Confessing our sins is hard.

Satan doesn’t want us doing it, so he makes us feel uncomfortable. Not with our sins, but with the thought of admitting to them out loud. To a person. He persuades us to postpone our visit to the priest again and again, until finally we’re convinced we don’t need to go at all.

Thus the devil wins.  We lose God’s precious friendship, and if we've committed a mortal sin we put our souls in eternal danger. We ignore His call to come back, no matter how grave the sin we’ve committed. We miss out on His Divine Mercy, which is only available before we die. After that comes judgement.

It takes real courage to fight against the Evil One and step into that confessional. 

The Humility Aspect 
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Our disposition when speaking to God should always be one of total humility, in recognition of His Goodness and our fallen nature, and of Him as Our Creator.

People tell me that they can talk to God directly and don’t need the mediation of a flawed human being. This reasoning allows them to side-step the uncomfortableness of a physical meeting, thereby avoiding the humility that Confession entails.

Is it easier to confess aloud to a living human being or privately to God? It takes a great deal more humility to do so person-to-person than to have a conversation in one’s head. And how often does a person really confess their sins without a nudge from Holy Church to do so?

During Confession, I am talking to God. The priest is acting in persona Christi, like the Apostles, the first priests.  “If you forgive anyone's sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven. (John 20:23).” See also Matthew 16:19 and 18:18.

Many think that Confession gives Catholics a clean slate to sin again. But the opposite is true: the more often we go to Confession, the less likely we are to sin. Confessing to a priest takes great humility, and that humbling experience is a very strong deterrent against sinning in the first place.
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You can’t say that of those who don’t frequent the confessional.

You’re not that Special 
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Proud beings that we are, we worry about scandalizing the priests with our sins and are afraid they’ll look at us differently once we’ve confessed them. But our sins are not original: the priest has heard them all before. None of us is that special.

And, as an appointed minister of Christ, the priest’s job is not to keep a running tab on our misbehavior. He forgets it as soon as confession is over, just as Christ does (remember, the priest is in persona Christi).

Although each of us is important in God’s eyes, we need to remember that we are also part of God’s plan for salvation and fulfill our role by following His Will not ours.
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But God is not looking to crush our freedom and make us feel bad. What He wants is for us to live the fullest life possible. This means ridding ourselves of our sins, and Confession is the sacrament He gave us for doing it.

​The Amazing Takeaway 
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There is a deep peace that comes from admitting one’s imperfections to Someone higher than us, Who understands us better than we understand ourselves.

Christ said of the woman who anointed His feet: “Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven--as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little" (Luke 7:47).

The worse our sins are and the more we appreciate our unworthiness before God, the greater will be our love for Him because of His incredible forgiveness. Some of the greatest saints started out as the greatest sinners. God’s Mercy is unfathomable, but it is there for all of us, if we reach out to Him with repentance in Confession.

It is impossible to describe the sheer joy of receiving absolution in the confessional. I feel an overwhelming sense of Christ’s love when I come away from my encounter with Him. I am once more in friendship with Him and often cry from the sheer happiness of it. Many of my friends have the same reaction. As a forgiven person, I want to try my best not to sin anymore and ‘to avoid the near occasions of sin.’

The worst feeling in the world for me - as a Catholic who was away from the Church for over twenty years - is to lose my sense of being in friendship with Christ. If I sin grievously, I instantly lose that precious gift and need to repair it as fast as I can. Thankfully my local church takes confession before every weekday Mass, and I am able to quickly restore my relationship with God and receive the Eucharist.


As Father Phil Bloom writes in his great article on Confession:
“Some people have considered confession to be a kind of "psychiatry for the masses." Carl Jung … speculated that the confession of sins accomplishes much of what psychiatry does. …..(But) the sacrament of penance is not about feeling better, it is about receiving the Holy Spirit.”

And only the promptings of Holy Spirit give us the courage to go through with it.

Further Reading:
 
What Is the Sacrament of Confession?
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Confession of Sins

Happily ignoring God’s law and pursuing my own, I was a lapsed Catholic for several decades. Then I became a mother.

