Transcript

We live in a culture that, as Cardinal Francis George said, Permits everything and yet forgives nothing.

And so it is.

People despair of being forgiven and feel compelled to deny their guilt.

Yet the desire for reconciliation is embedded deep in our broken hearts.

We are willing to confess our sins publicly on television or on social media.

And in this cacophonous lament, we are longing for absolution.

The truth is, we've all sinned: against ourselves, against each other, against God.

God in Christ reveals that his mercy does not abandon us to guilt, but calls us like Lazarus to come forth from the grave of our sin and find in his forgiveness the chance to live again.

In the sacrament of reconciliation, God's merciful plan gives us a living encounter with his presence, which is forgiveness, which is mercy.

Through the ministry of the church, we hear the very voice of Christ declaring, Go in peace.

Your sins are forgiven.

We now come to the two great sacraments of healing.

So th- the three initiation sacraments; baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, draw us into Christ.

They incorporate us into Christ.

Then the second two heal us when that relationship is compromised.

You know, we're all very different in this room.

Different backgrounds, different educational histories, different ethnic backgrounds, et cetera, et cetera.

But there's one thing we all have in common in this room.

We are all sinners.

As Chesterton said, We're all in the same boat and we're all seasick.

Right?

So, let's face it.

Our relationship with Jesus becomes, through our own, um, rebellious freedom, sometimes compromised.

We stay away from the source of life and grace.

And so we need to be healed.

I like this from, uh, Flannery O'Connor.

She said that her stories, which you know are very strange.

They often involve these weird twists and turns and macabre events.

She said, My stories are about the offer of grace, usually refused.

So, that's the human condition, isn't it?

God offers his grace, his love, his relationship, and very often we refuse it.

And so we need a sacrament of healing.

You know, I remember years ago when I was reading some of the great spiritual teachers, and they would talk about the power of mortal sin.

And they would say, When you commit a mortal sin, all three persons in the Trinity leave your soul.

Well, I always had this image of the three persons of the Trinity kind of like Victorian matrons.

You know?

I am, I am getting out of here immediately.

I'm so offended.

Well I, I mean, I get what they're trying to communicate by that image, but I, I think that's getting it backwards.

It's not as though God so deeply offended, you know, leaves the soul.

Mortal sin is our leaving of a right relationship with God.

Our turning away from the source of life.

Think of you know that beautiful psalm about the, the deer that yearns for flowing streams.

Well, flowing streams, that's the grace of God.

And, and we, we yearn to drink from them, but, but perversely in our freedom, in our twisted freedom, we turn away from those sources.

And it always breaks the heart of God.

And God wants us back in right relationship, hence this sacrament.

You know, if I might propose some other analogies for, um, especially mortal sin, a very serious, uh, sin.

Uh, there might be some golfers in the room.

I, I'm a golfer, and like 99% of amateur golfers, I'm terrible.

So I'm always trying to get better, and, and we all read these books.

They do no good, by the way.

But we all read these books of how to improve your golf swing.

There's a famous one by Jim McLean who was a famous golf teacher, and he shows these diagrams of the swing, you know?

What you're supposed to do.

But then he has what he calls death moves.

That means if you make like that move, and he puts a skull and crossbones over the illustration, that means you can't recover.

You might strike the ball, but it is not gonna be a good shot.

There are certain moves in golf that are just repugnant to hitting a good shot.

Are there some moves that we make in the spiritual order that are just inimical to the divine friendship?

Yeah, there are.

Or you know, change the metaphor.

You go see your doctor and you say, Doctor, I don't know, I'm just, I'm not feeling right.

And he says, Well, tell me about, you know, your lifestyle.

And you say, Well, you know, I smoke four packs of cigarettes a day and I eat mostly fast food and, um, I never exercise.

Well, what's he gonna say to you?

You're making death moves here, friend.

I mean, you're, you're just making moves that are repugnant to physical health.

So why are we surprised that the church speaks indeed of mortal sins?

Certain things that we do that are simply at odds with the divine friendship.

Ways that we move away from the source of life.

That's why we need a special sacrament of healing.

A special sacrament of reconciliation.

It's a lovely word, by the way, isn't it?

Cilia in Latin means it's the eyelashes .

to be reconciled, it means to be eyelash to eyelash again.

See, sin is a looking away from God.

I'm gonna look somewhere else, and that's good, isn't it?

I'm gonna look to wealth, or look to power, or look to whatever.

Be reconciled, eyelash to eyelash with God.

What's confession?

Reconciliation, but the privileged means by which Christ reaches out to forgive the sins of His people.

And see, who could doubt that the forgiveness of sins was central to Jesus' ministry?

You know, Fulton Sheen said that, that, that He came for one purpose.

Y- y- yes, He's a teacher, and, and so on and so forth, but He came really for one purpose, and that was to forgive our sins.

