What is the Sacrament of Penance or Confession? Did Our Lord institute it?The Sacrament commonly called Penance or Confession is provided by the Church in order to assure persons who have sinned after Baptism the forgiveness of all sins. In the Apostles' Creed, we Catholic Christians profess the truth of The Forgiveness of Sins. This promise, and the covenanted means of grace through which God guarantees for us forgiveness of sins after Baptism, is given to us in this Sacrament: Just as Baptism, a Sacrament, washes away all sins and makes us children of God by grace and adoption, so Confession, a Sacrament, cleanses us from all the sins we personally commit following Baptism. The Church Fathers beautifully describe Confession as the 'second plank after shipwreck,' the promised gift of forgiveness of sins for us, even after we have cut ourselves from, or chosen to reject, the grace of God given us in Baptism.
Because we have been made in the Image and Likeness of God, we always possess freedom, free-will, choice, and especially after we have been refashioned and restored to Life in God, born again by water and the Holy Ghost in Baptism. Although Baptism causes the new birth and brings us into the life of grace, it does not remove free-will, or the desire in man, redeemed but still suffering effects from the Fall, to choose his own way instead of God's will. This remaining defect is the 'tinder to sin', the desire for self-gratification or misplaced love or disordered affection, which we call concupiscence. The process of grace roots this flaw out of us as we are changed over time and eternity into the Likeness of Christ the New Man. In short, we can still sin after our Baptism. If we commit serious sins, such as pride, sloth, lust, anger, greed, gluttony, envy, we can, by our own choice, separate ourselves from the grace of God and reject God's Life and Kingdom. It is possible deliberately to sever oneself from grace and lose salvation, that is, to separate oneself from the free gift of the grace of God in His Catholic Church thus rendering the Sacraments ineffective in the soul - in such a case the soul has chosen to displace God and replace Him with self. The cure and remedy for post-baptismal sin, whatever the particular sin may be, is the Sacrament of Penance. When we do sin, we sin particularly and personally, and we sin as members of the Body of Christ, the Church. We are responsible not only to God for our personal sins, but we are responsible to the Church of which we are living members; we are part of the 'blessed company of all faithful (baptised) people,' and we must be held accountable for our sins— for our sins not only offend God's love and honour, but they offend our own human dignity as sons of God by adoption and grace, and they wound and hurt the Body of which we are a living part: 'If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honoured, all are honoured' (1 Corinthians 12).
Therefore Our Lord has provided for the Church, through this Sacrament, a promised and sacramental means by which we are individually and personally restored to the full Communion of the Faith and Sacraments which we can abandon when we commit serious sins. It reunites us with Christ in the Church, for the priest who administers it represents Christ Himself as His 'living icon,' the living instrument of Christ. It is the invisible and risen Christ, who, through the priest, hears the penitent's Confession and grants Absolution, which means 'loosening' or 'release,' the official declaration of the forgiveness of all sins. The priest, who represents the Church, has the authority to reconcile the penitent with the Church's communion. The interior means of access to this Sacrament is repentance: we must repent of our sins, which means we must turn the heart, mind, and soul back to God.
In repentance, we must be truly sorry for our sins, sorrowful in heart for having hurt God and having offended His love for us. Repentance requires an acknowledgment of our sins, a recognition that we have sinned in the sight of God. We must turn to God in sorrow for sin and love, not out of fear of God's wrath or hell or for getting caught in our sins. Repentance through fear is not contrition, genuine sorrow for sin, but attrition, fear of God's anger and judgement. Real repentance flows from a 'broken and contrite heart' (Psalm 51) which realises that God has been rejected and unloved, and not from a heart set selfishly on fleeing God's wrath for having been caught sinning. As Saint John Chrysostom says, we must have: 'Contrition on the heart, Confession on the lips, Amendment in the life.' Recognising our sins, hating them, and finding true sorrow for them, we must confess our sins to God, and in Confession we do so in the presence of His icon, the priest. Then, receiving God's great forgiveness, we must amend our lives, changing them, making them better and holier, as we determine not to sin again, fleeing from sins and abandoning them, aided by the grace we receive from God in the Sacrament of Penance. Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself has appointed a sacramental means by which we can re-approach God the Holy Trinity after having committed serious sins, and can be restored to the fullness of the life and grace of God— Our Lord directly gave to the Apostles His own personal authority and power to forgive, in His Name and Person, the sins of the faithful, and bring reconciliation, a re-communion, to repentant sinners. The Apostles 'stand in Our Lord's place' as His own representatives on earth, continuing the very work and ministry of Christ the Priest, Christ the Absolver of Sins. 'Jesus said to them, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, Receive the Holy Ghost. Whosoever sins you forgive, they are forgiven; whosoever sins you retain, they are retained unto them."' (St John 20.21-23). 'I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven' (St Matthew 16.19).
