|  Contrast
of Psychoanalysis and Confession
Two
Basic Requirements for the Sacrament
The Sacrament Deals with Sins
Instituted
by Christ
Confession
to a Priest
The
Examination of Conscience
Sorrow
for Sin: Contrition
Satisfaction
The Sacrament of Penance is for spiritual wounds received after
Baptism. Original sin was washed from the infant in Baptism, and
in the case of the adult, personal sins as well. But the Lord is
"practical." He knows that the white robe given in Baptism
is not always kept immaculate; that the "just man falleth seven
times a day," and that the offenses against us should be forgiven
"seventy times seven." Therefore, in His mercy, He instituted
a sacrament which is a tribunal of mercy for spiritual healing.
There have been those who say that there is no difference between
the Sacrament of Penance and psychoanalysis because, in both, the
human mind, when disturbed, seeks to throw off its burden. True
it is that as the hand will go to the eye to provide relief from
a speck, so the tongue will come to the aid of the heart to secure
relief. As Shakespeare put it: "My tongue will tell the anger
of my heart; Or else my heart, concealing it, will break."
We are not here criticizing the psychoanalytic method, but only
the error of saying that there is no difference between it and the
Sacrament of Penance. But the differences between psychoanalysis
and confession are enormous.
Contrast of Psychoanalysis and Confession
Psychoanalysis is the avowal of an attitude of mind; confession
is an avowal of guilt. The first comes from the subconsciousness,
the other from conscience. A person can be proud of his state of
mind; some are proud of being atheists, or immoral, or gangsters.
Many a patient will tell a psychiatrist, "Have you ever heard
a case like mine, Doctor?" On the contrary, no one is ever
proud of his guilt. Even in isolation, the sinner is ashamed. It
takes no courage to admit that one is "mental" but guiltless;
but it takes a tremendous amount of heroism, of which few are capable,
to take the burden of one's own guilt to Calvary and lay one's hands
at the feet of the Crucified and say: "I am responsible for
this."
Psychoanalysis proceeds according to a theory, and not always one
theory. Confession, however, is based upon conformity or non-conformity
to the absolute standard of the law of God. Psychoanalysis does
not agree on a particular theory by which a mental state is to be
judged. There are three main theories: one attributes mental disturbances
to sex (Freud); another to an inferiority complex (Adler); and the
third to a drive toward security (Jung). The analyst, because he
is guided by a theory, is never required to have any moral fitness
for his task; his personal ethical right to receive confidences
is never raised. He may be living with his sixth wife, and yet advise
people how to be happy in marriage.
But in confession, it is different. The deliverances of the penitent
are always on the moral plane--not on the psychological. The penitent
knows that he is before a judgment, not a theory, and that the confessor
who hears his sins stands in the place of God. Because the priest
is the mediator between God and man, the Church always asks that
the priest who absolves the penitent be himself in the state of
grace; that is to say, a participant in divine life. The avowal
of guilt, therefore, on the part of the penitent is not subject
to the individual whims, theories, idiosyncrasies, and kinks of
the one who hears it, but to the divine law, and to the order and
the moral standards of Christ Who taught that one must be holy to
make holy.
A third difference is that in psychoanalysis, there is the probing
by an alien or outside mind; in confession, it is the penitent himself
who is his own prosecuting attorney and even his own judge. In analysis,
there is often a seeking out of attitudes to bolster up a theory;
but in a spontaneous confession, the penitent analyzes his own faults
and confesses them without having them wander and riot in "free
association" and then be submitted to "private interpretation
of the subconscious" which took the place of private interpretation
of the Bible. Man naturally accords pardon to others who have done
injury by a simple avowal of faults, without someone else dragging
them out. One indispensable condition of receiving pardon in the
sacrament is this open avowal of guilt, such as the prodigal son
made when he returned again to the father's house.
Another difference is that what is told in the confessional is
absolutely secret, and may never be divulged, or made part of a
book, or turned into a case history, such as is often done with
the material that is brought out in a psychoanalytic examination.
The offenses man commits against God do not belong to any man; hence,
he may not make use of them. The material of confession belongs
to God, and sins may never be revealed by the confessor until God
does so on the Day of Judgment. The confessor's ears are God's ears,
and his tongue may never speak what God has heard through his ears.
Another difference is in the attitude that a person assumes in
confession and psychoanalysis. In one instance, the mentally disturbed
person is on a couch; in confession, he is on his knees. There is
a passivity about the admission of a mental state on a couch; but
there is a humble activity on the part of one who admits moral guilt
while on his knees. In the psychological examination, there is never
any such thing as contrition or satisfaction. In confession, sorrow
and the making up for our sins are integral parts of the sacrament.
When one sees a string of confessional boxes in a large church,
with feet protruding from under the curtains like wiggling worms,
one realizes that man has reduced himself almost to the humble state
of the worm, in order that he might rise again, restored to the
glorious friendship of the Christ Who died for him.