When they asked GK Chesterton, How come you became a Catholic?

He said, To have my sins forgiven.

.

Do you know what I mean?

That's what Jesus was finally about.

Listen, to the, to the paralyzed man, My son, your sins are forgiven.

To the woman caught in adultery, Go and sin no more.

To the disciples on Easter night, breathing on them, he said, Receive the Holy Spirit.

If you forgive men's sins, they are forgiven.

If you hold them bound, they are hell bound.

And perhaps most importantly, Take this, all of you, and drink from it.

For this is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant.

It will be shed for you and for many, for the forgiveness of sins.

At the source and summit of the Christian life, at the high point, at the Eucharistic moment, we're talking about the forgiveness of our sins.

So, here's a troubling question, everybody.

How come so many of us Catholics are staying away from this sacrament?

Now, it's not true across the board, but looking at the mainstream culture in our country, the sacrament of reconciliation has fallen off the table.

Was there any warrant for that in Vatican II?

No.

On the contrary.

But somehow in the years after the council, and it's the years I was coming of age, confession, the practice of confession seemed to fall off the table.

That can't be a happy development in the life of the Church.

Here we are, all of us sinners, all in the same boat, all seasick.

I remember years ago, I was invited by a priest friend of mine to help at a reconciliation service, right?

So, they're gonna gather the people in-church for a whole service, then we'd hear confessions.

So, he got, I think six of us, to come.

And we came out with our albs and stoles.

There were seven people in the church.

So, there was very intense treatment we were able to give each of these.

But the following Sunday, I remember I came to that parish to say mass.

And at the, at the beginning of my homily, I said, I must say I was so thrilled, uh, to be associated with this parish because there are no sinners here.

It is the most amazing parish.

Come on.

Come one.

This great sacrament of reconciliation, Jesus reaching out to share His life with us, to restore us to life.

Why are we staying away in droves is a good question, seems to me.

You know, here's something, uh, a Chicago priest from many years ago, Father Andrew Greeley used to say, and I think he's, he was right about this.

Whatever Catholics drop is inevitably picked up elsewhere in the culture.

Uh, I think that's a, that's a correct principle.

And where do you see it?

Look at this.

We tended to f- to stay away from confession.

Look how confession is all over the culture.

How many TV shows involve people basically confessing their deepest and most private sins to, to doctors and to talk show hosts?

Or all the judge programs, you know, Judge Judy and all of her progeny.

Well, what are people doing there, but they're bringing their, their sins for judgment.

W- we drop this great sacrament, it'll be picked up elsewhere because it corresponds to a very deep, uh, need in us.

Okay.

Now, let me get at the heart of the sacrament by looking at our issue of matter and form.

Now, I've not been s- spending a lot of time with that because in the other sacraments it's more obvious.

You know, so the, the matter of eucharist, you have the, the bread and the wine.

The matter of baptism is the water, et cetera.

Right?

What's very interesting in this sacrament, what's the matter?

What is the matter?

.

What's, what's the matter involved in the sacrament of reconciliation?

Here's the interesting answer of the Church.

The matter is the contrition, confession, and satisfaction of the penitent.

Let me say that again.

The matter or the stuff, if you want, of the sacrament is the contrition, confession, and satisfaction of the penitent.

That's accompanied by the words of, of, um, of absolution.

That's the form.

But the matter is the penitent coming forward contritely, confessing his or her sins, and then seeking satisfaction.

And I wanna talk just briefly about each one of those three moves.

What's contrition?

Maybe we use that term.

We still have the act of contrition we speak of, right?

Well, contrition comes from a Latin word, contritio, which means to crush, to crush.

To feel contrite is to feel crushed under the weight of my sin, to feel the deep regret- of my own sin.

Now, tough I realize everybody, in a culture that exculpates itself all the time.

Do you know what I mean?

That it finds excuses all the time.

I'm okay and you're okay, I mean, everyone's fine.

Ehh, that's, that's running counter to authentic contrition, the sense of being crushed by my sin.

If I'm just blase about it, I'm not feeling contrition.

You know what's part of that too, by the way?

To use more classical language.

The firm purpose of amendment.

If I'm really contrite about my sin, that means I, I'm gonna resolve as firmly as I can to amend my ways.

If I don't have that firm purpose of amendment, I'm not really contrite.

I'm kind of playing at contrition.

You know, we speak in the church of perfect contrition.

What's that?

That's a sinner who feels the weight of his or her sin and wants to do something about it sheerly out of love for God.

Knowing simply this is an offense to God, and it, it breaks my heart that I'm, I'm out of step with God.

And so I, I make a perfect act of contrition.

Suppose I feel the weight of my sin because of the trouble it's causing me or my fear of punishment.

Well, that's not a perfect contrition.

