About Sacramental Confession
3rd Sunday of Lent
“If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”Ps. 95
Our parish communities are made up of people who come from different places and backgrounds, and therefore we have received different formation and catechesis. Let us review what is essential to consider regarding this sacrament, since it can be lived out in incorrect ways. Let us look at some frequent mistakes:
- The one who goes to confession out of obligation. Perhaps to feel better, or to please his mother, but he comes without any repentance to recite his list of sins, which he does not see as wrong and therefore will most likely continue committing.
- The one with a lax conscience. He sees no sin in himself, only in others. He tends to justify his actions in a thousand ways, and therefore does not feel like a sinner and has difficulty finding faults to confess.
- The one with a scrupulous conscience. This is the opposite extreme. He believes he is always sinning and would need a priest just for himself, since he wants to confess daily for the smallest thing that makes him feel bad or for human mistakes that are not even sins. He keeps account of everything and does not know how to receive Communion without going to confession, even when he has no mortal sins.
- Very sinful and very religious. It seems like a strange and paradoxical combination, but there are cases of people who would live in the Church if they could. They constantly want prayer, sacramentals, and sacraments, even though they live in mortal sin. This inconsistency must be healed, because it is pathological and leads to perdition.
- Those who see God as a machine, as if, if you do not insert the missing coin, the prize will not come out. A cold and inflexible God who lets nothing pass. They scrupulously search to see whether any sin was left unmentioned, as if salvation depended on oneself, on one’s memory, and on fulfilling the arbitrary wishes of a demanding God. They do not know the love of God and turn their religion into a cold and scrupulous observance.
In reality, it is very simple. This sacrament is meant to reconcile us with God. This presupposes that there is a good relationship of love and friendship with Him, and reconciliation is needed only when there has been a serious rupture due to disobedience or failure in something serious. We call it mortal because it is conscious, free, and voluntary disobedience in grave matter—not trivial or insignificant things.
Therefore, it makes no sense for someone who lives far from God and has no relationship with Him to go to confession, since he lives in a permanent state of sin and will continue in it unless there is an encounter with Christ and sincere repentance. Nor should confession be approached from the mistaken attitudes mentioned above. We confess always the sin of disobedience to God—against one of His commandments and teachings—not human mistakes, faults, oversights, or accidents that we all have and that are natural. These are not sins, since they are involuntary or due to our human weakness.
Readings of the Week
Sunday: Exodus 17:3-7/Psalm 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9/Romans 5:1-2, 5-8/John 4:5-42 or John 4:5-15, 19b-26, 39a, 40-42
Monday: 2 Kings 5:1-15ab/Psalm 42:2, 3; 43:3, 4/Luke 4:24-30
Tuesday: Daniel 3:25, 34-43/Psalm 25:4-5ab, 6 and 7bc, 8-9/Matthew 18:21-35
Wednesday: Deuteronomy 4:1, 5-9/Psalm 147:12-13, 15-16, 19-20/Matthew 5:17-19
Thursday: Jeremiah 7:23-28/Psalm 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9/Luke 11:14-23
Friday: Hosea 14:2-10/Psalm 81:6c-8a, 8bc-9, 10-11ab, 14 and 17/Mark 12:28-34
Saturday: Hosea 6:1-6/Psalm 51:3-4, 18-19, 20-21ab/Luke 18:9-14
Next Sunday: 1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a/Psalm 23: 1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6/Ephesians 5:8-14/John 9:1-41 or John 9:1, 6-9, 13-17, 34-38
Celebrations of the Week
Sunday: 3rd Sunday of Lent
Monday: Saint Frances of Rome, religious
Next Sunday: 4th Sunday of Lent
