Confession to a Priest

Q. One of my friends asked me why I have to go to a priest to confess my sins when God already knows what I’ve done. Why can’t I go to Him directly? And she also wanted to know how 10 or 20 Hail Mary’s are going to save me? I wasn’t sure how to answer, so I just said that’s what we believe. What should I have said?

A. I’d say your answer is a good start! Allow me to offer a few brief thoughts.

The first thing to consider is whether or not it is good to go directly to God when we confess our sins. This is most certainly a good idea. In fact, it has always been recommended as a good daily practice just before bed. So I definitely recommend that you examine your day each night and thank God for the good things and ask forgiveness for any sins. Going directly to God each night will undoubtedly help you to grow closer to Him.

But, as Catholics, we also believe that it is essential to regularly confess our sins to God through the ministry of priests. In other words, we believe that when we go to confession and confess our sins we are actually seeking God’s forgiveness, not just the priests. The priest stands as the minister of this wonderful gift of forgiveness.

So why do we do this? For one simple reason. Because we believe it’s what God wants. You may recall in John’s Gospel, chapter 20, that Jesus bestowed the Holy Spirit upon his first bishops, the Apostles, and told them, “who’s sins you forgive they are forgiven them.” Why would Jesus give the Apostles such an incredible ability if He did not want them to use it? Most certainly He had something important in mind when He said this. Jesus’ words and actions always have great significance. By commissioning His Apostles to go and forgive sins we understand that this is the ordinary way that Jesus wants to continue to bestow His forgiveness upon us all. And He did not intend this only for them. Rather, we can see in the Acts of the Apostles and from the earliest times of the Church that this sacred power was passed on from these first Apostles to others. It was passed on to new bishops as well as those who assisted the bishops in the early Church, the priests.

So it’s essential that we, as followers of Jesus, be open to His gift of forgiveness in the way that He chooses to give it to us. Since He is the source of forgiveness, He can choose how to give that gift to us.

As for 10 or 20 Hail Mary’s, I assume this is a reference to the penance that priests may give after confession. This is a wonderful practice to help us realize that just because we have been forgiven we have most likely not completely conquered our attraction to sin again. We need continued prayer and penance to do this. So whatever penance a priest gives is intended to help the person overcome future tendencies to sin in the same way again

So what should you have said? I think your answer was good in that it is difficult sometimes to give accurate answers to all the different questions that arise in our life of faith. When you are not sure what to say then it may be best to simply say, “this is what we believe.” But when this happens you are given a great opportunity to look deeper into the question so that you can have a better understanding of why you believe what you do.

(Taken from Catholic Q &A)

Answers to previous five queries

Should I Confess My Past Sins?

Why Confession? 

What is an Indulgence? 

Losing Faith in God? 

Do things go bad if we forget God?

Should I Confess Past Sins?

Q. I am 64 and continually go back frequently and recall previous sins that may have occurred 30 yrs ago and wonder if I had confessed them. What should I consider going forward?

A. It is a good idea when we are confessing our sins to a priest to add, after we have finished saying our most recent sins, something like “And for all the sins of my past life”“And for any sins which I may have forgotten.”  This is not to say that we can purposefully leave sins out of our confession or can leave them vague and undefined. Making these general statements is just acknowledging the weakness of human memory. We are not always sure if we have confessed all that our consciences’ bear, so we throw a sacramental blanket over past or forgotten behavior through the above statements, thus including them in the absolution the priest grants us.

Perhaps your question also includes a bit of concern over whether past sins, even sins of the rather remote past, have been truly forgiven if we can still remember them. Let me address that concern briefly.Sacraments have a purpose. Memory has another purpose. The Sacrament of Confession is not a form of brainwashing. It doesn’t pull a plug at the bottom of our brain and drain all of our memories out. We sometimes remember our past sins, even our sins from many years ago. The trace images of past sinful events that remain in our memory mean nothing theologically. Memories are a neurological or psychological reality. Confession is a theological reality.

The confession and absolution of our sins is the only form of time travel that actually exists. Despite all of the creative ways that authors and screenwriters have attempted to convey the ways in which we could go back in time, we can only do so theologically. The words of absolution of the priest extend backwards in time. Because the priest is acting in the person of Christ at that moment he is acting with the power of God, who is above and outside of time. God created time and does bend to its rules. So the words of the priest drift into the human past to erase the guilt, but not the punishment, due to sinful behavior. Such is the power of those simple words “I forgive you.” Who has ever gone to Confession, confessed their sins, asked for absolution, and then was told “no?” It doesn’t happen. If you confessed your sins they were forgiven. They may yet exist in your memory because you are human. But they don’t exist in God’s memory. And, finally, if the memory of past sins is bothersome, though they have been confessed, keep in mind that alongside of the memory of your sin there should be another memory equally vivid – the memory of your confession. That happened too!

(Taken from  Catholic Q & A)

Answers to previous five queries

Why Confession? 

What is an Indulgence? 

Losing Faith in God? 

Do things go bad if we forget God? 

How can we become Saints?