Snapd
ragon
THE
P RTAL
December 2015
Page 5
The experience
of Confession
T
he pew shuffle. Don’t you just love it? Personally I try my best to avoid it and find an
opportunity for confession that doesn’t involve enduring the experience of the doctor’s
waiting room, sliding closer and closer to the box until the traffic light equivalent of the
receptionist’s announcement informs me, ‘Doctor will see you now’!
That said, I hope that during the
upcoming Year of Mercy my queuedodging becomes more difficult as
more and more bottoms polish more
and more pews as they slide towards
the sacrament of reconciliation.
Pope Francis is urging us to “place the Sacrament
of Reconciliation at the centre once more in such a
way that it will enable people to touch the grandeur
of God’s mercy with their own hands” (Misericordiae
Vultus 17).
“In such a way…”. Those words suggest that it is
possible to celebrate and avail oneself of the Sacrament
of Reconciliation in such a way that it is something listened to the sins which troubled my conscience and
other than a profound experience of God’s mercy. That without unduly castigating me for them, nor reasoning
certainly chimes with my personal experience.
them away, assured me of God’s forgiveness and my
reconciliation with him.
As penitent, I have approached confession as the
fulfilment of an obligation I have as a Catholic; as
What the Year of Mercy needs to yield is not just
something I have to do to be a “good Catholic”; as more confessions, but more good confessions, on the
an insurance policy against something really nasty part of penitents and priests; a sacramental practice
happening to me for all eternity if I fall off a cliff reflecting a more adequate understanding both of
tomorrow. I have walked away feeling relieved, sin and mercy. Out of the Year might profitably come
satisfied, even smug. At times I have managed to a greater appreciation that sin is not just about a
approach confession as an encounter with a merciful breaking of God’s law, as though the law were an end
God, a gift of his grace and a way back to him, and in itself, but a relational act, a break in the God-man
walked away renewed, joyful and thankful.
relationship; that morality is not blindly following a
set of rules because we have to, but because we want to
I have encountered differing approaches to the as followers of Jesus Christ.
sacrament in the priests who have heard my confession.
Some raked me over the coals rather legalistically and
When the Prodigal Son comes to his senses, he does
then coldly transacted the business of absolution; so not in relation to an impersonal law, but in relation
others very kindly made excuses for my sins and left to his Father: “Father, forgive me, for I have sinned
me wondering why I had bothered to go to confession against heaven and against you.”
at all and whether the Church actually believes in sin
any more. Neither seemed much like a reflection of the
The Jubilee Year might also lead us to a truer sense
face of a merciful Father.
of mercy not as an excusing and condoning of all
human behaviour, but as “the ultimate and supreme
The priests in whom I have glimpsed the face of act by which God comes to meet us [and] the bridge
divine mercy – and thank God for them - are those who that connects God and man, opening our hearts to the
have restored my faith both in sin and in a God who hope of being loved for ever despite our sinfulness”
is quick to forgive it. They are the ones who attentively (MV 2).
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