HOW TO MAKE A GOOD CONFESSION—Second Sunday of Lent

Homily given by Fr. Dennis Koliński, SJC

St. Peter’s Church, Volo

17 February 2008

Last Sunday, I spoke about the anatomy of sin—an outline of the process by which we sin. Today, I would like to present a very practical nuts and bolts homily on how to make a good Confession; a “how to” tutorial, you might say.

Some of you, however, might be thinking that something like this isn’t particularly necessary in a good traditional parish like St. Peter’s in Volo where we are blessed with a lot of regular confessions. However, I spend hours in the confessional here and I can assure you that it is very necessary. And because Lent is a time for reassessment and correction, it seemed like the most appropriate occasion.

The reason this subject needs to be addressed is threefold. First of all, there are those, who for one reason or another have somewhat forgotten how to go to Confession. Secondly, there are a fair number of adults, who although they may go to Confession fairly regularly, do not make as good a Confession as they could. And lastly, an extremely important consideration. Upon coming to St. Peter’s, I was frankly very surprised at how many children, who came to me for Confession, did not seem to quite know how to make their confession. I had to walk them through the process, step by step. Some of them didn’t even know the Act of Contrition. This tells me that they were not adequately prepared prior to their First Confession and the problem with this is that once they make their First Confession and First Communion, the chances that they are going to learn these things are small. Mom and Dad think that little Johnny knows what he’s doing, and of course they don’t go into the confessional with him, so they aren’t going to give him any further training. And little Johnny has already achieved the goal he had set out for, First Communion, so he isn’t going to have any incentive to learn. It’s just plain human nature.

The first matter at hand is the actual form of the ritual. What is a person supposed to do in the confessional? The sacrament of Confession allows for individual variation and a person is not necessarily obliged to strictly follow a single form, but on the other hand, if one follows the traditional pattern, all of the necessary parts will be there and it will generally be a better confession.

It has been a tradition to begin the confession by saying something like: “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” In this manner, the penitent immediately places himself in the proper frame of mind: “Lord, I am a sinner and have come to you to ask forgiveness.” The penitent then must tell the priest how long it has been since his last confession—a part that many of the young people skip over. “Father, it has been such and such time since my last confession.” In addition, it is also a very commendable practice to tell the priest what your state in life is, so that he can know better what kind of counsel he might have to give you. It should go something like this: “I am a married man with children in my thirties.” That’s sufficient. There is no need to give any further details that may indicate your identity. But with this the priest already has a much better idea who he is dealing with and how he can potentially help the penitent.

The next part is the actual confession of sins. “My sins are the following.” This is sometimes another problematic area for some people. There are certain sins that people are often embarrassed to admit, even anonymously in confession, so they will sometimes be very general in how they confess them. You might say something like: “I sinned against purity,” but this could be anything from fleeting impure thoughts, a venial sin, to adultery, a grave mortal sin. Canon Law, however, states: “a member of the Christian faithful is obliged to confess in kind and in number all serious sins.”[1] That means that you must confess all mortal sins by stating what they specifically were and how many times you committed them, or at least the frequency, if you can’t remember the exact number. And even though it is not strictly necessary to confess venial sins, Canon Law recommends this practice”[2] because by openly admitting all of one’s sins, however small they are, it is a means by which a person will generally be more open and willing to correct those faults.

When some people finish confessing their sins, they just stop. If their confession was somewhat belabored and they tended to pause occasionally as they recalled their sins, it’s sometimes difficult for the priest to know when the person has actually finished—or is he just pausing again to think of his next sin. That’s why it’s always a good idea to tell the priest that you don’t have anything further to confess; something like this: “ These are all the sins I can remember, Father,” or “I ask forgiveness for these sins and all the sins that I may have forgotten.”

At this point, the priest may choose to give the penitent some counsel in reference to the sins confessed. After he does so, he will then give a penance and ask the person to recite the Act of Contrition. This is one aspect of the Sacrament of Confession that needs a lot of work. By the time a child makes his first confession, he should have the Act of Contrition firmly “under his belt” because once he can slip by the first couple confessions with a little help from Father, he’s probably not going to put his nose to the grindstone and get it solidly memorized. Again—human nature. And it doesn’t help that the warped educational methods of recent decades have severely downplayed or negated the value of memorization. But, unfortunately, that’s what I’m encountering in far too many confessions with the children of our parish, as well as with some adults, who have been away from the Church for some period of time.

There are a couple variants of the Act of Contrition but it’s important for everyone to know it by heart. Every so often someone will instead make up their own prayer on the spot or use the Jesus Prayer, “O Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.” There’s nothing inherently wrong with either of these, but in my opinion, the Act of Contrition is by far the best because it unambiguously contains all of the elements that are necessary for a valid confession on the part of the penitent, which those other two forms don’t have—i.e., contrition for sins, willingness to perform penance, and a resolution to avoid sinning again. “O my God, I’m heartily sorry for having offended Thee, … I firmly resolve with the help of Thy grace to confess my sins, do penance, and amend my life.”

Finally, the priest pronounces the words of absolution, thoroughly wiping away all of the person’s sins. Each priest has his own specific way of ending the confession and many of you may have wondered what that triple knock on the confessional wall is that you hear when you have come to me. It’s nothing more than an old Polish custom that I became accustomed to when I would go to confession in Poland during the years I was doing my graduate study there. The triple knock, a sign of the Trinity, simply signals that the confession is over.

It’s good to have a refresher every so often, especially for all of those people, who over the last few decades didn’t receive proper catechesis. And this topic is particularly important during this time of year because Lent is our annual retreat and Confession should be an integral part of every retreat. Be sure to avail yourselves of this great sacrament many times during these weeks of Lent, taking advantage of the abundant graces that flow from the sacrament every time you approach Christ’s seat of mercy in that confessiona