Making a Good Confession

By Miss Kade


So I've been reading Scott Hahn's "Lord, Have Mercy." It's all about his thoughts and observations on the sacrament of penance. I started reading it a week or two ... I'm almost done now. I'm realizing there is a LOT that goes into this sacrament. It's nothing to gloss over and as this is one of the major differences from my non-denominational days, its something I need to be very attentive of.

I'm really trying to figure out what goes into making a "good" Confession. Mr. Hahn says one of the best ways to do that is to know what doesn't make it a good Confession. He outlines some very good points for the not-so-great confessions.

One of the biggest trademarks of a poor confession: withholding the truth, or the full truth. We are so tempted to brush our offenses under the rug, minimize them as much as possible. But then we don't really receive the fullness of the sacrament then, now do we? We can't possibly, because we only get out of it as much as we put into it. And if you're not truly confessing, you can't truly receive the grace that comes from the confessing!! What a waste of our confessor's time, and of our time really.

I have to stop for a second, I used the word "offenses." That is huge! When I was studying Opus Dei (which I need to get back into, I'm not sure I don't want to be a little devotee just yet!), I was obviously reading a lot of St. Josemaria Escriva's writings. One of the biggest things I noticed about his language was that he referred to sin, not so much as "sin," but more as "offenses against our Lord." Wow! Never really thought about it with that terminology, but it makes so much more sense. I'd like to get rid of the word "sin" altogether. It's such a vile, nasty little thing. It can become such a barrier with its connotations between us and our God.

It's like "sex"... let's just stop calling it sex. Instead, let's call it what it is, "baby-making!" If you aren't prepared to make a child together, forget it for that night, because that's what you're doing! Instead of using the word "sin" so much in talking about our sins, I think we should start using the phrase "offending our Lord" a lot more! That is what we are actually doing! It cuts out the wedge that stands between our evil desires and our Lord altogether. It chokes the life out of making it just about ourselves and our bad nature. It is, at the very least, between us and God. BOTH are involved.

So when we are pouring out our instances where we have deeply offended our Lord, our beautiful Savior, to our confessor, we shouldn't hold anything back. We're dealing with the One who loves us most, and He deserves nothing less than our complete and total surrender. The grace will flow in only if we pour ourselves out.