As often happens to those of us who stray from the Church, I recognized my son as a gift from God. He needed to be raised in the faith and God was calling me home.

But my progress was painfully slow. Had He truly forgiven me for my past transgressions?

There’s Gotta Be a Catch! 

We assume that God’s love has limitations, like ours.

It’s hard for us to grasp the concept that He is Perfect Love. St. Faustina tells us that His “mercy is endless and the treasury of (His) compassion inexhaustible” (Diary, 950).

But in order to receive God’s mercy we must ask for it. This means humbly accepting that we aren’t perfect and acknowledging our sins.

Yes, sin does exist! It’s as real now as in the past even though Satan has done a great job of persuading the world that sin is an old-fashioned religious hang-up that modern man can safely ignore. Not so.

Refusing to acknowledge our sinfulness means we're too proud to ask for God’s mercy, and are therefore unable to receive it. As Our Lord told St. Faustina:

“The greatest misery does not stop Me from uniting myself to a soul, but where there is pride, I am not there” (Diary, 1563).

The Practical Path to Forgiveness, Healing & Help

The surest way of obtaining forgiveness is by going with a truly contrite to hear Confession, where the priest is in persona Christi. It is Jesus Himself who is listening to you.

This Sacrament is also a powerful tool against Satan:

“First, do not fight against a temptation by yourself, but disclose it to the confessor at once, and then the temptation will lose all force” (Diary, 1560).

We aren’t alone in our battle against the devil. God wants us to rely on His help, and the aid of His Mother and all the Saints.

“Second, during these ordeals do not lose your peace; live in My presence; ask My Mother and the Saints for help. Third, have the certitude that I am looking at you and supporting you” (Diary, 1560).

Temptations are not a test sent by God to see if we are strong enough to overcome them alone. They are a chance to prove our fidelity to, and trust in Him.

“Fourth, do not fear either struggles of the soul or any temptations, because I am supporting you; if only you are willing to fight, know that the victory is always on your side. Fifth, know that by fighting bravely you give Me great glory and amass merits for yourself. Temptation gives you a chance to show Me your fidelity” (Diary, 1560).

Christ gives us the strength we need and makes up for our deficiencies, as long as we appeal to Him for help. 

Trust Is Hard! 

No sin is unforgivable, save despair of God's forgiveness if we ask Him for it.

“My mercy is greater than your sins and those of the entire world” (Diary, 1485).

God’s Perfect Love forgives us, if we repent and are sincere about mending our ways. 

And if God has forgiven us, how arrogant of us to say we aren’t forgiven! How much that hurts Christ, who told St. Faustina:

 “..My heart is even more wounded by their distrust after a fall” (Diary, 1532).

In her beautiful Conversation of the Merciful God with a Despairing Soul St. Faustina records the following words of Jesus:

“My child, all your sins have not wounded My Heart as painfully as your present lack of trust does – that after so many efforts of My love and mercy, you should still doubt My goodness” (Diary, 1486).

It is deeply troubling to Christ when we are embarrassed by our failure to be perfect and refuse to believe that He can forgive us yet again. Our pride becomes our stumbling block.

We are not each allotted a ‘lifetime limit of forgiveness.’ If we humble ourselves and come with trust to Jesus asking for forgiveness over and over again, He will give it over and over again without reserve. 


His mercy really is endless!

“He who trusts in My mercy will not perish, for all his affairs are Mine, and his enemies will be shattered at the base of my footstool” (Diary, 723)

“The graces of My mercy are drawn by means of one vessel only, and that is – trust. The more a soul trusts, the more it will receive. Souls that trust boundlessly are a great comfort to Me, because I pour all the treasures of My graces into them. I rejoice that they ask for much, because it is My desire to give much, very much. On the other hand, I am sad when souls ask for little, when they narrow their hearts” (1578)

So we should be willing to “ask for much” mercy.