A final and important difference between psychoanalysis and confession
is this: in psychoanalysis, the admission of mental states comes
from ourselves; in confession, the impetus or the desire to confess
our sins is from the Holy Spirit. The night of the Last Supper,
Our Blessed Lord said that He would send His Spirit to convict the
world of sin (John 16:8). It is only through the Spirit of Christ
that we know we are sinners, as we see our lives in relationship
to the Cross. The Holy Spirit summons the soul to find its way back
to the shelter of the Father's arms. When a person is in sin, he
is in exile from home, a dweller in a foreign land who looks forward
to the joy of return. It is an urge to share in the joy of the Good
Shepherd as he carries back the lost sheep and the straying lamb
to the sheepfold of the Church.
The reason this summons must come from God is that we are captives
of sin. Just as a prisoner cannot release himself from the chafing
bars or chains, so neither can the sinner without the power of the
Spirit. To God alone belongs the initiative in this sacrament. It
is His voice which calls us to repentance. We may make our confessions
because our conscience urges us to do so, but the voice that speaks
to us is the voice of the Holy Spirit telling us of God's mercy
and love and righteousness. Under the impetus of the Holy Spirit,
the soul feels like Lazarus risen from the dead.
Two Basic Requirements for the Sacrament
In order that there might be a Sacrament of Penance, two things
are required, both of which are, from a human point of view, almost
impossible to find. First, one must create the penitent and, secondly,
one must create a confessor. To create a penitent, one must take
a man in his pride, enveloped in a glacial silence, which refuses
to unburden its guilt, and say to him: "Thou shalt come to
a man and kneel before him--a man who is perhaps no better than
you are--and you shall tell him what you hide from yourself and
your children. You shall tell him that which makes you blush; and
you shall do all of this on your knees."
However difficult it may be to create a penitent who will confess
everything with a firm purpose of amendment, it is even more difficult
to create the confessor. Where find one empowered by God with authority
to forgive sins? How train the human heart to heal the wounds of
others, and then seal his lips forever that what he has learned
as God's representative be never revealed to men?
Only God could bring these two creations together, for outside
of His power and mercy, we would say: "Humanity is too proud,
you will never have penitents"; "Humanity is too indiscreet,
you will never have confessors." And yet the sacrament exists.
There are penitents because there are confessors, and there are
penitents and confessors because Christ is God.
The Sacrament Deals with
Sins
When a baby is born, it is generally healthy; but as time goes
on, it becomes subject to diseases and organic troubles which oppress
and torment life. In the spiritual order, too, though the soul is
made clean and free from all sin by Baptism, it nevertheless contracts
stains and spiritual diseases during life. These are known as sins.
If the sin is serious enough to rupture the divine life within,
then it is called "mortal" because it brings death to
the life of Christ in the soul. If the wrong done does not destroy
the divine life, but only injures it, it is called "venial."
A serious sin always produces in the soul a three-fold effect.
The first is self-estrangement. A sinner feels in his inmost being
like a battlefield where a civil war rages. He no longer is a unit
but a duality in which two forces within him struggle for mastery.
Serious sin estranges the sinner from his fellow man, because a
man who is not at peace with himself will not be at peace with his
neighbor. World wars are nothing but the projection, into great
areas of the earth's surface, of the psychic wars waging inside
of muddled souls. If there were no battles going on inside of hearts,
there would be no battlefields in the world. It was after Cain's
murder of Abel that he asked the anti-social question, "Am
I my brother's keeper?" The most serious effect of sin is not
alienation from self and from fellow man; it is the estrangement
from God. Inasmuch as grace is the divine life within the soul,
it follows that a serious sin is the destruction of that divine
life. That is why the "Epistle to the Hebrews" asks: "Would
they crucify the Son of God a second time, hold Him up to mockery
a second time, for their own ends?" (Heb. 6:6) Sin, therefore,
is a second death. The merits we gained are lost; but those merits
can be regained, thanks to the mercy of God, in the Sacrament of
Penance.
Instituted by Christ
The Sacrament of Penance was instituted by Christ in the form of
a judgment, for the remission, through sacramental absolution, of
sins committed after Baptism and granted to a contrite person confessing
his sins.
All through the Old Testament there was a preparation for this
sacrament, inasmuch as God strove to induce men to acknowledge their
sins before Him. To elicit a confession, God said to Adam: "Hast
thou eaten of the tree?" God said to the first murderer: "Where
is thy brother?" In Mosaic legislation, a sinner brought a
sin offering, which was burned in a public place, to show that the
sinner was not afraid to admit his guilt. The prophet, Nathan, heard
David's confession after his sin with Bethsabee, and assigned to
him a penance. John the Baptist heard the confession of those who
came to hear him preach. These were only types and figures of the
sacrament that was to come, because forgiveness became possible
only through the merits of Our Lord's Passion.
