April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
HOMILY
Why go to confession during Lent?
In "The Art of Confession: Renewing Yourself Through the Practice of Honesty," spiritual author Paul Wilkes says that, every day, "in chat rooms filled with strangers, people of all ages and walks of life share their darkest and loneliest secrets: marital infidelities, addictions, collapses of relationships with family and friends, compulsions and betrayals."
Why do people reveal themselves in this way? What happened to friends, confidants, mentors and confessors? Is it the anonymity? But what anonymity do you have on Facebook or Twitter?
Isn't there a certain voyeuristic aspect to chat rooms? Never having been in a chat room, they have always struck me as seedy. It's like walking into a porn shop: No one looks each other in the eye. What are people seeking: their five minutes of fame? As Wilkes opines, do they seek unconditional acceptance? community? absolution?
How can you experience acceptance and community in the impersonal realm of cyberspace? Are people really looking for absolution when, Wilkes notes, "they have done nothing wrong, but have simply 'acted out'" -- or do they have the disease of "affluenza," which releases the wealthy from responsibility?
"Such perceived, questionable honesty is cheered by audiences on daytime talk shows," Wilkes states. Public revelations have become the staple for public figures who parade their failings before the cameras: President Bill Clinton, Governor Eliot Spitzer, Senator John Edwards, evangelical preachers Jimmy Swaggart and Ted Haggard. At best, it is bad theater; at worst, these public confessions have made sin and guilt trite and trivial.
"In all these instances, something is missing," Wilkes continues. "There is a hollowness to all this supposed honesty. Our sense of right and wrong has been dulled. The reasons are many: the deterioration of social institutions, including the Church; an absence of a shared set of values; isolation."
I would add, "the emergence of the individual against the community." We live in a period that is morally unstable. Some people want to retreat to the past and live in a black-and-white moral world which requires little reflection: "Just tell me what to do." Others are willing to grapple with the complexity of contemporary issues, but can slide into relativism.
We also dull ourselves with busyness, alcohol, recreational drugs and smart phones. We overload our schedules; we surround ourselves with constant sound from televisions and through earbuds; we accept as the norm interruptions from texts, emails, phones -- "anything," Wilkes says, "so that we are not forced to take stock of who we are, what we are doing with our lives, to what purpose, and where this is all going."
Self-examination resulting in confessions that can change us can't happen without time to reflect. Wilkes notes that confession implies an inner change, not congratulations or applause. Confession is interior, shared with those whom we have hurt and with spiritual healers. Is it any wonder Catholics have abandoned the sacrament of reconciliation?
In "The Art of the Public Grovel," author Susan Wise Bauer makes a distinction: "An apology is an expression of regret: 'I am sorry.' A confession is an admission of fault: 'I am sorry because....'" I did wrong; I committed a crime; I purposefully hurt you; I did something evil; I neglected my responsibility to you; I remained silent rather than speaking up.
As the Psalmist put it: "I sinned, what is evil in your sight I have done." That can be said to any person, not just God. In the Confiteor, Catholics do both: "I confess to almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned...."
We continue: "in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do." Then, three times: "through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault."
There is no place to hide. It is this sincere admission that is missing in today's society and Church.
But admission of guilt -- confession, in our spiritual understanding -- implies a new understanding of the situation and our role in it. Confession first looks backward: "What wrong did I do or good did I fail to do? Why did I choose to act in such a way?" Then confession looks forward. By taking responsibility for our life and our choices, we can realign ourselves with what is best in us, and with Christ Jesus and the Christian community.
Unless we enter into this depth of self-examination and confession, we will not experience real change: that is, conversion to Christ. We only have put a Band-Aid over a gaping wound. And, as Jesus taught, our demons will visit us again (see Matthew 12:43-45).
There is a haunting line from the film "Revolutionary Road" about two people unable to be honest with themselves in their dying marriage: "No one forgets the truth; they just get better at lying." Lent is a season to empty ourselves to make room not to become more practiced at lying, but to reach with honesty for the truth deep within ourselves, a truth and honesty that will change us in Christ.
"I confess to almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters that I have greatly sinned...."
(Father Mickiewicz is pastor of St. Mary's parish in Oneonta.)[[In-content Ad]]
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