De Confessione

On retreat this weekend, I wrote two things about Confession that I thought I would post here. I hope you enjoy:

"Sometimes when we look at Confession, and we wish that priests would be harder on us, we are just falling guilty to something we should be confessing: scrupulosity. It might be more easily understood that a priest is not hard on us when we confess minor sins because he is only trying, in persona Christi, to remind us of God's mercy. In his simplicity, he is fighting our scrupulosity, and so he is doing a justice to us by not acting harshly when we confessed that we yelled at our dog or didn't help that old lady carry her groceries to her car. God is just and merciful, and we have priests to thank for showing us our scrupulosity."

"'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.' How can those words mean anything if we don't have the Sacrament of Reconciliation? And what good is it if we have access to the sacrament but don't use it? It's like having the prescribed medication but just not ever using it, even after the doctor has instructed you to do so. So too is it with Confession. The Lord grants us restored grace through absolution. This is where we receive the medication. The Lord anoints us with His oils, as the priest, in persona Christi, gives absolution. The Lord cures our soul and brings it back to its healthy state. He gives us the example, just as He washed the Apostles' feet, and so we must go out and forgive others. But, if we know not what it is like to be forgiven why would and how could we share that gift? How could we forgive others their trespasses if the Father hasn't even forgiven us our trespasses? Without frequenting the Sacrament, we won't know the importance. Why would it be important to experience the same returned grace with another person? How could we go about reestablishing a hurt relationship with another person if we have not even reestablished a relationship with God first? God gives us the grace to do all things. And, we can find this grace in the sacraments, especially the Eucharist and Confession."