The Sacrament of Penance I

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The Sacrament of Penance - I

Fulton J. Sheen

The Sacrament of Penance is for spiritual wounds received after Baptism. Originalsin was washed from the infant in Baptism, and in the case of the adult, personalsins as well. But the Lord is "practical." He knows that the white robe given inBaptism is not always kept immaculate; that the "just man falleth seven times aday," and that the offenses against us should be forgiven "seventy times seven."

Therefore, in His mercy, He instituted a sacrament which is a tribunal of mercy forspiritual healing.

There have been those who say that there is no difference between the Sacramentof Penance and psychoanalysis because, in both, the human mind, whendisturbed, seeks to throw off its burden. True it is that as the hand will go to theeye to provide relief from a speck, so the tongue will come to the aid of the heartto secure relief. As Shakespeare put it: "My tongue will tell the anger of my heart;Or else my heart, concealing it, will break." We are not here criticizing thepsychoanalytic method, but only the error of saying that there is no differencebetween it and the Sacrament of Penance. But the differences between

psychoanalysis and confession are enormous.

Contrast of Psychoanalysis and Confession

Psychoanalysis is the avowal of an attitude of mind; confession is an avowal ofguilt. The first comes from the subconsciousness, the other from conscience. Aperson can be proud of his state of mind; some are proud of being atheists, orimmoral, or gangsters. Many a patient will tell a psychiatrist, "Have you ever hearda case like mine, Doctor?" On the contrary, no one is ever proud of his guilt. Evenin isolation, the sinner is ashamed. It takes no courage to admit that one is

"mental" but guiltless; but it takes a tremendous amount of heroism, of which feware capable, to take the burden of one's own guilt to Calvary and lay one's handsat the feet of the Crucified and say: "I am responsible for this."

Psychoanalysis proceeds according to a theory, and not always one theory.Confession, however, is based upon conformity or non-conformity to the absolutestandard of the law of God. Psychoanalysis does not agree on a particular theoryby which a mental state is to be judged. There are three main theories: oneattributes mental disturbances to sex (Freud); another to an inferiority complex(Adler); and the third to a drive toward security (Jung). The analyst, because he is

guided by a theory, is never required to have any moral fitness for his task; hispersonal ethical right to receive confidences is never raised. He may be living withhis sixth wife, and yet advise people how to be happy in marriage.


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But in confession, it is different. The deliverances of the penitent are always on themoral planenot on the psychological. The penitent knows that he is before a

judgment, not a theory, and that the confessor who hears his sins stands in theplace of God. Because the priest is the mediator between God and man, the

Church always asks that the priest who absolves the penitent be himself in thestate of grace; that is to say, a participant in divine life. The avowal of guilt,therefore, on the part of the penitent is not subject to the individual whims,theories, idiosyncrasies, and kinks of the one who hears it, but to the divine law,and to the order and the moral standards of Christ Who taught that one must beholy to make holy.

A third difference is that in psychoanalysis, there is the probing by an alien oroutside mind; in confession, it is the penitent himself who is his own prosecutingattorney and even his own judge. In analysis, there is often a seeking out ofattitudes to bolster up a theory; but in a spontaneous confession, the penitentanalyzes his own faults and confesses them without having them wander and riotin "free association" and then be submitted to "private interpretation of thesubconscious" which took the place of private interpretation of the Bible. Mannaturally accords pardon to others who have done injury by a simple avowal offaults, without someone else dragging them out. One indispensable condition ofreceiving pardon in the sacrament is this open avowal of guilt, such as the prodigalson made when he returned again to the father's house.

Another difference is that what is told in the confessional is absolutely secret, andmay never be divulged, or made part of a book, or turned into a case history, such

as is often done with the material that is brought out in a psychoanalyticexamination. The offenses man commits against God do not belong to any man;hence, he may not make use of them. The material of confession belongs to God,and sins may never be revealed by the confessor until God does so on the Day of

Judgment. The confessor's ears are God's ears, and his tongue may never speakwhat God has heard through his ears.

Another difference is in the attitude that a person assumes in confession andpsychoanalysis. In one instance, the mentally disturbed person is on a couch; inconfession, he is on his knees. There is a passivity about the admission of amental state on a couch; but there is a humble activity on the part of one who

admits moral guilt while on his knees. In the psychological examination, there isnever any such thing as contrition or satisfaction. In confession, sorrow and themaking up for our sins are integral parts of the sacrament. When one sees a stringof confessional boxes in a large church, with feet protruding from under thecurtains like wiggling worms, one realizes that man has reduced himself almost tothe humble state of the worm, in order that he might rise again, restored to theglorious friendship of the Christ Who died for him.

A final and important difference between psychoanalysis and confession is this: inpsychoanalysis, the admission of mental states comes from ourselves; inconfession, the impetus or the desire to confess our sins is from the Holy Spirit.

The night of the Last Supper, Our Blessed Lord said that He would send His Spiritto convict the world of sin (John 16:8). It is only through the Spirit of Christ that we


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"mortal" because it brings death to the life of Christ in the soul. If the wrong donedoes not destroy the divine life, but only injures it, it is called "venial."

A serious sin always produces in the soul a three-fold effect. The first is self-estrangement. A sinner feels in his inmost being like a battlefield where a civil warrages. He no longer is a unit but a duality in which two forces within him strugglefor mastery.

