ElizabethEsther.com

Why I go to Confession

I don't know how it works exactly, but something about opening my mouth and admitting what I've done wrong is a crucial step toward healing and reconciliation. It helps me see myself clearly. 

In this way, Confession isn't something I do for God. It's something God does for me.

In other words, the secret only has power over you so long as it's a secret.

As a fundamentalist, I adamantly disagreed with the idea of Confession because I thought it meant the priest--not God--forgave sins. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Catholics don't believe this. Only God can forgive sins. [I'm not a theologian, so for a more detailed doctrinal explanation, read this]

"But what if I don't get a chance to go to Confession?" I once asked a priest. "What if I just pray and ask for the Lord's forgiveness? Would I be forgiven?"

"Yes," answered the priest. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us."

So, why go to Confession? I think one of the main reasons has to do with preparing ourselves to receive the Eucharist. If the Eucharist really is the literal body and blood of Christ, then getting ourselves right with God seems like the least we can do.

And that is part of it for me. But also, there's something deeply personal about my experience with Confession. For one thing, it keeps me honest. It requires me to examine myself, to take a moral inventory of what I have done and what I have failed to do.

This helps me move closer toward what God desires for me: "truth in the innermost being" (Ps. 51:6). The thing is, it's just too easy for me think I can keep myself honest by myself. I have an alarming propensity to lie to myself about my shortcomings. (But I have very little trouble seeing all the shortcomings in others!).

Additionally, audibly confessing my sin acts as a deterrent against future sin. Sometimes just knowing I'm gonna have to have to confess that sin again is enough to keep me from doing it. 

Confession also keeps me humble. It is my way of demonstrating that I am powerless to change myself. I cannot become a kinder, more compassionate, just and loving person through my own effort. I need divine intervention.

Confession helps me move beyond myself and into a place of humility. Humility is me saying "I am powerless to change without God's help." The act of confessing my shortcomings makes me feel very small--not in a degrading way--but sorta like putting on glasses and getting the proper perspective about who I am and who God is.

There is much relief in smacking up against the bigness of God. It makes me realize, with a sort of sheepish chuckle, how foolish it is for me to think and act like I'm in control of everything. He's God. It's OK to let Him do His job.

The strange thing is, I don't even really know Who God Is. I grew up with a very distorted view of Him and I still haven't put all the pieces in place. My view of God is partial, at best. Still, it seems that receiving His grace is not dependent on my having all the answers. 

Which is to say, I don't know why Confession works. And I guess I don't even really need to know (which is a far cry from my You-Must-Have-All-The-Answers fundamentalist background). It's kinda like driving a car. You might not know anything about how it works, but you press the gas pedal and it goes. 

It took a long time for me to get over the mortification I felt upon entering the confessional. Part of me was like: "Why do I need to confess my sins to another person? He's just a sinful human like me!" 

I mean, I still get all mortified and embarrassed but I think I'm also beginning to understand that my sin isn't just between me and God. My sin hurts me and it hurts others. And since I've hurt others with my sin, I need others to aid me in my healing. 

I used to be worried that the priest would be shocked upon hearing my list of sins. But someone once told me: "Uh. No. They've heard it all." 

Again, relief! I'm not some super special sinner. I'm just an average, worn out housewife who needs someone to tell her: "Woman, you are forgiven."

And that's what I hear every single time.

Aridity of spirit

I walked out of church today. The Presbyterian pastor made a derogatory remark about Catholics and his sword of spiritual elitism sliced me open. Everyone else laughed but I bled all the way up the aisle, stumbled out into the sunny courtyard and blinked back tears.

Most Sundays I feel far too broken and weak to brave the sermon. I'm not strong in the face of the booming male voice of Biblical authority. I bleed too easily. 

But still, every Sunday morning I get up and put on my church clothes. I put on my church face. I put on my church talk. It's my armor. It hides my aching, bruised soul. Every Sunday morning I hope for just one taste, just one tiny draught of grace.

We attend a Presbyterian church as a family and later, I go to Mass alone.

What this usually means is that on Sunday morning I get torn apart and on Sunday evening I get sewn back together.

It's a cobbled-together faith that matches my cobbled-together life. 

Today, sitting alone in the sunny courtyard, I really felt the schisms that divide Christians. I've inherited the centuries' old grudge of Protestant v. Catholic. Sometimes it feels like I'm being asked to pick between two equally beloved parents. How do I pick? I love them both.

And so I wept for the divorce. I wept for everything that Protestants threw away during the Reformation and I wept for the sex scandals that are rocking the Catholic Church. I wept for the misunderstandings and the misconceptions, the prideful one-upmanship, the false dichotomies and the pitting of brother against brother.

Mostly, I wept because I don't know how to fix it.

Sometimes I think God is asking me to live in the place of brokenness. In fact, I know this is what He's asking me to do. And frankly, I hate it. I accept it. I don't resent it. But it's painful and, well, I don't like pain.

So, every Sunday morning I get up and put on my church clothes. I put on my church face. I don't have zealous feelings or passion. 

I don't have the answers for repairing the breach or mending the centuries' old divorce.

But I do have love. And I can choose to obey. I can give my broken, paltry offering.

