John Garvey

The jubilee year, which will begin on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (December 8), will be a special time for the Church to “to be a credible witness to mercy, professing it and living it as the core of the revelation of Jesus Christ.” This, Pope Francis says, is particularly important today because the “practice of mercy is waning in the wider culture. In some cases the word seems to have dropped out of use.” There seems to be “no room for mercy” in the modern world.

But it’s not just the practice of offering mercy that we have lost. It’s also the practice of asking for it.

Our apologies are often not apologies at all.  We say we apologize if we offended—without acknowledging that what we said or did was in fact an offense. We characterize misdeeds as “mistakes” or “poor decisions.”  More often than not, we don’t apologize at all.  Instead we let things blow over.  Maybe we go out of our way to be kind to the person we have wronged.  But rarely do we say, “I was wrong for having done X.  I am sorry for it, and I ask your forgiveness.”

But offering mercy and asking for mercy go hand in hand.

First, to honestly admit guilt to another requires me to admit guilt to myself.  And when I am conscious of my own failings it’s easier to forgive the failings of others. When the scribes and the Pharisees considered their own sins, they abandoned their plan to stone the woman caught in adultery (Jn. 8:5).

Second, when we ask for forgiveness, we create the opportunity for mercy.  And once we have experienced mercy, we are more likely to believe it is possible and to ask for it.  There is a wonderful scene in the classic children’s story The Wind in the Willows where Mole ignores his friend Rat’s advice and consequently overturns Rat’s boat, ruining his picnic lunch.  The poor guilty Mole exclaims, “Ratty, my generous friend!  I am very sorry indeed for my foolish and ungrateful conduct  . . . Will you overlook it this once and forgive me, and let things go on as before?”

It is a moment of suspense and vulnerability.  Mole has put the fate of their friendship in Rat’s hands and can only wait for his judgment.  Rat’s reply is unanticipated generosity: “That’s all right, bless you!”  Forgiveness is experienced as a wonderful and undeserved gift.

Confession is a wonderful place to begin asking for mercy.  And during the Jubilee Year of Mercy Pope Francis has commended frequent reception of this sacrament.  On a practical level confession teaches us how to make a good apology. It offers us, as Pope Francis says, the opportunity “to touch the grandeur of God’s mercy with [our] own hands.” Once we have experienced God’s mercy we can be credible witnesses of mercy, professing and living it.

— John Garvey is President of The Catholic University of America.

I’ve never told anyone this before, but going to confession as a family heightens my sense that there’s a kind of thrill in it, like diving into the deep end for the first time. We sometimes joke that it is like “spiritual bath time” in which we confess the filth we’ve brought upon ourselves, and Christ washes us with his Word. The kids get the point, but that metaphor doesn’t fully capture either the dread or the thrill of confession.

Chad Pecknold

Last February, Pope Francis asked us all to ask ourselves: “‘When was the last time I went to confession?’ And if it has been a long time, don’t lose another day! Go, the priest will be good. And Jesus will be there, and Jesus is better than the priests — Jesus receives you. He will receive you with so much love! Be courageous, and go to confession.” Pope Francis understands the dread and the very thrill of it because he understands that Jesus is there in the sacrament of confession.

When Pope Francis says “Be courageous, and go to confession!” he captures the way in which it is a sacrament of conversion, “a radical reorientation of our whole life, a conversion to God with all our heart, an end of sin, a turning away from evil, with repugnance toward the evil actions we have committed.” (Catechism, 1431) It is a journey out of a dangerous place, which has been set up in our souls, through what we have done and what we have failed to do. And it feels precarious.

To switch analogies, the sacrament of confession is like a heart transplant. As the Catechism also states, “The human heart is heavy and hardened. God must give man a new heart.” Just to examine our consciences, to tell the truth about ourselves can quake our hearts. In the recent revelations about Planned Parenthood, we have all been horrified at the callousness of the human heart towards America’s secret Holocaust. Every heart should be shaken, every person moved by the horror and weight of this terrible sin upon us. As we watch the videos, many of us might not be aware of how personally this affects millions of women, millions of mothers whose own souls have been “war torn” by the scourge of abortion. But for them, as for all of us, there is hope. “The human heart is converted by looking upon him whom our sins have pierced.” (Catechism 1432)

Abortionists call the baby’s head a “calvarium,” or skull in Latin. In this way, every aborted baby points us to Christ our head, crowned with thorns. As Pope Francis says, “Every child not allowed to be born, but unjustly condemned to be aborted, has the face of Jesus Christ.” It’s understandable that people would want to look away from the horror and weight of this terrible sin of abortion. But looking away only seizes up our hearts further, drags us deeper into a heart of darkness. Rather, to those whose hearts ache from the sin of abortion, Pope Francis will also say to our sisters in pain, “Be courageous, go to confession!” There is hope after the sin of abortion, just as there is hope for all of us whose hearts have been scourged by sin. To be a Christian is to confess, “I am a sinner.”

And confession is simply telling the truth about ourselves before God. What’s both dreadful and thrilling about confession is that we become our own prosecutors, and God hears our case. Weighed down by our sins, aware of the damage they do, our hearts are contrite, and we suddenly hear something amazing breaking through the screen. Through a priest of Jesus Christ we hear words flowing from Calvary: Holy words of forgiveness, divine grace, and mercy flow into our souls so that our contrite hearts can be raised to new life for friendship with God and our neighbor.

Pope Francis tells us not to grow weary of going to confession. Whatever we have done, whatever we have failed to do, something radical happens in confession: “God always forgives us [there]. He never tires of this. It’s we who get tired of asking for forgiveness. But He does not tire of pardoning us.”

Don’t be surprised if the Holy Father brings with him a sense of danger and adventure. And don’t be surprised if he tells you to “Be courageous!  Go to confession.”

—    Chad Pecknold is an associate professor of systematic theology at The Catholic University of America School of Theology and Religious Studies.