— Pope: Sacrament of Confession Isn’t a
‘Torture Chamber’
**In his Oct. 25 Mass homily, the Holy Father
provides relevant direction about recourse to
the Sacrament of Reconciliation.**
During his daily Mass Pope Francis centered his
homily on the Sacrament of Reconciliation,
stressing that sin is an everyday struggle that
requires accountability through “face-to-face”
contact.
“Confessing our sins is not going to a
psychiatrist, or to a torture chamber: it’s saying
to the Lord, ‘Lord, I am a sinner,’ but saying it
through the brother, because this says it
concretely. ‘I am sinner because of this, that and
the other thing.’”
The Pope offered his Oct. 25 reflections to those
gathered in the chapel of the St Martha
guesthouse, where he has chosen to reside.
Pope Francis opened his homily by reflecting
that for many believing adults, the idea of
confessing one’s sins to a priest is either so
unbearable that they completely avoid the
Sacrament, or the process is so painful that the
truth is transformed into a form of fiction.
Recalling St. Paul’s words in his Letter to the
Romans from today’s readings, the Pope noted
that the apostle did the opposite, confessing
publicly that “good does not dwell in me, that
is, in my flesh,” and that he doesn’t do the good
that he wants, but only the evil which he hates.
— The Christian Struggle
The Pope stressed that it often happens in the
life of faith that “when I want to do good, evil is
close to me.”
“This is the struggle of Christians. It is our
struggle every day. And we do not always have
the courage to speak as Paul spoke about this
struggle.”
Often, noted the Holy Father, we seek to justify
our sins by making excuses and saying that “we
are all sinners.”
“If we don’t recognize this, we will never be able
to have God’s forgiveness,” urged the Pope,
“because if being a sinner is a word, a way of
speaking, a manner of speaking, we have no
need of God’s forgiveness. But if it is a reality
that makes us slaves, we need this interior
liberation of the Lord, of that force.”
Pope Francis then emphasized that the most
important element for St. Paul in finding a way
out of this justification was to confess his sin to
the community, noting that “he doesn’t hide it,”
and that the confession of one’s sins with
humility is something that the Church requires
of us all.
“Confess your sins to one another,” he said,
repeating the words of St. James, not to be
noticed by others, but rather “to give glory to
God” and to recognize that it is only he who can
save.
This is why, stressed the Pope, we go to a
“brother priest,” to confess, urging that when
one confesses, it must be done with
“concreteness.”
“Some say: ‘Ah, I confess to God.’ But it’s easy,
it’s like confessing by email, no? God is far
away, I say things and there’s no face-to-face,
no eye-to-eye contact,” while “others [say] ‘No, I
go to confession,’ but they confess so many
ethereal things, so many up-in-the-air things,
that they don’t have anything concrete. And
that’s the same as not doing it.”
Concreteness, honesty, and the genuine ability
to be ashamed one’s mistakes are all qualities
needed in order to be open to the forgiveness of
God, as well as the deep awareness of his love,
the Pope noted.
— The Example of Children
Concluding his reflections, Pope Francis stressed
that in the face of Confession, we should have
the attitude of a small child, because “when a
child comes to confess, he never says something
general.”
“‘But Father, I did this and I did that to my
aunt, another time I said this word’ and they say
the word. But they are concrete, eh? They have
that simplicity of the truth.”
Although “we always have the tendency to hide
the reality of our failings,” the Pope noted that
“there is something beautiful: when we confess
our sins as they are in the presence of God, we
always feel that grace of shame.”
“Being ashamed in the sight of God is a grace. It
is a grace: ‘I am ashamed of myself.’”
When we think of this kind of shame, the Pope
stressed, “We think of Peter when, after the
miracle of Jesus on the lake, (he said) "Depart from me lord for I Am a sinner"