Growing up Roman Catholic in a small town in Upstate NY, confession with a priest was a weekly ritual. In the 1960’s, you couldn’t go to communion unless you had confessed and said your “penance” of Our Fathers and Hail Marys. Times have changed and now that I am an Episcopalian, it appears that in most congregations a public confession is more of an annual and optional custom during Lent, even among my Roman Catholic friends.
Of course, we are always encouraged to make private confessions directly to God where we admit our humanness and acknowledge how our sins have caused us to stray from Him.
It is difficult that our culture demands perfection and the shame and guilt from falling short continues to circulate in our heads even after many years. We’d like to forget, but we can’t, and the burden of shame continues to multiply in our mind.
But God’s intent is not to have us perpetually trapped in these feelings of inadequacy. We read in 1 John 10:
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.”
It seems that confession leads straight to forgiveness and purification from evil.
Maybe that was the value in a public confession to the priest. It was a personal examination of our life and our love for God. Once spoken and acknowledged by another, the burden was lifted from us to be forgiven forever.
We don’t have to dwell on the past sins, instead we can use them for instruction both for ourselves and for others. In Philippians, Paul recognizes his past and details his impressive Jewish heritage, but he boasts only to show his hearers how little it means. He doesn’t agonize over his past of persecuting Christians as Saul, instead, he looks to the future and his hope in Christ.
“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus..- Philippians 3:12-14
The past is the past, we don’t have to re-live our sins over and over again. After confession to God we start life anew in a closer, more intimate relationship with Him as we look forward to an eternity with our Lord.
And that is Good News for this Lenten season! May your confession to God release you from the bondage of past imperfections and bring a renewed life for you in Christ.
Blessings, my friend,
Agatha