Protestants don’t think we need confession, nor do many Catholics take confession seriously; for them, its just a thing you do, like a chore. A great number of people think the penitential act at the beginning of Mass sufficiently wipes out sin without knowing it does not wipe away mortal sin. The sacrament of reconciliation is necessary for a number of reasons that can quite easily be cited in any good catechism, but I want to focus on an issue that is more psychological about the confessional.
Facing Sin Head First
The thing about the penitential act, or any kind of confession at the beginning of a Protestant worship service, is that it is impersonal. Catholics believe it is sufficient to wipe away venial sin, which is indeed a great thing, but such an act does not really force you to take a moral inventory of yourself. A few words are said, and venial sins are gone. I do not say this to denigrate the penitential act or other acts of public confession, I am merely observing that it does not make me stop and take inventory of my sins as the sacrament does. After all, I have to confess mortal sins by kind and number, and any venial sins to the best of my remembrance.
There is some deep psychology at work here that even Freud recognized. Even in the case of venial sins, having to confess them to another forces the penitent to face his sins. He cannot simply let them slide, he has to dredge them up from the darkness of his heart. You can’t just go to the confessional and say, “I have been bad,” or, “I have been rude.” Oh no, you must get specific: “I viewed pornography,” or “I insulted my father.” Such specificity pulls a psychological lever that rarely gets pulled in the modern world, one of self-examination, one of realizing that you aren’t so great after all.
When you dredge these sins up from the depths, you get a much better idea of your faults. It wounds your pride, which is a good thing, but not your basic human dignity. The sacrament reveals to you that truth the modern world tries desperately to hide from you: you are not perfect, and these are the reasons why; you can, and should do better.
The public confession just does not have the same effect psychologically, especially since it goes by so quickly. You may not even have time to bring your sins to mind to confront them, and even if you do, you are not telling a priest the specifics of your sins. The private confession, the sacrament, is of much greater power, not just for the theological reasons detailed the CCC, but also psychologically. Those venial sins which appear to be so light in the penitential act are much heavier when carried to the confessional. To admit something that may seem like a trivial venial sin in the confessional, road rage for instance, takes on a new character. You are having to tell someone you have road rage. Hopefully, after bringing this sin to light, which may have been lurking in your unconscious for years, you can now see it with the light of consciousness going forward and avoid it.
Sins of the tongue come to mind especially. How many people do you know that say “Oh my God!” almost constantly, like a reflex of the tongue? If they brought such a sin to the sacrament, whether this be interpreted mortal or venial (it depends: see the three qualifications for mortal sin CCC 1857), they are forced to psychologically face this sin. They should leave the confessional with a new awareness of that particular sin to avoid going forward.
The beautiful thing about this sacrament is the relief and freedom it brings. Having a sin stored within one’s heart, bearing it all by yourself, is painful. The sacrament can effectively excise sin from your conscience and, even more, allow you to let go of that guilt. For instance, I no longer look or think upon any of my past sins that have been forgiven; when they come to mind, all I think is simply this, “Yeah, don’t do that again.” No more guilt, no more scrupulosity. If Christ has forgiven it, who am I to deny it with my own scrupulosity?
Now you might suspect this could breed scrupulosity, and I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that. For more neurotic individuals, they may live their lives walking on egg shells over the smallest venial sin, but if they maintain awareness of God’s infinite mercy, it should not bring them any real trouble. The issue with the scrupulous isn’t so much the caution they take with near occaisons of sin, that is a good thing, it’s that they despair of God’s mercy over the smallest evil; they inflate venial sins into mortal sins.
Venial Sins
Venial sins wound charity, but do not destroy it as mortal sins do. That being said, venial sins have a strange property of accumulation where committing one makes it easier to commit another. Eventually, the matter becomes graver and graver and the will weaker and weaker, and before a man knows it, he commits a mortal sin. The sacrament provides an intervention of sorts before such small seeds of sin can grow into mortal sin in full bloom. That is why the Church encourages confessing venial sins though it is not technically required. As said before, the penitential act at the beginning of Mass (aka Confiteor) does not force recollection of sins even though it does forgive the venial sins. If you force yourself to recollect your venial sins in the confessional, you will make great progress in eliminating them.
I’ll embarrass myself a little if it might be of profit for those reading by admitting a venial sin that you have probably never heard of. It has thoroughly injured me throughout my life, but because I did not know its name I could not deal with it properly nor pray that I be forgiven or healed of it. After all, an investigator has a much easier time catching his suspect when he knows the suspect’s name.
Pusillanimity (refer to Summa Theologiae II-II Q. 133), or literally “smallness of soul,” has lived in me for decades as a false humility. Suffer me to explain: humility is knowing one’s place as a creature before God; its contrary is pride. Magnanimity is “largeness/greatness of soul” and its contrary is pusillanimity, “smallness of soul.”
A pusillanimous soul makes itself so small that it believes God would not even desire to do it any good. And while we certainly don’t merit any of His graces, we can ask through prayer and are in fact commanded to pray. Since He is the Master, He can do what He wants with His gifts, including giving them to His unworthy servants. But the pusillanimous soul, living in a false, almost parody of humility, does not give God the chance to be good to it. This soul sins against Hope.
Thus I have been for a long time, without my knowledge, living in a false humility. How can a small soul expect any divine graces to come to it? It’s too small! Such graces simply won’t fit therein! And though the graces are ultimately too great to fit in any human soul, a magnanimous soul could hold much more than a pusillanimous soul.
Perhaps confessing such a sin will baffle my confessor, because I doubt many people even know that word, but taking full responsibility for it in the confessional will surely help drive out pusillanimous tendencies going forward. With all that said, confess your venial sins to the best of your recollection so they do not grow into mortal sins.
Don’t Fear the Confessional
- Be ashamed when you sin, not when you repent. - St. John Chrysostom
Going to the sacrament of reconciliation is much like going to a doctor with an embarrassing issue. Maybe you have something seriously wrong with one of your more intimate parts, but the doctor cannot help you if you do not show him those parts. Thus you show your sins to the priest, with certainty that through him Christ Himself forgives you. This is personal, a personal forgiveness from Christ Himself.