Angelus News | January 14, 2022 | Vol. 7 No. 1

Four Cs for a good confession
1. BE COMPLETE. Don’t leave any serious sins
out. Start with the one that’s toughest to say.
2. BE CLEAR. Try not to be subtle or euphemistic.
Father should understand what sin you’re confessing.
3. BE CONTRITE. Remember, it’s God you’ve
offended, his forgiveness you seek.
4. BE CONCISE. No need to go into detail. Often
when we do, we’re just trying to make excuses for our
behavior. There may be people in line behind you.
Don’t make them wait!
He spoke of the sacrament not so much as a duty of the
faithful, but a right: “In faithfully observing the centuries-old
practice of the Sacrament of Penance … the Church is …
defending the human soul’s individual right: man’s right
to a more personal encounter with the crucified forgiving
Christ.”
This was certainly a fresh approach — confession as a right
that is not to be denied to God’s people.
But that’s not his most startling point. He also defended
the sacrament as a right that belongs to Jesus. He said, “This
is also a right on Christ’s part with regard to every human
being redeemed by him: his right to meet each one of us in
that key moment in the soul’s life constituted by the moment
of conversion and forgiveness.”
So, in preaching about confession — and in making
confession accessible — the Church is doing more than
dispensing justice. It is enabling love.
In his next encyclical, “Dives in Misericordia” (“Rich in
Mercy”), these themes came even more to the forefront.
Once again, he emphasized the connection between Eucharist
and confession, which are the only sacraments a Catholic
can receive frequently. Pope John Paul urged Catholics
to take up a “conscious and mature participation” in both. In
the Eucharist, he said, Christ comes “to meet every human
heart.” But it is confession “that prepares the way for each
individual, even those weighed down with great faults.”
The pope arranged for the 1983 Synod of Bishops to
address questions of “Penance and Reconciliation in the
Mission of the Church.” The following year he devoted his
apostolic exhortation, “Reconciliatio et Paenitentia” (“Reconciliation
and Penance”), to the findings of the synod.
Then, in 1986 on Holy Thursday, he published a letter to
all the priests of the world; and in it he recounted what he
had learned in his 1947 pilgrimage to France.
He told the story of St. John Vianney, and he urged all
priests to imitate the holy Curé in making themselves available
for confession.
But he also spoke with sadness about the decline in the
practice of confession. He declared that there was an “urgent
need to develop a whole pastoral strategy of the sacrament of
reconciliation.”
“This will be done,” he said, “by constantly reminding
Christians of the need to have a real relationship with God,
the need to have a sense of sin when one is closed to God
and to others, the need to be converted and through the
Church to receive forgiveness as a free gift of God.”
The matter would remain urgent for him to the end of
his days. To the U.S. hierarchy he spoke of the problem as
a “crisis,” which had become “a challenge to the Church’s
fidelity.”
At stake, he said, “is the whole question of the personal
relationship that Christ wills to have with each penitent and
which the Church must unceasingly defend.”
Many years have passed since he made those pleas; and
the crisis remains. A 2008 study conducted by Georgetown
University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate
concluded, “Three-quarters of Catholics report that they
never participate in the sacrament … or that they do so less
than once a year.” Only 12% go once a year. Only 2% go
once a month or more.
What the situation requires of us — especially the laity — is
a commitment to an active apostolate. We need to be like
that lady at the conference. We need to go to confession —
and then go to our family members, co-workers, and neighbors,
saying, “There are no lines. You can go right in!”
So many people are out there hurting and wounded — and
we’re standing around with a pocketful of medicine that can
heal them.
It doesn’t work for us to say, “Hey, you look like a sinner.
Maybe you ought to try confession.” But we can surely speak
from our own experience. We can tell them why we go. We
can tell them about our own healing.
Pope John Paul wasn’t afraid to let the world know he went
to confession every week. He wasn’t afraid to invite others to
join him in the practice of frequent confession.
We can do this, too.
Mike Aquilina is a contributing editor to Angelus and author
of many books, most recently “Friendship and the Fathers:
How the Early Church Evangelized” (Emmaus Road Publishing,
$22.95).
If it’s been a while . . .
If you haven’t darkened the doorway of the confessional
in years, don’t worry. Our Faith is big on
welcoming prodigal children home. But don’t delay
any longer. Just go. You might even want to make
an appointment with your parish priest, so you can
spend a little more time, without worrying about
holding up the line.
And let Father know at the start that it’s been
a while, and that maybe you’re not sure how to
proceed. Also, if you’re nervous, say so. The point
of the sacrament is mercy; and the more the priest
can dispense in the name of God, the merrier the
occasion should be.
January 14, 2022 • ANGELUS • 13