No matter what we have done, God will forgive us if we confess our sins and ask for mercy. Under those conditions, He will give us a clean slate, and peace in our hearts – every time.

Remembering our blemished past helps us remain humble, but we shouldn’t let it prevent us from accepting God’s forgiveness. He came into the world not to condemn us, but to save us (John 3:17).

If You Don’t Believe in the Sacrament of Confession

Many people think that Confession (the Sacrament of Reconciliation) is a convenient way for Catholics to obtain forgiveness for sins which we fully intend to commit again after confessing them. They perceive Confession as our carte blanche to sin without fear of consequence, because God will forgive us anyway.

This is not at all what the Sacrament means!

For someone to receive forgiveness, he or she must be contrite (regret having committed the sin) and have every intention of not committing that sin again. Otherwise they are not forgiven.

In fact, they are in a worse position than if they hadn’t gone to Confession, because it was done under false pretenses. God is unimpressed by white-washed sepulchers.

Our previous parish priest exhorted us to look up, not at the ground. 

If we persist in staring down, that’s where we’re going to end up. Elevating our thoughts towards Heaven prevents us from becoming despondent and downhearted.

He's so right! When things go horribly wrong in my own life, I shuffle along feeling sorry for myself, with hunched shoulders and bowed head. Everything is doom and gloom.

What a different story when I lift up my head, straighten my shoulders and meet life head on! The physical act of standing upright brings with it a sense of determination and purpose.

Then we pray to God for help and He gives us the strength to deal with the difficulties life throws at us.

On One’s High Horse

It’s the same when you’re on a horse. No matter whether you’re riding dressage or jumping, you need to sit up straight and look ahead.

With dressage this means looking at the letter you're aiming for in a particular movement. For jumping, it means looking over the fence, not at it. You don’t want to land on the obstacle, you want to clear it. 

In both scenarios we mustn't look down, or that's where we’ll end up!

What Happens When We Fall?

When we first learn to ride, we think that not falling off makes us good riders and we're proud of ourselves.

But then comes the day when we take a tumble. The longer it has taken that day to come, the harder it is to shake off the experience and get back on the horse.

Some people never do. I often hear stories from friends about how the day they fell off a horse was the time they rode. They never got back in the saddle – they didn’t want to take the chance of falling off again.

How sad! They've missed out on so much fun.

I’ve fallen off more times than I can remember. Some of those incidents were physically painful, others just bruised my ego. Even though I never want to, I get back on the horse straight away, if I'm physically able.

If not, I would have to brand myself a coward for life. That would be way more painful.

I’m not naturally courageous. If you follow my horse blog posts, you’ll see plenty of occasions when I’m nervous and it takes a lot to get me going again. My horse, Cruz Bay and I have taken some dreadful tumbles, and it isn’t easy to get over them.

I have to work at avoiding the errors which led to those falls and not give up when I mess up. 

The Christian life requires the same attitude. 

Be Perfect as Your Heavenly Father Is Perfect

That is one tough challenge, isn’t it? Who can live up to that?

Riding has taught me that I will never be the perfect horsewoman, but I still strive to become that person. How much more vital is reaching for perfection in the Christian life!

Sadly for many, the seeming impossibility of attaining this goal is so discouraging that they don’t even try to reach it. Or maybe they work hard for a while, feel they’re making progress, then become despondent when they fall into sin again. 

Having sinned once more, they've proved they’re not perfect. So they may as well commit another, and another, until they are much further from the goal than when they started.

Christ talks about this when he mentions the man whose house is swept clean when the demons are removed. But when the man is not truly committed and doesn’t replace those demons with good living, many more come back into him than were there in the first place (Luke 11:24-46).

A Reason to Give Up?

Does that mean that it's hopeless trying to be good?

Of course not!  Christ died on the cross to make up for our deficiencies and grant us mercy when we fail: He walks with us in the good times and the bad.

If we fall into sin, we must sincerely repent and ask Him for forgiveness then pick ourselves up and walk again in the paths of righteousness.