No one questions the fact that Our Blessed Lord had the power to
forgive sins. The Gospels record the miraculous cure of the paralytic
at Capharnaum. Our Lord first told the paralytic that his sins were
forgiven him, whereupon those round about laughed at Him. In response
the Savior told them that it was just as easy to cure the man as
it was to forgive his sins; so He cured the paralytic: "To
convince you that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins while
He is on earth" (Mark 2:10).
Our Blessed Lord was saying that God in the form of Man had the
power to forgive sins; that is to say, through the instrumentality
of the human nature, which He received from Mary, He was forgiving
sins. Here is an anticipation of the fact that it is through humanity
that He will continue to forgive sins; i.e., through those who are
endowed with sacramental power to do so. Man cannot forgive sins,
but God can forgive sins through man.
Our Lord promised to confer this power of forgiveness, first of
all, to Peter whom He made the rock of the Church. He told Peter
that He would ratify in heaven the decisions which Peter took on
earth. These decisions were explained in two metaphors of "binding"
and "loosing." The power of jurisdiction was given to
the one who had the keys of the kingdom. This promise made to Peter
was followed up a little later on by one made to the Apostles. The
second promise did not bestow the primacy, for that was reserved
to Peter. Our Lord told the Apostles:
"I came upon an errand from my Father, and now I am sending
you out in my turn. With that, he breathed on them, and said to
them, Receive the Holy Spirit; when you forgive men's sins, they
are forgiven, when you hold them bound, they are held bound."
(John 20:21-23)
Our Divine Redeemer here says that He was sent by the Father; now
He sends them with the power to forgive or not forgive. These words
imply "hearing confessions," because how would the priests
of the Church know which sins to forgive and which sins not to forgive
if they did not hear them?
One can be very sure that this sacrament is not of human institution,
for if the Church had invented any of the sacraments, there is one
that it certainly would have done away with, and that is the Sacrament
of Penance. This because of the trials that it imposes upon those
who have to hear confessions, sitting in the confessional box for
long hours while listening to the terrific monotony of fallen human
nature. Because it is a divine institution--what a beautiful opportunity
it is to restore peace to sinners and to make them saints!
It may be asked, why did Our Lord demand a telling of sins? Why
not bury one's head in one's handkerchief, and tell God that one
is sorry? Well, if this method of being sorry is not effective when
we are caught by a traffic policeman, why should it be effective
with God? Shedding tears in one's handkerchief is no test of sorrow,
because we are then the judges. Who would ever be sentenced to prison,
if every man were his own judge? How easy it would be for murderers
and thieves to escape justice and judgment simply by having a handkerchief
ready!
Because sin is pride, it demands a humiliation, and there is no
greater humiliation than unburdening one's soul to a fellow man.
Such self-revelation cures us of many a moral illness. Hurtful things
often hurt more if they are shut up. A boil can be cured, if lanced
to release the pus; so too is a soul on the pathway to the Father's
House when it admits to its own sin and seeks forgiveness. All nature
suggests an unburdening of oneself. If the stomach takes a foreign
substance into it which it cannot assimilate, it throws it off;
so it is with the soul. It seeks deliverance from that which troubles
it, namely the unbearable repartee within.
Furthermore, when a sin is avowed and admitted, it loses its tenacity.
Sin is seen in all its horror when viewed in relationship to the
Crucifixion. Suppress a sin, and it becomes buried, and later on
will come out in complexes. It is very much like keeping the cap
on a tube of toothpaste. If one submits it to great pressure, the
toothpaste will come out somewhere; one does not know where. The
normal place for it to come out is through the top. So too, if we
suppress our guilt or deny it, we put our mind under pressure and
it creates abnormalities. The guilt does not come out where it ought
to be, namely, in the sacrament. Thus it was that Lady Macbeth's
guilt came out in the washing of hands. It should have been her
soul that was washed, and not her hands.
Confession to a Priest
It may be asked, why confess one's sins to a priest? Maybe he is
not as holy as the penitent. That indeed could be. But though he
is not holier in his person, he is holier in his powers, because
Christ gave this power to His Church--only the Church claims it,
and only the Church exercises it. The mayor of a town may not be
as good as some of the citizens, but he has the power which the
citizens do not; so it is with the priest.
Furthermore, it is not the priest who absolves: he is only the
instrument of Christ. Can man of and by himself forgive sins? No!
Can man united to God forgive sins? Yes! That is the way Christ
the Son of God forgave sins through His human nature. That is the
way He forgave the sins of Magdalen; that was the way He forgave
the sins of the paralytic, that was the way He forgave the sins
of the thief on the right. That power He gave to His Church.
Because the priest acts in Christ's name, he is bound by the seal
of confession. Not even under the penalty of death may he reveal
sins that are confided to him in confession. As a person, he has
not heard any sins. They are not a part of his knowledge. It was
Christ Who heard the sin and He alone has knowledge of it. Suppose
a murderer came into a rectory and confessed to a priest. On leaving
the priest, the murderer shook hands with him. After the murderer
left, the police entered, found blood on the priest's hands and
accused him of the murder. The priest could not say: "It was
the man who just went out. I did not do it." He may not make
any defense of himself, nor may a priest outside the confessional
ever speak to that person about his sins. For example, he may not
say to a penitent whom he meets on the street, "Oh, did you
ever pay back the hundred dollars you stole?" If someone stole
money from a drawer in my desk, and then came and confessed the
stealing of money; I could order the money returned, but I would
not be permitted to lock the drawer, because that was information
which I gained in God's sacrament.