Serious sin estranges the sinner from his fellow man, because a man who is not atpeace with himself will not be at peace with his neighbor. World wars are nothingbut the projection, into great areas of the earth's surface, of the psychic warswaging inside of muddled souls. If there were no battles going on inside of hearts,there would be no battlefields in the world. It was after Cain's murder of Abel thathe asked the anti-social question, "Am I my brother's keeper?"

The most serious effect of sin is not alienation from self and from fellow man; it isthe estrangement from God. Inasmuch as grace is the divine life within the soul, itfollows that a serious sin is the destruction of that divine life. That is why the"Epistle to the Hebrews" asks: "Would they crucify the Son of God a second time,hold Him up to mockery a second time, for their own ends?" (Heb. 6:6) Sin,therefore, is a second death. The merits we gained are lost; but those merits canbe regained, thanks to the mercy of God, in the Sacrament of Penance.

Instituted by Christ

The Sacrament of Penance was instituted by Christ in the form of a judgment, forthe remission, through sacramental absolution, of sins committed after Baptismand granted to a contrite person confessing his sins.

All through the Old Testament there was a preparation for this sacrament,inasmuch as God strove to induce men to acknowledge their sins before Him. Toelicit a confession, God said to Adam: "Hast thou eaten of the tree?" God said tothe first murderer: "Where is thy brother?" In Mosaic legislation, a sinner brought asin offering, which was burned in a public place, to show that the sinner was notafraid to admit his guilt. The prophet, Nathan, heard David's confession after hissin with Bethsabee, and assigned to him a penance. John the Baptist heard theconfession of those who came to hear him preach. These were only types andfigures of the sacrament that was to come, because forgiveness became possibleonly through the merits of Our Lord's Passion.

No one questions the fact that Our Blessed Lord had the power to forgive sins. TheGospels record the miraculous cure of the paralytic at Capharnaum. Our Lord firsttold the paralytic that his sins were forgiven him, whereupon those round aboutlaughed at Him. In response the Savior told them that it was just as easy to curethe man as it was to forgive his sins; so He cured the paralytic: "To convince you

that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins while He is on earth" (Mark 2:10).


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Our Blessed Lord was saying that God in the form of Man had the power to forgivesins; that is to say, through the instrumentality of the human nature, which Hereceived from Mary, He was forgiving sins. Here is an anticipation of the fact that itis through humanity that He will continue to forgive sins; i.e., through those whoare endowed with sacramental power to do so. Man cannot forgive sins, but Godcan forgive sins through man.

Our Lord promised to confer this power of forgiveness, first of all, to Peter whomHe made the rock of the Church. He told Peter that He would ratify in heaven thedecisions which Peter took on earth. These decisions were explained in twometaphors of "binding" and "loosing." The power of jurisdiction was given to theone who had the keys of the kingdom. This promise made to Peter was followed upa little later on by one made to the Apostles. The second promise did not bestowthe primacy, for that was reserved to Peter. Our Lord told the Apostles:

"I came upon an errand from my Father, and now I am sending you out in my turn.With that, he breathed on them, and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit; whenyou forgive men's sins, they are forgiven, when you hold them bound, they areheld bound." (John 20:21-23)

Our Divine Redeemer here says that He was sent by the Father; now He sendsthem with the power to forgive or not forgive. These words imply "hearingconfessions," because how would the priests of the Church know which sins toforgive and which sins not to forgive if they did not hear them?

One can be very sure that this sacrament is not of human institution, for if theChurch had invented any of the sacraments, there is one that it certainly wouldhave done away with, and that is the Sacrament of Penance. This because of thetrials that it imposes upon those who have to hear confessions, sitting in theconfessional box for long hours while listening to the terrific monotony of fallenhuman nature. Because it is a divine institutionwhat a beautiful opportunity it isto restore peace to sinners and to make them saints!

It may be asked, why did Our Lord demand a telling of sins? Why not bury one'shead in one's handkerchief, and tell God that one is sorry? Well, if this method ofbeing sorry is not effective when we are caught by a traffic policeman, why shouldit be effective with God? Shedding tears in one's handkerchief is no test of sorrow,because we are then the judges. Who would ever be sentenced to prison, if everyman were his own judge? How easy it would be for murderers and thieves toescape justice and judgment simply by having a handkerchief ready!

Because sin is pride, it demands a humiliation, and there is no greater humiliationthan unburdening one's soul to a fellow man. Such self- revelation cures us ofmany a moral illness. Hurtful things often hurt more if they are shut up. A boil canbe cured, if lanced to release the pus; so too is a soul on the pathway to theFather's House when it admits to its own sin and seeks forgiveness. All nature

suggests an unburdening of oneself. If the stomach takes a foreign substance into


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it which it cannot assimilate, it throws it off; so it is with the soul. It seeksdeliverance from that which troubles it, namely the unbearable repartee within.

Furthermore, when a sin is avowed and admitted, it loses its tenacity. Sin is seen inall its horror when viewed in relationship to the Crucifixion. Suppress a sin, and itbecomes buried, and later on will come out in complexes. It is very much likekeeping the cap on a tube of toothpaste. If one submits it to great pressure, thetoothpaste will come out somewhere; one does not know where. The normal placefor it to come out is through the top. So too, if we suppress our guilt or deny it, weput our mind under pressure and it creates abnormalities. The guilt does not comeout where it ought to be, namely, in the sacrament. Thus it was that LadyMacbeth's guilt came out in the washing of hands. It should have been her soulthat was washed, and not her hands.

Copyright 1962 by Hawthorn Books, Inc.

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The Sacrament of Penance I