Judas Iscariot, seeing that Jesus had been condemned to death, went to the Temple to dispose of the unlawful money for which he had sold his Master. Arriving there, shrouded in darkness and filled with despair, he said to the chief priests: “I have sinned in betraying innocent blood.” And those perfidious ministers simply replied: “What is that to us? See to it yourself” (Mt 27:3-4). Judas then threw down the coins, left the holy place and hanged himself.
Oh, Judas! Did you not have as your Master the Redeemer who takes away the sin of the world? Why did you not run to Him, rather than to perdition? How it pained the Heart of Jesus to see the one who had lived for three years in the school of His love mistrust His forgiveness and cast himself hopelessly among the damned!…
Now, this same Jesus, despised by the traitor, awaits each one of us in the confessional to grant us the torrents of His forgiveness. Will we also say “no” to Him?
Sinners by nature, penitents by grace
Forgiveness. A beautiful and moving word, a divine power and a real need for men. Who does not need forgiveness? With the absolute exception of Our Lord Jesus Christ and, morally, of Mary Most Holy, every man is sinful by nature as long as he is a pilgrim in this vale of tears because, although Baptism erases the original stain from the soul, it does not free it from the weaknesses and concupiscence that incline it to sin.1 Sin, once committed, distances the soul from God and makes a subsequent conversion to Him imperative, which involves all the more sorrow the greater the distancing. And this pain characterizes a virtue that is little considered but very necessary for us defectible creatures: penance.
It is generally accepted that the word penitence is derived from the Latin pœnam tenere, which means to have pain or sorrow, to feel sorry; or from pœnire, which means to penalize or punish oneself for personal sins committed.2 Penance, as a supernatural virtue, is infused by God in the soul and is aimed at making reparation for the offences committed against Him through sorrow and repentance.
Acknowledging the wrong done can be the fruit of an act of rational honesty, or a realization resulting from punishment, as happens with a murderer who regrets his crime, not because it was an evil act, but because he was imprisoned for it.
As far as the supernatural order is concerned, “not he who wills to repent does so, but he whom God mercifully wills to repent,” 3 since no sinner has the right to the grace of repentance and could never attain it by his own strength. And it is because this is a divine work that the tears of compunction have written some of the most beautiful pages in history, beginning with Adam, passing through David, reaching a moving peak in St. Mary Magdalene and extending to the most diverse penitent souls whose humility has shone in the eyes of God and the Angels over the centuries. To this day, the Church has never ceased to echo and nourish the spirit of contrition in her faithful, in the supplications for forgiveness and mercy that abound both in the Liturgy and sacramental rites and in private prayers in general.
St. Mary Magdalene, penitent – St. Augustine Convent, Quito (Ecuador)
God, who denies His grace to no one, touches the soul of the sinner, making clear to his darkened eyes the horror of the offence committed against Him. Coming to his senses, the penitent loathes the faults he has committed, wishes to correct his bad conduct and depraved habits, and is encouraged by the hope of obtaining forgiveness. This is interior penance. When the sorrow of the soul and the forgiveness granted by God are manifested, then we have external penance, elevated by Christ to the rank of a Sacrament.4
Tribunal in which God is vanquished
Each of the seven Sacraments has a matter which, together with the form, constitutes the sensible sign of the grace it produces. In the Eucharist, for example, we have bread and wine; in Baptism, water; in the Anointing of the Sick and Confirmation, blessed oils. In the Sacrament of Penance, we have the “removal of a certain matter, which is sins,”5 which takes place through the priest’s words: “I absolve you…”
As seen in the previous article, Our Lord Jesus Christ instituted the Sacrament of Penance when, breathing on the Apostles after the Resurrection, He gave them the power to forgive sins: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (Jn 20:22-23).
Now, how can it be known whose sins to forgive and whose to retain except by judgement? How can a correct judgement be passed except through a process? In fact, Penance has the character of a judicial tribunal, where the priest plays the role of judge and the penitent that of defendant pleading guilty of his crimes; this is because no one other than God and the person himself can penetrate the interior of the conscience. It is owing to the accusatory nature of this Sacrament that it is often called Confession.
Confession thus constitutes a true tribunal of mercy, in which the contrite and properly disposed defendant always wins the case, and is always acquitted. In fact, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1)! Thus, humble acknowledgement, together with asking for forgiveness, overcomes the God of all justice, making Him a God of compassion.
