Amazing Grace, Part 2

                        

It occurred to me that some of you, when reading yesterday's post, might be thinking "Why bother with Confession at all?"  Before I was Catholic, I would have totally agreed--so silly, after all.  Why not just pray?  Or, as my cool college roommate used to say as she peeked out from under the covers when I was getting ready for church early on Sunday morning: "Kim, P.A.H.  Pray. At. Home."

Here's the scoop on Confession/Reconciliation/Penance as I understand it in my meager way.  We Catholics believe that men (women too of course) are born with Original Sin infused into our DNA, in a way.  It's part of the definition of "human nature." Because of this, we're wired in such a way that we're just innately inclined to think, say, and do things that separate us from our Creator. 

Some of these separating things are big, such that, un-absolved, they would preclude us from ever going to Heaven at all; others are not so big, and these would cause us to first require a good scrubbing to clean us up enough for Heaven.  The scrubbing, of course, is called Purgatory.

"Our souls demand Purgatory, don't they? Would it not break the heart if God said to us, 'It is true, my son, that your breath smells and your rags drip with mud and slime, but we are charitable here and no one will upbraid you with these things, nor draw away from you. Enter into the joy'?

Should we not reply, 'With submission, sir, and if there is no objection, I'd rather be cleaned first.'

'It may hurt, you know.'

'Even so, sir.'  

~ C.S. Lewis

Confession, done correctly, cleans us in the meantime.  It gets us into a state of grace, so that we're all shined up to, say, receive Our Lord in Holy Communion.  Confession also helps us to purge ("Purge."  "Purgatory."  Hmmmm...) our sins on a more macro level, so that bit by bit, we can get holier and holier so that just maybe, with God's infinite mercy, we can shorten our eventual time in Purgatory and so get to Heaven more directly. 

Can't we just "Pray At Home"?  Well, sure--who doesn't--but that doesn't give us official absolution from our sins.  It turns out that Catholics really do believe this stuff is real--we have real sin, there really is a Purgatory, a Heaven, and a Hell, and at Confession--through one of those mysteries that we'll never fully understand just by reason alone--the priest becomes a sort of conduit through which Christ can speak directly to us, and really truly forgive our sins.

That is, until we walk out of church, get behind the wheel of our car, and some JERK cuts us off in traffic, and we think those oh-so-uncharitable thoughts about the jerk!  Good thing Confession's not a once-and-for-all proposition, and we get to go back as much as we want!