That's what the church calls attrition.

Now, that's okay.

You can, you're gonna approach the sacrament with that attitude.

You know, hey, I, I, my sin is really causing me a lot of suffering and, and I'm afraid of the punishment that might come from it.

That's okay.

You can come to the sacrament with that.

It's a somewhat mitigated contrition.

We talk about, in the spiritual tradition, servile fear and filial fear.

What's servile fear?

Th- that's the fear of a slave th- that's gonna be punished by his master, right?

What's filial fear?

That's the feeling of a son or daughter, vis-a-vis the father.

It's not the, the fear that the slave would have of punishment, it's that sort of brokenheartedness.

Well, that's what the church wants, but, but even servile fear, don't, don't despise that.

That can bring you to confession.

The second element.

So, first there's contrition, then there's confession of sins.

So, we know this, that everyone is obliged to confess all of the mortal sins that he or she has discerned since the last confession.

What's a mortal sin?

A sin involving serious matter, full engagement of the mind, and full engagement of the will.

So, it's something serious, not a little peccadillo, something serious, and I fully knew it, I knew it was wrong, and I fully willed it anyway.

When those three things come together, we're dealing with what the church calls mortal sin.

A death move if you want, something that's repugnant to the divine friendship.

I'm obliged in confession to bring this forward as much as I can.

Notice how the priest, the confessor, is checking some of these things.

How come the priest makes you pray the active contrition or, or some version of it?

He's trying to see, well, are you really contrite?

How come the priest says, um, if, if you've neglected to mention it, How long since your last confession?

Why is that an important move?

Well, 'cause he has to judge whether this really is a good confession.

So, someone says, Hey, bless me, Father, for I have sinned.

It's been a one week since my last confession.

Well, you expect a certain type of confession then, right?

Hey, Father, it's been a year since my last confession.

Or, and I've had this, Father, it's been 50 years since my last confession.

Someone says, Father, it's been 50 years since my last confession.

Okay, go ahead.

Well, I guess I've been mean to my wife a couple times.

Um, and you know what?

That's about it.

I'm a good person basically.

That's it?

That's 50 years?

Come on.

Come on.

What I often do in the c- in, in those situations, and I do have them when people have been away for a long time, I might say, Hey, let's, let's walk through the 10 Commandments together.

Let's walk through each one and then see how you're doing.

Or how about the seven deadly sins?

Let's go through those and see how your, your life is going.

A lot of people don't, they don't know how to examine their conscience.

They haven't done it for a long time.

So, the priest is trying to determine, do you have contrition?

And then have you really confessed, uh, your sins?

Last one, satisfaction.

This is when the priest will assign some penance to you, right?

Sin is not just a matter of me and God.

It hasn't involved just myself and the Lord.

It always involves the church.

It always involves other people somehow.

If I've stolen something, the priest probably will say, Can you, the best you can, uh, give that back?

You've hurt a relationship.

Do the best you can to heal it.

Address the problem.

Redress the wrong.

That's satisfaction.

Now, often it takes the form, and this is okay, of saying some prayers.

So, the priest might say, Pray the rosary.

Pray a decade of the rosary.

Pray And boy, he's a tough confessor this guy.

Uh- but that's just a sign of your satisfaction.

Contrition, confession, satisfaction are the matter of confession.

Now, what's the form?

And, you know, it's, it's something I- I just find very beautiful to think about.

Um, I learned these words when I was in the seminary.I was taught confession practicum by the man who's now the Archbishop of Milwaukee, uh, Archbishop Jerry Listecki.

But he was the professor of- of moral theology at Mundelein.

And he said, Okay, guys, y- you gotta memorize these words 'cause you'll be using them for the rest of your life.

God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of His Son, has reconciled the world to Himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins.

Through the ministry of the Church, may God grant you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from all your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Mind you, I've not just absolved your sins.

I just wanted to share with you that beautiful form of the sacrament.

If the matter is in place, contrition, confession, satisfaction, then those beautiful words that restore people to the divine friendship.

You know, a- and e- you can tell, I- I've got them graven in my mind because you never know.

It- it's one of the great things about being a priest is, sure, there's times when you have an appointment or you're in the church for confession, but, you know, I- I travel a lot and I'm often going to give a talk or something, so I have my- my collar on in the airport.

And you'll be surprised the number of times, Hey, Father, can you hear my confession?

And, again, I'll give him credit, Archbishop Listecki, when we were learning this many, many years ago, he said, If someone asks you the question, 'Hey, Father, can you hear my confession?' what's the answer?

Yes, always, without exception, even if it puts your life in danger.

Now, I was 25 years old when I heard that.

I- I remember it to this day.

I believe it to this day.

Someone asks, Hey, Father, can you hear my confession?

That's the answer, Yes, even if it puts your life in danger.