Another reason for confessing sins to a priest is that no one sin
is individual. We are members of the Mystical Body of Christ. If
one member is unhealthy, the whole body is unhealthy. If we have
an earache, the whole body suffers. Now, every personal sin has
a social effect: all the other cells of the body of the Church are
affected because of the defect in this one cell. Every sinner is
blameworthy, not only in regard to himself, but also in regard to
the Church, and first and foremost to God. If he is ever to recover,
it can only be by the intervention of the Church, and by an intervention
of God.
No medicine will act on a member of the body, unless the body cooperates
in some way with the medicine. Because every sin is against God
and the Church, it follows that a representative of God and His
Mystical Body must restore the sinner again to fellowship. The priest,
acting as the representative of the Church, welcomes back the penitent
to the community of believers. When Our Blessed Lord found the lost
sheep, He immediately integrated them again into His flock:
"Jesus was to die for the sake of the nation; and not only
for that nation s sake, but so as to bring together into one all
God's children, scattered far and wide." (John 11:52) The priest
re-establishes the sinner in grace; he restores the sinner to his
rights as a son of the Eternal Father; he reconciles him not only
to God, but also to God's society of the Church.
The social nature of Penance is seen further in the fact that the
penitent recognizes the right of the Mystical Body to judge him,
since it is through the Mystical Body he is in relation with God.
Forgiveness of sin, then, is not just a matter between God and our
individual souls. It is the Church which has been injured by transgressions.
Therefore, our sins are not just our concern, they are the concern
of the whole Church--the Church Militant on earth and the Church
Triumphant in heaven.
The Examination of Conscience
Before the penitent goes into the confessional box, there is the
examination of conscience. This used to be a daily practice of Christians,
and still is among many. It was not even unknown to the pagans.
The Stoics, for example, recommended it. The examination of conscience
centers not only on the wrong we have done, but also on the motivations.
Our Blessed Lord, examining the conscience of the Pharisees, called
them "whited sepulchres, clean on the outside, but on the inside
full of dead men's bones." He pierced beneath the pretensions
and hypocrisies of their prayers, their almsgivings, and their philanthropies,
saying they did these things to be seen by men and to have a human
reward--and that is the only reward they will ever receive. So in
the examination of conscience, all the thoughts, words, and deeds
of the soul are brought to the surface, examined, and considered
in conformity with the law of God.
One of the differences between psychoanalytic examination and examination
of conscience is that in the former one stands in one's own light;
in the examination of conscience, one stands in the light of God.
That is why Scripture says, "Search my soul, O my God."
The divine light looks into the mind, takes the mind off itself
and its own false judgments, and makes things appear as they really
are; at the end, one does not say, "Oh, what a fool I've been,"
but rather, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner."
A day comes when the abused conscience will turn with fury and
harass its victim, tormenting his waking life and making his dreams
a poison and his darkness a nightmare. When night gives inner vision
scope, the guilty conscience lies awake fearful of being known in
its ugliness. There is nothing that so much arouses an unhealthy
fear as a hidden guilt. As the cock crowed when Peter denied Our
Lord, so our nature rises in revolt against us when we have denied
the Lord of conscience. Sins have a way of finding us out. Just
as a refusal to study in childhood begets an ignorance in mature
life, so too, sins which we rationalize away are thrust down into
unconsciousness, but somehow they make themselves felt in our health,
our mental attitudes and our general outlook on life.
Alongside every human being there are three pools, each of which
gives a different reflection. We look into one pool and we are pleased
with ourselves, because in that pool we see ourselves as we think
we are. In the second pool, we see ourselves as our neighbor sees
us, or as our press clippings reveal us. In the third pool, we see
ourselves as God sees us, and as we really are. It is into this
third pool that examination of conscience takes us, bringing to
the surface the hidden faults of the day, discovering the weeds
that are choking the growth of God's grace, our sins of omission
and commission, the good deeds left undone, the failure to aid a
needy neighbor, the refusal to offer a word of consolation to one
burdened with sorrow, and malicious remarks, lies, acts of dishonesty,
and the seven sins which are the enemy of peace: self-love, inordinate
love of money, illicit sex, hate, over-indulgence, jealousy, and
laziness.
Examination of conscience also embraces what is called our predominant
passion. Every person has one sin which he commits more than another.
Examination of conscience roots out all our self-deception, for
every person has a little corner in his heart he never wants anyone
to venture into, even with a candle. We say we are following our
consciences, when actually what we mean is that we are making our
consciences, and then following what we made. It is this kind of
deceit that is unveiled in the examination and, by curing us of
self-deception, it cures us of depression. Depression comes not
from having faults, but from refusing to face them. What else is
self-pity but a total unconcern with the interests of others?