Conditions for validity
For the Sacrament of Penance to be valid, three acts are required of the penitent: contrition, confession and satisfaction.
Sins always occur through thoughts, words or deeds – and these also include omissions. Therefore, it is necessary that God be appeased by the same faculties: by the understanding, ordered by contrition; by words, purified in confession; and by deeds, repaired with the fulfilment of satisfaction, that is, the penance imposed by the priest.
Of all the dispositions of the subject, the most necessary is contrition. The verb conterere means to crush something solid. In the spiritual realm, it designates the pain of the sinful heart crushed with remorse for the offence it has committed. When the soul possesses perfect contrition, it detests its sins specifically because they constitute an offence against God – which accounts for its entirely supernatural character – and this obtains forgiveness for the faults committed even before they are declared in the confessional, provided there is the intention of doing so at the earliest opportunity. On the other hand, repentance out of mere fear of punishment, called imperfect contrition or attrition, is sufficient to obtain forgiveness of sins in the tribunal of Penance, but not outside it.
Furthermore, the intention not to sin again is a necessary consequence of good contrition.6 Those who are truly repentant firmly resolve to abandon all occasions that lead them to sin, even if this involves sacrifices, such as the loss of goods, friendships or prestige.
Those who, in Confession, do not make a firm purpose of amendment for their sins, or do so half-heartedly, maintaining their attachment to sinful vices, are, according to St. John Chrysostom,7 playing the role of an actor: they pretend to be a penitent, when in reality they are the same sinner as before. The intention to make amends must therefore be firm, energetic and effective. Both it and contrition must have universal scope, because it is not a question of avoiding this or that type of sin, but of rejecting any and all sin as an affront to the Creator.
Examination of conscience… and much faith and trust
In order not to omit a serious fault due to forgetfulness or the anxiety of the moment, an examination of conscience should first be made, which consists in diligently analysing and scrutinizing the recesses and hiding places of one’s conscience in order to remember any faults with which one has mortally offended God. Venial sins are also matter for Confession, and the Church recommends that they be declared. It is advisable to write the sins down, so that nothing escapes accusation, thereby affecting its perfection.
Confession is made to a priest, who acts in the Person of the Saviour, representing Him at the same time as Judge, to whom the Father has “committed all judgement” (Jn 5:22); as Physician, who must apply the appropriate remedy to the weaknesses of the sick soul; as Divine Teacher, in instructing and correcting the penitent; and finally as Father, who did not come to call the righteous, but sinners (cf. Lk 5:32).
Consequently, it is in a spirit of faith and trust that the sinner must approach the confessional.
Venting or accusation?
Why must sins be said? This is a question that puzzles many.
Vocal confession is a salutary remedy against pride, the root of all evil. Moreover, even from a human point of view, accusing oneself of something relieves and facilitates reconciliation, as the saying goes: “Good accounts make good friends.” In the Sacrament of Penance, the accusation of faults is not an act imposed by a third party, but a voluntary act on the initiative of the penitent.
And how does one accuse oneself?
“The confessional”, by David Wilkie – National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh
Confession is not a venting of life’s difficulties, nor is it an opportunity to gain the priest’s attention so as to put oneself in the centre; it is not a justification of sins or an accusation of someone else’s faults… It is an accusation of one’s own faults.
St. Thomas Aquinas8 lists sixteen qualities that the accusation should have. For the spiritual benefit of our readers, without entering into all of them, we will go over the most important ones.
By divine right, the confession must necessarily be complete, that is, all mortal sins must be accused, with the circumstances in which they were committed, when these aggravate or attenuate the malice of the acts or change their kind. For example, in the case of theft, the quantity and quality of the object must be mentioned, as well as the dignity and condition of the person who was robbed; when there is discord, whether slight or serious, it must be stated who was hurt physically, morally or spiritually, whether a stranger or a brother; or, in the case of adultery, it must be specified whether the sin was committed with an unmarried, married or consecrated person, because these circumstances change the species of the sin.
To consciously omit what should be said is to abuse the sanctity of the Sacrament and to squander the opportunity to be reconciled with God, because this renders the Confession invalid and makes the penitent the culprit of a greater sin: sacrilege.9 How sad it will be when, on the Day of Judgement, the soul finds itself condemned and what it dared not accuse itself of in the secrecy of the confessional is laid open to the eyes of all!… It will then be too late. It is therefore a terrible thing to allow oneself to be entangled in the accursed web of shame in which the devil always tries to bind sinners.