Concomitantly, Jerry taught us this too.

Jerry, Bishop Li- Archbishop Listecki.

Uh, someone asks you, Hey, what did that person just tell you in confession?

The answer is, Even if it puts your life in danger.

By the way, a few months ago here in California when this law about, uh, about the seal of confession was being discussed, that's why it roused people like me and many others to speak out, 'cause I remember that very vividly.

The answer is always yes when someone asks you.

The answer is always, Even if it puts your life in danger.

Why?

Because we take it that seriously.

We take it that seriously.

The restoration of friendship with Christ, what's more important?

Gorman Sullivan, you speak as though the sacraments are the most important things in the world.

They are the most important things in the world.

And this is one of the most important moments, the restoration of the divine friendship.

And that's why the Church surrounds this sacrament with such extraordinary care.

You know, another, um, story I love here is, um Oh, I- I was- I was getting to there, wasn't I, with the, uh, w- wearing my- my collar in- in public.

Um, so I'm at the airport.

This is at O'Hare many years ago.

And O'Hare Airport, you know, what's going on?

A blizzard, right?

So, the planes are all delayed.

And so a guy comes up to me and, uh, Hey, Father, could you hear my confession?

Jerry Listecki.

Yes.

And so, confession.

Well, then another person comes up.

Hey, Father, I saw you're hearing confessions.

Do you mind?

Uh, No, no, I don't mind.

Go ahead.

Well, then a third.

And before I knew it, I looked up at one point, there's a line forming- at Gate 27 at O'Hare, you know.

Good, good, good.

I like that.

That's a lot better than, Hey, you know, I come for a reconciliation service, and seven people show up.

We should recover the power of this.

Okay, just a couple more things.

I'll bring it to a close.

Uh, the famous question, the famous question, Hey, Father, you know, hey, Bishop, can't I just confess my sins to God directly?

Well, sure you can.

Yeah, you can.

In fact, the Church says if you have a perfect act of contrition and you've resolved at first possible convenience to go to confession, you can confess directly to God and- and your sins are forgiven.

But, you know, why would you mess around with that?

I wouldn't mess around with that.

How do I know I've got a perfect act of contrition going?

And if this is on offer, why would I refuse it?

Why do you go to a priest or to a bishop for confession?

Well, a basic answer is 'cause you're not an angel.

See, if we were angels, we're just pure spirits, then we could just have that purely spiritual contact with God.

But we're not angels.

We're embodied creatures.

Aquinas says, There's matter and form in the sacraments because there's body and soul in us.

That's a cool little answer, right?

You go to the priest because there's something about confessing with your own tongue, hearing with your ears, being in the presence of this sacramental person that makes the experience dense and real in a way it wouldn't be otherwise.

If we were angels, that might not be the case, but we're- we're not angels.

And so we confess.

H- here's another angle on it, everybody.

And I- I wonder, maybe those as old as I am can share some of this.

I've been confessing my sins to a priest since I was seven, right?

So, I'm dating myself, uh, 50 years or so I've been confessing to a priest.

Was it a little frightening and humiliating when I first started?

Uh-huh.

It was.

As a seven-year-old kid? is it still a little frightening and humiliating?

Yeah, it still is.

Am I right?

A- as we approach confession.

But that's appropriate it seems to me.

You know, we're dealing with our sin.

W- we're dealing with, with our ruptured relationship with the Lord.

It, there is something that's, it's wonderful and salutary that I feel something like real contrition, that I feel, yes, a little humiliated.

Well, if, if I just sorta toss off a little quick prayer, Oh Lord, I'm awfully sorry about that.

Oh gosh, I shouldn't have done that.

I'm sorry, i- it's not the same, is it- as going to a minister of the church and in humility and, and, and sharing, uh, voice to voice your sin?

There's something appropriate about that.

If we were angels it would be otherwise, but we're not angels.

And so, we confess to a minister of the church who is representing Christ.

So, let me close with this.

I'll give the last word to Pope Francis.

Um, I've been talking, and I think, you know, legitimately so about the confessor as a kind of judge looking at contrition, confession, satisfaction, talking about the need to confess.

But remember here's how the catechism puts it: When he celebrates the sacrament of penance, the priest is fulfilling the ministry of the Good Shepherd who seeks the lost sheep, of the good Samaritan who binds up wounds, of the father who awaits the prodigal son and welcomes him home.

Isn't that beautiful, isn't it?

And I can tell you, I've been hearing confessions now for 33 years.

I, I love hearing confessions.

Some of my, my best experiences as a priest have been in that wonderful moment wh- when I can do that, I can participate in Christ's ministry of the Good Shepherd.

And so, again, here's Pope Francis: The confessional should never be a torture chamber.

Well, quite right.

It's a place of welcome, of reconciliation, of restoration of the divine life.