It must not be thought that in the examination of conscience one
concentrates on his own wounds; rather he concentrates on the mercy
of God. A sick person thinks less of his own sickness than the physician
who will heal him. The examination of conscience develops no complex,
because it is done in the light of God's justice. The self is not
the standard, nor is it the source of hope. All human frailty and
human weakness are seen in the light of God's infinite goodness.
Sorrow is aroused, not because a code has been violated, but because
love has been wounded. As an empty pantry drives the housewife to
the bakery, so the empty soul is driven to the bread of life. Examination
of conscience, instead of inducing morbidity, becomes an occasion
of joy.
There are two ways of knowing how good God is: one is never to
lose Him through the preservation of innocence; the other is to
find Him again after He has been lost. There is no self-loathing,
there is only a God-loving character about the examination of conscience.
We put ourselves in God's hand as we would put a broken watch in
the hand of a watch maker, certain that he will not ruin it, but
will make it function well.
The closer we get to God, the more we see our defects. A painting
reveals few defects under candlelight, but the sunlight may reveal
it as a daub. It is true that we do find ourselves quite unlovable
in the examination of conscience, but it is this that makes us want
to love God because He is the only One Who loves the unlovable.
When one has finished the examination of conscience, there may
be a load to drag into the confessional, which is sometimes called
the "box." If it is a "box," it is not Pandora's
for at the bottom of it is hope. Then we realize that we are bringing
it to Christ Himself. It is wonderful to know that there is one
place where we can taste the freedom of heaven, where a man can
be spared the hypocrisy of maintaining a pose. There comes the joy
of knowing that neither the penitent nor the priest ever recalls
the sin confessed. A shutter drops. Something is put into a well,
and a cover is laid on it forever.
In the early Church, sins which were committed publicly were confessed
publicly. This survives in the "Roman Pontifical," in
a ceremony called "The Expulsion of Public Penitents on Ash
Wednesday"; another ceremony is called, "The Reconciliation
of Penitents on Maundy Thursday"; and still another special
rite is used for the absolution of those who have been publicly
excommunicated. Though public sins in the early Church were confessed
publicly, secret sins were confessed secretly and under the seal.
Sorrow for Sin: Contrition
The other sacraments demand that the subject has proper dispositions,
but they do not constitute the matter of the sacrament. In Penance,
sorrow is not only a condition; it is the matter itself; for without
the sorrow for sin, forgiveness is not granted.
The priest gives absolution from sins in the sacrament provided
there is sufficient sorrow of mind, or contrition, which is a hatred
of the sin committed with the resolution not to sin again. The word
contrition is taken from the Latin word which means to grind or
pulverize; in an applied sense, it means being bruised in heart.
Contrition is a sorrow of mind, not an emotional outburst or psychological
remorse.
The prodigal son had gone through many emotional stages of remorse,
particularly when he was feeding the swine, or realizing how much
better the servants in his father's house were. But the real sorrow
did not come until it penetrated his soul with the resolution: "I
will
arise and go to my father."
Sometimes it is said that all a Catholic has to do is go to Confession
and admit his sins, and he will come out white as snow and then
continue committing the same sins. This is a libel upon the sacrament
for, where there is no purpose of amendment, there is no sorrow.
The sins of such a penitent are not forgiven. The sorrow for sin
necessarily includes a resolution not to sin again; this is not
merely a wish which has no relationship to practice. Part of the
act of contrition contains this amendment: "And I firmly resolve
with the help of Thy grace to confess my sins, to do penance, and
amend my life. Amen." It means that here and now we take the
resolution not to sin; we resolve to take all the means necessary
for avoiding sin in the future, such as prayer and staying away
from the occasions of sin. The absolution will not be efficacious
if there is not in the sorrow this essential element, a purpose
of amendment.
This does not imply an absolute certitude that no one will ever
sin again, for that would be presumption. There are two ways to
verify a firm purpose: one is to make up for the sin as soon as
possible; for example, if one is guilty of sarcastic remarks against
a neighbor, to seek the neighbor's pardon or, if one has stolen,
to return what has been stolen. The second is to avoid the occasions
of sin, such as bad reading, evil companions, drinking parties,
or any act that previously led us into sin.
There are two kinds of contrition: perfect and imperfect. Both
are implied in the Act of Contrition which the penitent says in
the confessional:
"And I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of Heaven
and the pains of Hell," [imperfect sorrow]; "but most
of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who art all good and deserving
of all my love" [perfect sorrow].
Two kinds of fear serve as the basis of distinction between the
two kinds of contrition or sorrow: one is a servile fear, the other
is a filial fear. A servile fear is a fear of punishment, which
we justly deserve from a master whom we disobeyed. Filial fear is
the fear that a devoted son might have for a loving father; namely,
the fear of injuring him. Applying this to contrition, servile fear
draws us toward God because of the dread of a punishment for sin,
namely, hell. Filial fear is a dread of being separated from God,
or of offending Him Whom we love.
