The Ideal Easter Confession

“Rend your hearts and not your garments! Turn to the Lord your God! For he is gracious, merciful, patient, rich in mercy, and willing to repent of evil. - Joel 2:13

The step into the confessional frightens many, and they regularly postpone their confession. In the time before or after Easter they receive the sacrament, but only with reluctance and to satisfy their Easter Communion obligation. Zealous believers receive the sacrament regularly and often at short intervals. Occasionally, however, one sees in them an incomplete understanding: the aspect of forgiveness of sins is strongly in the foreground. They only confess in order to receive the absolution, because they want to be at peace with God and have a good conscience. But the Kinderkatechismus (Children’s Catechism) on the Sacrament of Penance shows us that receiving this sacrament is more than a snapshot of life. As children we learned the “five steps” which must be taken: 

• before confession: examine your conscience, repent; 
• during confession: confess your sins.
• after confession: do the penance and do better! 

Confession therefore needs to be prepared in advance and to produce good effects afterwards. It is not an act to be isolated from the rest of our actions, but it must have a central place in the daily life of a Catholic. 

Act Deliberately, Judge Correctly

So the good reception of the sacrament requires that I prepare carefully for it. I seek clarity about my actions and intentions: What did I do and for what reasons? Where did I fail and why? I make my list, weigh it, evaluate . . . Only now am I able to judge everything, what has been achieved gives me courage and I want to hold on to it and build on it. I repent of my trespasses and sins. Thinking and grappling with my actions, with my conscious and unconscious motives, helps me to know myself better. This knowledge changes my view of life and influences further action. Even the one who prepares for confession, but does not have the courage to take the step into the confessional, is already a better person. He lives more consciously and takes responsibility for his actions. 

God’s Closeness Changes Everything

Anyone who now also looks to his Creator and Redeemer, takes the decisive next step. He no longer looks at his life through his own eyes, but from the perspective of God. From this point of view and in this light, the value or non-value of doing the deeds becomes even clearer. The penitent regrets his mistakes because they are objectively bad, and above all because they displease God. He may be afraid to speak out clearly about his transgressions in front of a man. But the priest is the representative of Christ; in the confessional, the person making a confession is accountable only to the Creator. “Only God can forgive sins.” From Him he receives absolution and the chance to take the next step in his life completely unburdened. The contrite confession of sins and the subsequent absolution work the miracle together. Man opens himself so that the almighty judge may touch his wounded soul, and the penitent experiences God’s joyful goodness and mercy. Through the forgiveness of sins, God takes a firm place in the life of the believer. We can rightly say that when the sinner confesses his transgressions to the judge contritely, the relationship with God becomes alive and love for God and neighbor grows. On the contrary, when man no longer confesses, faith disappears and man lives in increasing distance from God. 

Before the Face of God

From this moment on, God has His place in the life of man and everything happens under His eyes. The believer no longer focuses upon himself, but is oriented towards God, inspired by the desire to show gratitude to the Creator. He is proud of what succeeds and he regrets his misdeeds. Because God meets him with generosity and forgiveness, he does everything in his power to prove himself worthy of the love and mercy of God. He finds pleasure in doing the penance imposed on him. He never leaves the confessional without a clearly defined resolution and the firm intention to be faithful to this decision with the grace of God. 

The Easter Confession

The pre-Lenten Season introduces us to the essence of Lent. The Christian is the man who wants to win the crown of victory in the racetrack (Septuagesima) He experiences ups and downs, suffers shipwreck in the struggle of life and rises again to win (Sexagesima) Only one thing counts: the love that is long-suffering and kind, that tolerates everything, that is neither jealous nor boastful and that gives way to evil (Quinquagesima). In the struggle with oneself - the gaze directed to Christ - man recognizes himself.

An Ideal Easter Confession

Clear resolutions, daily struggle and the Easter confession form a unit. At the beginning of Lent the Christian sets his goal. On Ash Wednesday he begins his effort; at Easter he confesses. It is wrong to see the penance solely in terms of renunciation; the call “repent ye!” comes first. And the conversion must not be superficial:  “Rend your hearts, not your garments.” Man should confront himself, question his habitual actions. Giving up coffee in the morning or a glass of wine in the evening, deciding to fast on all Fridays, to set aside a sum of money for the fasting sacrifice every day, the firm intention to be punctual always and everywhere, the resolution to turn off your phone and computer after work in order to be exclusively and attentively available for the family . . . these and similar goals are small and simple in themselves. Their implementation, however, is not; very quickly we reach our limits. As in weight training, it is important to practice skills in the fasting period. To find out which weights we are able to lift and where the limit is. How do we increase our strength? When do we rest? 

Despite all the effort and because we try to explore the boundaries, we will always fail. Just as the athlete experiences his body in training and recognizes its limitations, so the Christian learns to know himself better in the challenge of Lent. The ideal Easter confession is therefore not a painstaking, superficial collection of offenses of the past year. Even less is it the shameful admission of having made little effort in Lent; on the contrary! At the end of Lent there is a more mature man, who has grown because he has worked hard and kept his resolutions. He has learned, moreover, and discovered his limits, and now humbly admits what he cannot do. He no longer deceives himself, but admits honestly where he has failed. The confrontation with his own person and with his weaknesses has shown him how wounded he is. He now wants to confess, sincerely and with great repentance; therefore he sincerely confesses his sins before God. There in the sacrament the Saviour comes to meet him; He is mercifully waiting for him to heal his soul as a physician. The grace of confession will inspire him and give him courage to change his life further.