We will fall into sin, time and time again. Way more often than the average rider falls off a horse!

Follow Your Passion

But if Christ is our passion, we get up, dust ourselves off with a healthy visit to the confessional, and resume our spiritual course. If we love Christ, we’ll be quick to apologize to the One Whose mercy is endless and Whose compassion inexhaustible.

Christ reaches out His hands to us every time we fail. 

We then mustn't sin further by refusing to trust in His mercy and forgiveness, or equate Christ’s limitless reservoir of forgiveness with the pitiful puddle that is our own version of it.  

Falling Must Lead to Getting Up

Being human, we expect to fall. Being a Christian means getting up from a fall - again and again and again.

That is where Catholics are fortunate: we have the Sacrament of Reconciliation and hear the words of the priest in persona Christi absolving us of our sins. We can receive a fresh start as often as we need it.

And for those of us who feel that we might as well take a tape recording of our sins and press ‘play’ for the priest at every confession, because the sins are always the same: would you rather have more to confess than you already have?

We must keep battling with our sins, and get up again and again and again for the rest of our lives.

Then we can truly call ourselves Christians.

God has a wonderful gift for us this Lent.

Sadly many of us will refuse to open it, and eye it instead with suspicion. But God affords us the opportunity to learn about His gift before accepting it. 

And then we have two choices:

a)      accept God and be happy - forever
         or
b)      reject God and live in misery - forever.

Doesn’t it make sense to check that gift out?

What Is This Gift? 

Even if you don’t make to the end of this post, go to http://fathersloveletter.com/ and watch the video. Its message is uncomplicated and beautiful. 

And it describes the Gift.

You will meet a God who desires to lavish His love on you. A God Who is your Father, and wants you to know that you were not created in error or by accident. You were created by Him on purpose and for a purpose. You are His child - if you accept Him as your Father.

Abba, Daddy

If you have, or are around children, you’ll understand how wonderful it is when they reciprocate your love.

But how do you feel when they turn their backs on you, because you’re ‘old-fashioned’ and ‘don’t know anything’? 

It’s tough, isn’t it, to watch rebellious children head for disaster because 'they know best’? As youngsters we may have been down that road ourselves, and know from experience that it leads to destruction.

If only our children would heed us, and stay on the right path, how much better their lives would be!

God feels the same way when we insist He is ‘old-fashioned,’ ‘doesn’t understand us’ and is therefore 'irrelevant' to the 21st Century.

But when we turn from our godless ways, come back to Him and follow His commandments, God rejoices that we have chosen His gift. Confession is a wonderful way to start accepting His gift this Lent.

(Aren't we thrilled when our children abandon their reckless ways and apologize to us?)

Just as loving offspring heed their parents because they don’t want to hurt them, we as children of God obey Him because we don’t want to upset Him. We want to be His ‘special treasure:’

“Now if you will obey me and keep my covenant, you will be my own special treasure from among all the peoples on earth; for all the earth belongs to me.” (Exodus 19:5). (My italics.)

Whatever We Ask...

Note the 'if you will obey me' above. God needs our co-operation in order to shower us with His blessings.

When children are disobedient, destructive, anti-social and selfish, do we encourage this behavior by granting them their every wish?

Of course not!

In the same way, God will not reward bad-living by granting sinful wishes.


To obtain His help, we first need to repent of hurting Him, work on changing our bad habits and destroy unhealthy attachments. This will lead to our wanting the right things.

Then:  “…. whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight” (1 John 3:22). (My italics.)


Through His commandments and Holy Scripture, together with the Sacraments and teachings of the Church, God Our Father offers us a step-by-step guide for right living, so we can be with Him in heaven.

He even sent His Only Son to set us the example of right living!

God waits for us with love and longing. Will we use His guide this Lent and let Him lead us, His children, to our redemption through His Son this Easter?

Further reading: 

If you still need convincing to become a child of God now, here is a powerful and sobering testimony!

http://www.markmallett.com/blog/the-seven-seals-of-revolution/#more-4958