Imagine twins who had disobeyed a mother in exactly the same way.
One of the twins runs to the mother and says: "Oh, Mommy, I
am sorry I disobeyed. Now I can't go to the picnic, can I?"
The other one throws her arms around the mother's neck and weeps:
"I'll never hurt you again." The first has imperfect contrition,
the second perfect contrition.
Which kind of contrition, perfect or imperfect, is sufficient in
sacramental Confession? Imperfect contrition is sufficient, though
it is our belief that most penitents are sorry not because of the
punishment their sins deserve from God, but rather because they
heartily are sorry for having re-crucified Christ in their hearts.
Suppose, however, that a person is in a state of mortal sin and
is unable to go to confession; for example, a soldier who is ordered
into battle. Would imperfect contrition then suffice for the forgiveness
of sins? No, but perfect contrition would, if he had the resolution
to receive sacramental confession at the earliest opportunity.
That makes a word about perfect contrition more imperative. The
usual attitude of penitents is to make a personal equation between
their own sins and the Crucifixion. Each one says in his heart as
he receives the sacrament: "If I had been less proud, the crown
of thorns would have been less piercing. If I had been less avaricious
and greedy, His hands would have been dug less by the steel. If
I had been less sensual, His flesh would not be hanging from Him
like purple rags. If I had not wandered away like a lost sheep,
in the perversity of my egotism, His feet would have been less driven
with nails. I am sorry, not just because I broke a law: I am sorry
because I wounded Him Who died out of love for me."
Our Lord had to die on the Cross before the abysmal dimensions
of sin could be appreciated. We do not see the horror of sin in
the crimes paraded in the press, nor in the great crises of history,
nor in the wholesale violence of persecutors. We see what evil is
only when we see Goodness nailed to the Cross. If any of us says
in our heart, "I am not as bad as those who crucified Him,"
we are forgetting that they did not crucify Our Lord; sin did. They
were our representatives, our ambassadors, that day at the court
of Satan. We empowered them with the right to crucify.
One look at the crucifix, therefore, is a double revelation! A
revelation of the horror of sin and the love of God. The worst thing
that sin can do is not to kill children or bomb cities in nuclear
warfare; the worst thing that sin can do is to crucify divine love.
And the most beautiful thing that Love can do, at the moment of
crucifixion, is to extend to us forgiveness in the priestly prayer
to His heavenly Father: "Forgive them, for they know not what
they do."
In perfect contrition, we become tremendously impressed with the
infinite endurance of Our Lord to suffer the worst that evil can
inflict, and then pardon his enemies. He certainly did not teach
us to be indifferent to sin, because He took its full consequences
upon Himself. He paid for it, but on the other hand, there was mercy
with that justice. He offered forgiveness in the hope that we would
repent out of gratitude for His payment of the debt which our sins
created.
Satisfaction
Satisfaction for sins, or what is sometimes called "penance,"
is distinct from sorrow. Few dwell sufficiently on the difference
between being forgiven and atoning for the sin which was forgiven.
Suppose I stole your purse in the course of a conversation, and
then I said to myself: "What a scandal I am to this person.
I am supposed to bring justice and the love of God, and here I violate
God's law of justice, impugn His mercy, and nail Him to the Cross
by stealing the purse." So I say to you, "Will you forgive
me?" In your kindness, you would certainly say: "I forgive
you." But you would also say something else, would you not?
Would you not say, "Give me back my purse?" Could I really
say that I was sorry unless I returned the purse?
There is a story told, which is sheer imagination with no basis
in fact, about a man who came to confession to a priest. During
the course of the confession, he stole the priest's watch. At the
end of the confession, he said to the priest: "Oh, Father,
I forgot to tell you. I stole a watch." The priest, emphasizing
the necessity of satisfaction, said: "You must return the watch
to the owner." The penitent said: "I'll give it to you,
Father." The priest said: "No, I don't want it. Return
it to the owner." The penitent said: "The owner doesn't
want it." The priest said to him: "Well, in that case,
you can keep it."
Immediately one can see some of the fallacies. First, there was
no real sorrow in confession; otherwise, he would not have added
a sin while confessing others. Second, there was deceit in his satisfaction.
There must always be satisfaction for sin, because every sin disturbs
the order of God. Sin upsets a balance. It is to no purpose to say,
"Don't cry over spilled milk," just because we happen
to have spilled someone else's milk. If we cannot gather up the
spilled milk, we can at least pay for the bottle, or buy some more
milk.
At the end of the confession, the priest gives to the penitent
what is called a "penance," a certain number of prayers
to say, or fasting, or the giving of alms, or acts of mortification,
or a way of the Cross, or a rosary. All of these are to "make
up" for the sin, and to prove that the sorrow was sincere.
This is what Catholics call "saying my penance" or "doing
my penance."
