To Grow Closer to Jesus

I knew my penance was too light to cover my sin before I left the confessional, but I didn’t fully understand what had taken place until later. I had prepared for Confession by examining myself and knew I was guilty of serious sin. I was ready to confess to the priest and encounter a hard penance. God knew I was contrite, and soon the priest did, too. He also knew I was confirmed at Easter but had been a protestant Christian for almost fifty years.

I understood I should go to any neighbor hurt by my venial sins and had already done so. But what actually happened in the confessional astonished me, though it shouldn’t have. By reading the entire Catechism more than once, I knew I deserved a harsh penance, yet I expected a bit of leniency and bit of instruction from the priest. After all the Catechism does spell out precisely how the penitent and the confessor should act and react (CCC 1450-1470). I played my role well, as did the priest. I entered the confessional feeling as though I was teetering on the brink of hell and exited with the “joy of my salvation” returned. (See Psalm 51.) That’s how it’s supposed to work, and it did.

In the church, I kneeled for my penance. The priest, who spent considerable time with me heard confessions for an hour and a half and then quickly prepared for Mass. His perseverance was not lost on me nor was the fact that listening to me for as long as he did cost him his preparation time, yet he said Mass with his same usual enthusiasm—the kind of verbal excitement a priest can’t contain when he’s head-over-heels in love with Jesus, as he obviously is.

I bumbled the receiving of the Eucharist, as usual. Lost in thought, I forgot a priest can’t read my mind. But after the Mass, I did light a candle and pray for my confessor. I also added his name to my rosary prayer-intentions: a list of five special men. The ever-diligent priest was standing with a man at the back of the church, talking softly, as I slipped out the heavy church door—forgiven.

I made the connection between human forgiveness and the forgiveness of God, as Jesus prayed in the prayer we commonly call “Our Father” (Matthew 6: 9-15), and, citing a personal example, told the priest I did try to forgive. I was, however, asking all the wrong questions. I had long known, just as the Catechism says, that “only God can forgive sin” (CCC 1441). But when? Deep in the night, when the sinner first acknowledges her transgression and says so to God, or in the confessional, when the priest speaks in God’s stead?

In focusing on the when, I totally missed the how.

No bell rings in the confessional as it does in the Mass, but the change is really the same. The confessor, acting in persona Christi, changes in his dialog from third to first person. From this point on, the confessor is, for all practical purposes, Jesus, and because the priest is Jesus, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, according to Apostolic succession (CCC 1576), he has the power not only to forgive sin, but also to bear it. The priest—who let me off with an easy penance and joyful reconciliation to God and the Church and was happy to do so—did penance for me. (CCC 1466)

My sin hurt God and cost Jesus His life. It hurt the Church, but I found it especially sobering, and highly instructive, to realize that my sin was also very costly for a real, human man, who sat in the chair across from me and took my penance without saying a word. Talk about being Jesus. Only that priest and God know how costly my sin truly was. And to think, I hadn’t even noticed that part of the Catechism!

I cannot repay my confessor, who knew and agreed to his role when he took his vows as a priest. He wouldn’t want me to, but he would want me to grow up as a member of the Body of Christ and to learn to “bear one another’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2). And that’s really the point: I, too, am a member of “the royal priesthood” in the general sense (I Peter 2:9). I, too, have a responsibility toward others. Of course, my role is different; I’m part of the laity, but growing up means I must learn to act in priestly ways by serving others and giving to those who cannot repay me.

I became Catholic to grow closer to Jesus. For me, the Eucharist was a given. I personally had believed in transubstantiation for many years, so waiting to take Jesus—Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity—into my own body was so totally beyond frustrating that after my First Communion, I wept in sheer relief. Receiving the Eucharist is as truly glorious as I thought it would be, but the transition to thinking like a Catholic with respect to forgiveness and reconciliation has proven itself more difficult. I know Christians are not responsible for concepts they do not understand, but I am neither a child nor a new Christian. Probably as old as my confessor, I need to grow quickly as a Catholic. I also must be sensible as I set up my self-expectations, which is, of course, part of the reason the priest let me off so easily.

Born a sinner—baptized, forgiven, and destined to become a beloved friend and sister of Jesus Christ—I am still my own worst enemy, yet what joy it is to know that I can freely choose to give and to help increase the Kingdom of God. My plan is, to add a second daily rosary: a baby step, I am sure. This is my hope, not a vow. Nothing to grieve over or confess, if I miss a day for whatever reason—See, I was listening—but hopefully a step toward responsible, mature Catholic living. My prayerful intentions for this rosary are for all living priests, who bear more than they will ever admit, and especially for those priests whose souls are in purgatory, those faithful men, whose time on earth is gone, can never pay me back.

I am writing this essay in obedience to scripture but prompted by events that occurred during Sacred Tradition’s Sacrament of Reconciliation. “One who is being instructed in the word should share all good things with his instructor” (Galatians 6:6). So thank you, Father AJ, for helping me understand even more than I’m saying. May God bless you, O gentle, obedient confessor. I will love you forever. I won’t use a rosary as a talisman (but will live by faith.) I do believe “…in the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.” I think my actions—my sins and my works for the Kingdom of God truly matter. I want to choose Jesus.