blog. Rather, I only wish to discuss the faith and will leave specific instances as generic as possible. Anyway, the sermon was about how we can always fall on God’s divine love no matter what. Very true!!! However, the individual giving the sermon began to imply that Confession was not necessary because God always forgives us. We just have to know that He loves us. I respect my Protestant brothers and sisters with this belief believe me, however, I am Catholic and that is not Church teaching. We believe Confession to be vital for a healthy spiritual life and to repair souls wounded by mortal sin and compounded venial sin.
The Church teaches that Confession is necessary for various reasons. The most common one people think of is that God is upset about the sin and we need to seek forgiveness. On the surface, yes, this is necessary, especially in the case of mortal sin, which kills the soul. There are deep theological reasons for this as well, which I will save for another day. A simple example would be that since God is all good He cannot be in the presence of sin, hence the danger of dying in a state mortal sin. It appears that Christ had more in mind than just seeking God’s forgiveness when he gave His Apostles the ability to forgive sin.
Human beings by nature need to hear they are forgiven and they also need a chance to get things off of their chest. Sin sticks to us like glue. It starts small. We go to Confession and make it home without sinning, but then our spouse says something silly or the kids are loud and we lose our temper. We forget patience. We respond in a nasty way to our spouse; pride. The sins slowly start building and they begin to drag us down. Sin becomes easier and easier the more we do it. That is one of the unfortunate natures of sin. Confession is an opportunity for each of us to meet God as the Divine Psychologist. We go in and tell the priest, who stands as Christ, what we have done and what is burdening us day in and day out. We then hear the priest give us words of advice, wisdom, and encouragement. He then asks us to recite the Act of Contrition and then he absolves us of ours sins through our loving Trinitarian God. It’s gone. Wiped clean and white as snow. Our conscience is cleared and we are able to renew our relationship with God. Why? Because we are no longer hiding from Him in our sin and guilt as our first parents did in the Garden.
For this reason I do not think going to Confession once a year is enough. The Church teaches that we are to go to Confession during Lent or Advent once a year, except in the case of mortal sin. Think about it. A year is a long time and unfortunately for all of us, a lot of little sins build up. That means that we are pulling farther and farther away from God because we are waiting for our one year to be up. I promise you that if you increase your use of the Confessional your relationship with God will increase greatly as will your sense of peace. I like to go once a month whenever possible, while I know others who go once a week. It is a decision that you have to make.
Let’s return the current societal norm of using psychology to solve our woes. Who thought of it first? It was our loving and merciful God who knows that we need a place to confess our shortcomings and come to him for advice and healing. The Roman Catholic Church has been using this practice for 2000 years since Christ left it to His Apostles. I am sorry to break it to those big fans of Freud and psychoanalysis, the Catholic Church has known Mankind’s need for counseling because God told her of the necessity. He knows us better than anyone. He knows the number of hairs on my head and yours.
One of the dangers in the beiging of the Church is the post-modern desire to turn from Confession. I can have my individual relationship with God, I don’t need a priest. Unfortunately for them not only is that not Church teaching it means that the individual has decided to choose what the Church teaches. As Catholics that just isn’t the way it works. The teachings of the Roman Catholic Church are not just ideas the pope and his cardinals come up with while sitting in the Sistine Chapel. No, the Catholic Church teaches that God’s divine revelation continues to this day and that her laws are in fact God’s laws. Something I think a lot of Catholics don’t want to accept this day in age. God loves us and His laws are designed that we may thrive and become the highest level of person possible, or to quote Matthew Kelly “to become the best-version-of-ourselves”. He isn’t a tyrant who is trying to destroy our fun; rather He knows what destroys us and what lifts us up. While corruption has come and gone in the human beings of the Church, the teachings NEVER fail us because they are from God. This thread will come up time and time again. Unfortunately, one of the major issues facing the post-modern Church is the Cartesian infiltration that individual’s set truth. As a Catholic, the Church has given us God’s law which is the only objective truth that exists; my opinion does not change that truth. We’ll come back to this later.
Try going to Confession more often and see how it changes your life. God bless you.
Here is an article I just stumbled upon looking for a picture that discusses this very issue (I borrowed their picture. I hope they don't mind.): http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/02/27/confession/?refid=0
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