God does not ask us to make an exact reparation for our sins, but
rather to do it in a proportional manner. This is because the Sacrament
of Penance is less a tribunal of strict justice than a reconciliation
between friends. The priest, representing Christ, is not a judge
sentencing a criminal to prison. The penitent is not an enemy. He
is a reconciled friend, and the reparation, penance, or satisfaction
is the work of friendship between members of Christ's Mystical Body.
The penance also has a medicinal value, that of healing the wounds
of the soul, which is why it has to be performed in a state of grace.
Our Lord forgave our sins on the Cross, but He paid for them in
justice. Our Lord forgave the thief on the right, but He did not
stop his crucifixion. The pain the thief endured was a reparation
for his evil life. Penance is a sign that we are applying Christ's
death on Calvary to ourselves.
Here the Sacrament of Penance differs from the Sacrament of Baptism.
In Baptism, the merits of Christ's Passion are applied to ourselves
without any action on our part; but in the Sacrament of Penance,
we make some satisfaction. Power and efficacy are given to our acts,
because they are united with the Passion of Christ. There are two
debts to be paid for sin. One is the eternal debt, which is hell;
and the other is the temporal debt, or atoning in our lifetime for
our imperfections and our want of charity, after our sin has been
forgiven. The eternal debt of hell is completely remitted in the
sacrament. The temporal debt for sin remains.
In Scripture, we find records of people being forgiven, for whom
a temporal punishment remains. Adam and Eve were restored to grace,
but they were made subject to death. Miriam, the sister of Moses,
gained forgiveness for her sin, but she was shut out from the camp
for seven days and afflicted with leprosy. Moses was forgiven, but
was punished for his lack of trust in God by being excluded from
the Land of Promise. David's sin with Bethsabee was forgiven, but
he had to suffer misfortunes for it, and the child died as a punishment.
That is why St. Paul urges us to take on voluntary penances that
we may "help to pay off the debt which the afflictions of Christ
still leave to be paid, for the sake of His Body, the Church."
Daniel consoled Nabuchodonosor with the words: "Deign my lord
king, to be advised by me; with almsgiving, with mercy to the poor,
for fault and wrong-doing of thine, make amends; it may be that
he will condone thy guilt" (Daniel 4:24). And Joel writes:
"Time now, the Lord says, to turn the whole bent of your hearts
back to me, with fasting and mourners' tears" (Joel 2:12).
Did not Our Lord say of certain cities that they would be condemned
because in them "were done most of His miracles, but for that
they had not done penance (Matt. 9:20).
Penances given after confession are generally light. Some say they
are too light. But we must not forget indulgences. To understand
them, we should recall that we are members of Christ's Mystical
Body. When we do evil, or commit sin, we affect every member of
the Church in some way. This is even done in our most secret sins.
It is evident that we do it in stealing, murder, and adultery; but
we do it even in our solitary sins, even in our evil thoughts. How?
By diminishing in some way the content of charity and love within
the whole Mystical Body. Just as a pain in the eye affects the whole
organism and makes us hurt all over so, if I love Christ less, do
I impair the spiritual well-being of the Church.
But because I can harm the Church by my sin, so can I be helped
by the Church when I am in debt. St. Paul applied to the Mystical
Body the lesson of the physical body: "All the different parts
of it [the body] were to make each other's welfare their common
care" (I Corinth. 12:25).
Religion is not individual, it is social; it is organic. Look to
the natural order, and see how many benefits I receive from my fellow
man. There are a million ways in which they are indulgent to me.
I did not raise the cow that furnished the leather that went into
my shoes. I did not raise the chicken I eat at dinner--but that
is a bad example; I do not like chicken! So let us say, the chicken
you eat. Somebody's work or labor allowed you to indulge in this
luxury. We might almost say that we are surrounded by social "indulgences,"
because we share in the merits, talents, arts, crafts, sciences,
techniques, needlework, and genius of society.
Now, in the society of Christ's people, His Mystical Body, it is
possible to share in the merits and the good works, the prayers,
the sacrifices, the self-denials, and the martyrdoms of others.
If there be an economic "indulgence," so that I can ride
in a plane someone else built, why should there not also be a spiritual
indulgence, so that I can be carried to Christ more quickly through
the bounty of some members of the Mystical Body.
Go back now to the distinction between forgiveness of guilt and
satisfaction for guilt. Every sin has either an eternal or a temporal
punishment. Even though our sins were forgiven, there still remained
some satisfaction to be made in time; or else in Purgatory after
death, provided we die in the state of grace. An indulgence refers
not to sin, but to the temporal punishment. Before the indulgences
can apply, there must have been forgiveness of the guilt.
Actually, there are several ways of making up for the punishment
due after the guilt of sin has been forgiven. Three are personal,
one is social: (1) The saying or doing of the penance given in the
confessional box at the end of confession; (2) Any works of mortification
which are freely undertaken during life, such as helping the poor
and the missions, fasting, and other acts of self-denial; (3) The
patient imitation of Our Lord's sufferings on the Cross by enduring
the trials of life; and (4) The social remedy of applying the superabundant
merits of the Mystical Body to our souls. As we depend on intellectual
society to make up for our ignorance, so we depend on a spiritual
society to make up for our spiritual bankruptcy.
