A priest hears confession from Pope Francis during a penitential liturgy in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican in this March 28, 2014, file photo. (CNS photo/L’Osservatore Romano via Reuters)
By Father Joshua J. Whitfield
Special to The Texas Catholic
“Hope rather than fear,” St. Thomas Aquinas taught, is the true “cause of confession.” An act of love, confession “gives us life,” he said. It’s a sacrament which “opens the gate of heaven.”
This is nothing else but the peace which Jesus first gave his disciples, the peace which is the gift of his wounds, wounds still upon him even after his resurrection, shame turned to glory (Jn. 20:19-23). And it’s the peace and glory which can be ours if we’ll only show him our wounds. If we’ll only dare go to confession.
This is nothing else but the peace which Jesus first gave his disciples, the peace which is the gift of his wounds, wounds still upon him even after his resurrection, shame turned to glory (Jn. 20:19-23). And it’s the peace and glory which can be ours if we’ll only show him our wounds. If we’ll only dare go to confession.
Talking to young people about confession, I often relate it to sports or to the games they play. Whatever we play, when we begin, we’re usually terrible at it. Clumsy, confused, awkward: we require coaching and those sometimes critical words meant to make us better.
And they are the best players who listen and learn from their mistakes. The best players are those who want to know what they did wrong; they want to learn from missteps or errors. Good players listen to their coaches, even when they’re critical; they watch tape after the game, searching for even the tiniest mistakes they may have made. All because they want to get better and stay in the game. Because they desire excellence.
This is what St. Thomas meant when he said hope was the cause of confession. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is all about staying in the game and even getting better at it. God is sometimes like an old football coach. Sometimes through your conscience, he’ll get on to you, but it’s always for your own good, always because he wants you to stay in the game and get better.
Confession is about learning from your mistakes, and it’s about the grace to keep going. That’s why St. Thomas said this sacrament was about hope, because it’s about the grace and work of our sanctification. It’s about our becoming saints, which as Paul said, is better than any earthly athletic victory, because it’s about winning an “imperishable” crown (1 Cor. 9:25). That’s why we should all embrace this sacrament, because it’s how we’ll turn our shame into glory and how we’ll find peace even in our wounds.
And this is the power of confession. Just after James exhorted Christians to “confess your sins to one another,” in the very next verse he wrote about the prayer of the righteous, which he said was “very powerful” (Jas. 5:16). In the Ancrene Wisse, that medieval devotional text, it says, “Confession puts the devil to shame, hacks off his head and routs his army.” Such is the power of confession. It’s powerful because there’s resurrection in it. Every confession is a little death and a greater rising. Again, it’s about hope and about standing up in this world, stronger than we were before.
This is why the Church invites us to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation. She bids us come to the confessional because she still hopes for us, believing we can still be saints. She still has faith in the peace of Christ’s wounds, and so she still bids us come.
Because only Jesus can give our wounds peace. Only he can transform our shame into his glory. And because it’s a grace that’s always been there, for you.
Editor’s note: As part of its annual “The Light is ON for You” initiative, every parish in the Diocese of Dallas will offer the Sacrament of Reconciliation during two Wednesdays (April 5 and April 12) during the season of Lent. For more information about times offered, visit parish websites.
Father Joshua J. Whitfield is the pastoral administrator of St. Rita Catholic Church in Dallas.