In addition to being complete, the accusation should be simple, without elaborate words or useless digressions. In a word, it is enough to be sincere, presenting sins as one’s conscience shows them, without omissions or exaggerations.
The accusation also needs to be clear, not whispered to the point where it becomes inaudible, or uttered so hurriedly so that it becomes incomprehensible. “We are sometimes inclined to seek pardon on easy terms, without going so far as to make a lying Confession,” Dom Columba Marmion accurately pointed out.10 To do so would be “to deceive oneself, to profane the Sacrament and to find poison and death where Christ wanted to place medicine and life.”11
Finally, it is important to remember that Confession is not an interrogation. The priest can ask as many questions as necessary and penitents are free to air any doubts of conscience. However, they should go prepared to accuse themselves of their faults and not simply wait to be questioned about them.
Peace restored and sealed
Having confessed his sins, the penitent accepts the words of the priest and then fulfils the penance he has imposed, usually some kind of prayer or other satisfactory work. What is the reason for this penance?
With sacramental absolution, God forgives sin and changes the eternal penalty into a temporal one, which is paid in this world or in Purgatory. Sacramental penance, a constitutive element of Confession, helps to satisfy this penalty and purifies the soul of the “remnants of sins”.12
Finally, after a well-made Confession, when the priest raises his hand to make the sign of the Cross and pronounces the sentence: “I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,” no matter how serious the crimes committed, everything is pardoned forever! Oh, if only we could see the unspeakable miracle that takes place! “The soul […] kneels disfigured by sin and rises clean and justified. […] Peace is sealed between the sinner and God, between the Creator and the creature!”13
“The Confession”, by Marie-Amélie Cogniet – Fine Arts Museum of Orléans (France)
Purified by the Blood of the Lamb
How pleasing is the fragrance of cleanliness! But much more desirable is the aroma of an upright conscience, of a crystal-clear soul that does not store up “old sins”, but as soon as it becomes aware of a fault in itself, rushes to wash it off in the salutary bath of regenerating Penance!
It is in this Sacrament that the Blood of Jesus, as from the height of the Cross, flows over our souls to purify them, with all the power of redemption;14 it is through it that we are strengthened against the snares of the devil and our evil inclinations; it is in it that we rekindle or increase the divine life within us.
Therefore, let us be sure to have frequent recourse to this most excellent source of grace and forgiveness! And if by chance we are tempted to despair over so many great faults, let us remember: there are a multitude of Saints who would never have reached Paradise if Our Lord had not instituted the Sacrament of Forgiveness in the Church. By throwing ourselves with humility, love and confidence into the arms of the Saviour and His Blessed Mother, we will be saved and numbered among those who have washed and whitened their robes in the Blood of the Lamb (cf. Rv 7:14). ◊
Notes
1 Cf. DH 1515.
2 Cf. ROYO MARÍN, OP, Antonio. Teología Moral para seglares. 5.ed. Madrid: BAC, 1994, v.II, p.257.
3 Idem, p.267.
4 Cf. THE ROMAN CATECHISM. Part II, c.5, n.4; 10.
5 ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. Summa Theologiæ. III, q.84, a.3.
6 DH 1676.
7 Cf. MORTARINO, Giuseppe. A Palavra de Deus em exemplos. São Paulo: Paulinas, 1961, p.132-133.
8 ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. Summa Theologiæ. Suppl. q.9, a.4.
9 Cf. THE ROMAN CATECHISM. Part II, c.5, n.48; ROYO MARÍN, op. cit., p.342.
10 BLESSED COLUMBA MARMION. Jesus Cristo, ideal do sacerdote. São Paulo: Lumen Christi; Cultor de Livros, 2023, p.126.
11 ROYO MARÍN, op. cit., p.338.
12 Cf. THE ROMAN CATECHISM. Part II, c.5, n.59.
13 CORRÊA DE OLIVEIRA, Plinio. Hediondez do pecado e beleza da confissão [The Hideousness of Sin and the Beauty of Confession]. – II. In: Dr. Plinio. São Paulo. Year IX. N.102 (Sept., 2006), p.13.
14 Cf. PHILIPON, OP, Marie-Michel. Os Sacramentos da vida cristã. Rio de Janeiro: Agir, 1959, p.169.