It may be asked where the Church gets power to remit temporal punishment
due to sin? Well, the Church happens to be very rich spiritually,
just as some men are very rich financially. In a village there lived
a rich banker who set up a trust fund in a bank; he bade all of
the sick, infirm, and unemployed to draw from that reserve. The
banker told them: "Have no fears that this fund will ever run
out, for I am rich enough to care for all of you." If the banker
paid part of the hospital bills, that would be a partial indulgence
of the debts of the sick; if he paid all of their bills, that would
be a plenary indulgence of their expenses and costs.
The Church is a spiritual banker. It has all the merits of the
Passion of Our Lord and the Blessed Mother, the merits of the martyrs,
saints, and confessors, and the patient endurance of persecution
in the present time; all of these merits are far greater than those
needed for salvation of these saintly and good people. The Church
takes that surplus, puts it into her treasury, and bids all her
weak and wounded, who cannot pay all the debts they owe for their
sins, to draw on those reserves. The Church lays down certain conditions
for making use of this treasure, just as the banker did. The users
have to be deserving, they have to be in the state of grace, they
have to fulfill certain conditions; e.g., a prayer, a pilgrimage,
or any one of a thousand little things.
When the debt of temporal punishment due to sin is liquidated only
in part by an indulgence, it is called a partial indulgence. But
if all the debts of temporal punishment are paid for by fulfilling
the conditions, it is called a plenary indulgence.
Suppose I am standing in the center of the room, that you have
a right to command me, and that I am bound in conscience to obey
you. You order me to take three steps to my right. I disobey, and
take three steps to my left. When I take the three steps to my left,
I say to you, "I am very sorry. I have disobeyed you. Will
you forgive me?" You say: "Yes, I will forgive you."
But look where I am! I am actually six steps from where I ought
to be, and I am three steps from being in neutral ground. Since
I have taken three steps in disobedience, I must put my foot down
three times humbly and in penance, in order to get back to "neutral"
before I can begin doing right. Those three steps, taken penitentially,
represent the payment of the temporal punishment due to sin.
Now suppose that I just took two steps and someone carried me the
other one, I would then have an indulgence of one step. If someone
carried me two steps, I would then have the indulgence of two steps.
If someone carried me the three steps, that would be a plenary indulgence.
That brings up the question of "days." One often hears
of the indulgence of "forty days," "one hundred days,"
or "forty years." The Church has to have some standard
of measurement, and "days" and "years" are merely
approximations. In the first several centuries of the Church, penances
were very severe for certain public sins. One might have to dress
himself in sackcloth and ashes and beg at a church door for forty
days, or three years, or seven years, or sometimes ten years in
the case of atrocious crimes. Because these sins gave grave scandal
to the public, the penitent would be permitted to assist at the
Mass at the door or in a special part of the Church.
Later on, there began to be intercessions of persons of high merit,
that they be given more or less extended remission of the temporal
punishment due to their sins; these became known as indulgences.
The Church then took, as a standard of measurement, the severe penances
of the early days and applies them today to indulgences. For example,
for saying certain prayers, one receives an indulgence which is
the equivalent of "forty days" penance in the early Church,
or the equivalent of "one hundred days" penance in the
early Church, or a "year," as the case may be.
There is no exact statistical relation between the sin and its
expiation, as there is none between the money you pay for a suit
of clothes, and the cooperation of the sheep herder, the wool-gatherers,
and the suit manufacturer.
What a beautiful doctrine and how consoling is this sacrament!
See how it combines the poor sinner who is in debt, the Mystical
Body to which he is restored by absolution in the confessional,
and the mercy of Christ, the Head of His Mystical Body Who gave
this power to His Church: "Whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth
is loosed also in heaven."
My prayer is only a drop but, when it is joined to the other cells
of the Mystical Body, when it becomes a bead in a rosary which unites
the Church Militant on earth with the Church Triumphant in heaven
and Church Suffering in purgatory, when it fuses into the tears
of Christ on the Cross and with the sword in Mary's heart at the
foot of the Cross, then it makes its way to the sea which is God
where we all meet. Thus, thanks to my little drop of a prayer, I
have the right to say, "I, too, am the ocean."
One feels like singing for joy, for here is a greater thrill than
the bath that cleanses the body. Regular confession prevents sins,
worries, and anxieties from seeping down into the unconscious and
degenerating into melancholy fears and neuroses. The boil is lanced
before the pus can spread into unconsciousness. Our Lord knew what
was in man so He instituted this sacrament, not for His needs but
for ours. It was His way of giving man a happy heart. It is not
easy, indeed, for a man to make his way to the Cross and to admit
that he has been wrong. It is very hard; but the penitent knows
that it was harder to hang on that Cross! We are never made worse
by admitting we are broken-hearted, for unless our hearts are broken,
how can God get in?
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