Looking back at the weekly messages of Father Paul Counce, first published in The Carpenter, our weekly Parish Bulletin
Published: November 24, 2019
As I sit down to write this column, I have just finished hearing confessions before daily Mass. It’s something I do a lot of. While some priests complain that few people celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation, I can’t do that. It’s a major part of my daily liturgical ministry.
Now I know what some of you are think already? What? “Liturgical” ministry? What’s he talking about? But I am choosing my words carefully. Like the other sacraments of the Church, the Sacrament of Penance, also called Reconciliation, is more than anything else worship: as the Catechism of the Catholic Church notes eloquently in its art. 1111:
“Christ’s work in the liturgy is sacramental: because His mystery of salvation is made present there by the power of His Holy Spirit; because His Body, which is the Church, is like a sacrament (sign and instrument) in which the Holy Spirit dispenses the mystery of salvation; and because through her liturgical actions the pilgrim Church already participates, as by a foretaste, in the heavenly liturgy.”
While in many ways we’re correct to think of the meeting between priest and penitent in confession as a human encounter, in reality it – like all of the other sacraments – is an action of Christ Himself. It is He who imparts the Holy Spirit of forgiveness, and thus enables salvation for the weak. He allows us already here on earth to be one with Him, something that will only come to fullness in eternal life.
As a result, as the priest, I usually feel pretty humbled. It is a rare privilege to be trusted so much by others, especially with their deepest and yes, darkest, secrets. Virtually every penitent is looking for me to embody Christ for him or her, so I feel it a weighty responsibility to try to be kind, understanding, helpful and most of all reassuring.
That doesn’t mean that hearing confessions isn’t boring. Most of the time, to be honest, it is! There really aren’t many new sins that humanity hasn’t already discovered, and most of us simply struggle with the “same old, same old” temptations all our lives long. Plus, folks who come to confession are pretty much already real believers, good people who come to church and do their best to live Christian lives. Really evil people don’t go to confession! So “just being there for sinners” in the Reconciliation Room is the kind of steady, always-ready-to-forgive attitude I have to have.
It is frustrating when people are too hard on themselves in confession, often out of scrupulosity. Imperfections are not always mortal sins: those are deliberate rejections of God that merit eternal separation from Him. Sins of habit, for example, are not mortal. Emotional outbursts are not. And true “sins of omission” (what I like to think of as the “coulda, woulda, shoulda done” sins!) can’t be either. Let’s face it, many mistakes are just minor, due to accident, circumstance or emotion, or done with good and not evil intention. They are sins, but venial ones, forgiven by God when virtually any purposeful, praiseworthy act of prayer or charity is then accomplished.
Sacramental reconciliation shines best when truly death-dealing decisions have been embraced by the lost soul: I always hope that those sinners work up the courage to trust Christ Jesus – and come early enough to be close to the front of the line! In each diocese canon law requires the bishop give at least one priest his own special faculties to absolve even “reserved” and other very grave sins; here in our diocese that’s the pastor of the Cathedral Parish, me. I try to take that responsibility seriously, offering once again my availability in the confessional as much as I can.
Trust in the Lord, for He is reaching out to you!
Very Rev Paul D. Counce
