Cardinal Donald Wuerl - The Light Is On For You: The Life-Changing Power of Confession

THE LIFE-CHANGING POWER
OF CONFESSION

THE LIFE-CHANGING POWER
OF CONFESSION

CARDINAL DONALD WUERL
ARCHBISHOP OF WASHINGTON

Copyright 2014 by Cardinal Donald Wuerl

All rights reserved

Published by The Word Among Us Press
7115 Guilford Drive, Suite 100

Frederick, Maryland 21704
www.wau.org

18 17 16 15 14 1 2 3 4 5

ISBN: 978-1-59325-250-2
eISBN: 978-1-59325-454-4

Scripture texts used in this work are taken from The Catholic Edition of Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1965, 1966, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpts from the English translation of Rite of Penance, copyright 1974,
International Commission on English in the Liturgy Corporation (ICEL); the English translation of the Confiteor from The Roman Missal, copyright 2010,
ICEL. All rights reserved.

Cover design by John Hamilton Designs

Cover photo by Andrea Kelley of
St. Marys Catholic Church, Lincoln, Nebraska

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the author and publisher.

Made and printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013956587

By Scott Hahn

Confession is nothing new. As long as sin has been in the world, so have confession, penance, and reconciliation. Indeed, God delivered historys original invitation to confession just moments after mankinds original sin.

Read the opening pages of the Bible. Adam and Eve fall to temptation and eat the forbidden fruit. Immediately, God asks Adam, Where are you? (Genesis 3:9).

Now, did you ever wonder about the strangeness of that question? God is all-knowing and all-seeing. He knows Adams whereabouts without asking.

Yet ask he does. And when Adam answers evasively, God follows with two more questions: Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? (Genesis 3:11). And when Adam continues to avoid the self-incriminating truth, God asks Eve, What is this that you have done? (3:13).

God isnt looking to be informed. He already knows the score. So, in asking questions, he must want something else from Adam and Eve.

He wants confession. He wants the primal couple to confess their sin with true sorrow.

Later in the Book of Genesis, we find the same pattern. Cain murders his brother, Abel, and God asks, Where is Abel your brother? Cain doesnt answer the question, but still, God does not accuse him. Instead, he invites him to confess, and even presents him with evidence of his crime: What have you done? The voice of your brothers blood is crying to me from the ground (Genesis 4:10).

We see, in the stories of Adam and Eve and Cain, that men and women dont take hints, especially when it means admitting their own faults. Wed rather blame others, blame our heredity or environment, or even blame God. But were not likely to rush forward to blame ourselves.

So when God gave his law to Moses, he established confession as a cornerstone, and this time he gave clear instructions. Take, for example, Leviticus 5:5-6, which deals with the various sins people commit when they swear rashly: When a man is guilty in any of these, he shall confess the sin he has committed, and he shall bring his guilt offering to the LORD for the sin which he has committed, a female from the flock, a lamb or a goat, for a sin offering; and the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin.

By giving his people a clear plan of action, God made it possible for individuals to confess their sins. First, he explicitly insisted upon such a confession. Then, he gave the sinners something to doa liturgical act of sacrifice and penance. And finally, he insisted that they do all this with the help and the intercession of a priest. All of these elements would survive intact throughout the history of Israel and of the renewed Israel, the Church of Jesus Christ.

The old covenant was never abolished but rather was fulfilled and transformed with the new covenant of Jesus Christ. In their ancient form, the old covenant sacrifices were never enough, and they always pointed to something greater than themselves. God had established them to foreshadow their future fulfillment. In one way, these sacrifices were a hint of the greatness to come, but in another way, they were clearly inadequate: But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin year after year. For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins (Hebrews 10:3-4).

Even with the sacrifices, the chosen people fell into sin again and again, and no offering could make up for their offenses against an infinitely perfect God. The high priest in Jerusalem stood every day offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins (Hebrews 10:11).

The old ways would not do. If sacred rituals were to take away sins, then God himself would have to serve as high priest. And so he did.

Moreover, Jesus had the authority to share his high priestly power of forgiveness with his chosen apostles, and thats precisely what he did on the day of his resurrection: He breathed on them, and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained (John 20:22-23).

The apostles exercised this authority and preached confession to the first Christians. If we confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just, said St. John, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). St. Paul makes the further clarification that confession is something you do with your mouth, not just with your heart and mind (cf. Romans 10:10).

St. James, for his part, took up the matter of confession at the end of his discussion of the sacramental duties of the clergy. The term he used for clergymen is the Greek presbuterous, which literally means elders, but which is the root of the English word priest. Heres what James said:

Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders [presbuterous] of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. (James 5:14-16)

Whenever you see the word therefore in Scripture, you have to ask yourself what its there for. In this passage, James is clearly setting the practice of confession in connection with the priests healing ministry. Because priests are healers, we call upon them to anoint our bodies when we are ill, and therefore, even more eagerly do we go to them for the healing sacrament of forgiveness when our souls are sick with sin.

Note that St. James does not exhort his congregation to confess their sins to Jesus alone, nor does he tell them to confess their sins silently, in their hearts. They may do all these things, all to their credit, but they will not yet be faithful to the word of God preached by St. Jamesnot until they confess their sins aloud to another, specifically to a