The successors of the Apostles, who possess the commission and authority of the Twelve to forgive sins, are the bishops in apostolic succession, who in turn share their ministry with the priests, the second order of the apostolic ministry. Together, bishops and priests, both continuing the priestly ministry of Christ, administer this Sacrament. In the Anglican Ordinal (BCP page 546), when a man is ordained to the priesthood, he is ordained with the words of Our Lord in St John 20 (above), which manifest the importance of the presbyterate as the continued ministry of Christ's very priesthood in a sacramental form. So, yes, Our Lord indeed created the Sacrament of Penance, in that He intended His Apostles and their successors in the sacerdotium to forgive the sins of His people through His very power and authority given to them: the power of the Holy Ghost.
This great authority and gift has been entrusted to the Holy Catholic Church, and she has unwaveringly and faithfully administered this sacramental gift of Penance to all who have sought it for 2,000 years of unbroken Holy Tradition. The Sacrament of Penance, or Confession, is the singlemost important aid in the Church for maintaining a Christian life of repentance, holiness and faith. This Sacrament provides all of us the most effective means by which we may examine our lives, repent of our sins, and receive the powerful grace of God, His life and power. Through it we can live better lives and seek to continue to be more and more God-like, as we progress on the path to holiness and are transformed into the Image and Likeness of Christ.
The Outward and Visible Sign: The confession of specific sins by a baptised Christian before a priest in apostolic succession, followed by the Absolution, in which the priest grants the forgiveness of sins through the laying-on-of-hands and the Sign of the Cross whilst he says the following declaration:
Our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left power to his Church to absolve sinners who truly repent and believe in him, of his great mercy forgive thee thine offences. And by his authority committed unto me, I absolve thee from all thy sins, in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
The Inward and Spiritual Grace: The forgiveness of all sins committed after Baptism, the restoration and recovery of baptismal grace, reconciliation with the Catholic Church in Faith and Sacraments, the grace of increased contrition for sins with supernatural power to live in holiness, prayer, and good works, deepening union with Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost, opportunity for increase in cooperation with the grace of Baptism, healing in the soul from the effects of sin and power to avoid sin in the future. This Sacrament quiets the conscience and brings spiritual peace and consolation as well as increase of supernatural power in the Christian life to battle for Christ.
Our Lord comes to us through this Sacrament in order to strengthen us in our resolve to flee from sin and live lives of consecration to the Love of God. It is a tremendous benefit to us, for God uses its special grace to make us more and more holy: the inward and spiritual grace given to us in Penance, in addition to the unfathomable guarantee that all sins ever committed are completely forgiven, is a deepening of our contrition, our true sorrow of heart for having offended God's great love through sin, and an empowering by God that we may be changed in our daily habits, thoughts, words, actions, attitudes, and behaviours - so that we may live more closely to Christ and be made more perfect by God's perfect grace.
God the Holy Ghost gives Himself to us through this Sacrament that we may be cleansed, forgiven, and reconciled to the communion of the Sacraments in the Church. This communion is a fellowship of life, love, grace and prayer we lose through our willful and deliberate acts of sin. The Holy Ghost gives us the supernatural life needed to continue on the path to sainthood. We are called to be holy ones transformed by grace into the sons of God. Penance is a key element in the Christian life— an essential instrument through which God calls to us to be made like God. We are becoming by grace what God is by nature, sharing God's life and entering into the mystery of the Holy Trinity.
This Sacrament should be repeated as often as needed, and, in fact, many Christians receive this Sacrament on a weekly or monthly basis in order to have a right context in which regularly to examine their spiritual lives, and receive spiritual counsel and advice by a priest of the Church in an atmosphere of absolute privacy and confidentiality. Christians should feel free to use this Sacrament as often as necessary or desired, for a priest must hear a Confession at any place, at any time, if it is requested. Many of the greatest and holiest of Saints have used Confession as the source of spiritual growth and renewal. No priest at any time may reveal anything ever stated or shared in the Sacrament of Penance— this is called the Seal of Confession. Whatever is stated by the penitent to the priest is known only to the priest and to God Himself— a priest cannot mention any information concerning the Confession, not even to the penitent himself.
The content of a past Confession can only be discussed if the penitent himself wishes to discuss it again and himself reintroduces it to the priest. Otherwise, it is considered past and never mentioned again. This Seal exists to protect the faithful from scandal or personal injury, and serves to allow the Church to minister to the healing of specific sins without fear or difficulty. If a priest reveals any information learned in the context of hearing a Confession, he is automatically to be deposed from his ministry. The penitent is absolutely safe in the context of Confession to reveal all sins and ask of God mercy, pardon, and forgiveness, and of the priest, counsel, advice and Absolution. For the Sacrament to be valid, thus communicating the grace promised, one must not intentionally withhold any sins, but must openly confess all known sins with repentance and faith in the forum of the Sacrament, trusting in God's forgiveness and mercy.
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