By God's grace, perhaps it will be enough.

One single act done with aridity of spirit is worth more than many done with feelings of devotion. --St. Francis de Sales

Why believe?

"And then I found I could not reject God. I could not. I cannot explain this. One discovers one cannot move a boulder by trying with all one's strength to do it. I discovered--without any sudden influx of love or faith--that I could not reject Christianity. Why I don't know. There it was. I could not. That was an end to it."                                                  --Sheldon Vanauken, A Severe Mercy

"I've never really had the crisis of faith you've had in these last few years," my husband remarked recently. "I never doubted I was saved or that God loved me. But then again, I wasn't raised how you were."

Perhaps that's why belief is such a struggle for me. I was raised from birth in an abusive fundamentalist church. He joined as a believing adult. His faith was a pre-existing condition. Mine wasn't.

He didn't have a lot to undo when we left. I had everything to undo.

And then I've had to rebuild.  

The result is not very pretty. In fact, it's really sorta a mess.

I don't make for a good Christian, see. I cuss. I gripe about having to go to church. I fail. I end up in the confessional, choking on my pride, barely able to admit to those failures. I hedge those mea culpas with rationalizations. I despise tithing.

Most days I don't even know why I believe. I've tried rejecting God and walking away from Christianity. But I can't. It's just there--an ever fixed mark.

God is stitched into the very fabric of my DNA. I believe because I can't not believe. 

This frustrates me. I would like to be master of my own fate, Captain of my destiny. And yet, that strikes me as a peculiarly narcissistic endeavor. I can scarcely control my own self, let alone the forces outside myself.

Still, belief doesn't come easily. I'm afraid it might always be this way. And what a ridiculously meager offering to give back to God. I am not exactly the most cheerful giver. My offerings of praise are fraught with caveats and complications, wrenched from cloying fingertips.

Ichabod, the glory has departed. I am lukewarm.

I can only imagine having my husband's constancy, his fortitude of faith. The storms and trials of life beat down on him and he just digs in deeper, shoulders the load and presses onward, believing. Singing, even!

Meanwhile, I flail and flounder, collapse and resurrect. "Am I tiresome?" I ask. After all, I'm tiresome to myself.

"No," he says. "I just want you to have sustainable expectations for yourself. Don't overdo it."

Maybe that's where I need to start. I overdo almost everything.

Maybe my ugly, lukewarm offering is enough. For now.

A Moment of Silence

In honor of Holy Week, I'm consecrating my time to family and prayer. This also means I will not be hosting The Saturday Evening Blog Post this weekend. May you have a joyous and meaningful Easter! 

Understanding is the reward given by faith.
Do not try to understand in order to believe,
but believe in order to understand.
--St. Augustine

Beginning the Lenten journey...

For me, fasting is a vital spiritual practice. It reminds me in a particularly physical way that I am not merely flesh. I am spirit and soul. 

In many ways, fasting is my teacher. It reveals the emotional attachments I have to food. Abstaining from my favorite foods re-calibrates my palate. I find that I can be content with simple fare. 

Yes, it's uncomfortable. But that's the point, really. It's an opportunity to identify myself in some small measure with the sufferings of Christ.

In Evangelical is Not Enough, Thomas Howard explains Lent as "a time of penitence. Here we identify ourselves with the Lord's fast and ordeal in the wilderness, which He bore for us...the gospel teaches us that Christians are more than mere followers of Christ. We are His Body and are drawn, somehow, into His own sufferings."

I think it's important to note that fasting is not a means by which we accrue merit with God. It is simply a means by which we move, with other Christians, through a season of self-examination and prayer.

Last year I heard someone describe Lent as a three-legged stool. The stool is supported by three practices: prayer, fasting and alms-giving. 

Prayer and fasting should turn our focus outward. I've discovered that prayer and fasting free me to pay closer attention to the needs of others. 

This year, my Lenten fast is primarily about food. Ever since the twins were born I've been pretty undisciplined about my eating habits.

I am an emotional eater. I soothe myself with food. I eat when I'm happy, I eat when I'm sad. I eat in celebration, I eat in despair. I was raised to be a very disciplined eater which is probably why I don't have a significant weight problem. However, I've let myself slide.

But I'm not going to be harsh with myself. This Lent I'm fasting by eating in a structured, mindful way. I'm also giving up my favorite cookies (oh, dear, precious Mint Milanos!) and my favorite wine (pinot noir).

I'm expectant to see what this season of fasting teaches me.

Do you observe Lent? What does it mean to you?
 What does it teach you? 

Arguing with a priest, failing everyday and praying anyway

I'm not a particularly spiritual person. I can't drum up mystical feelings. Most of the time I don't "feel" God near me. And also, I dislike going to church.

But I go anyway.

It's almost like going on a diet. I don't want to restrict my caloric intake, but I force myself to do it anyway. I'll never want to exercise. But I do it anyway.

It takes effort to keep the bitterness and cynicism at bay. I find myself sitting through a sermon criticizing everything and getting fidgety. I think up sarcastic Tweets, doodle on the church bulletin.

You know, generally acting like a stubborn child.

"You need to get over yourself," Matt says to me. He has a point. I place great importance on my own thoughts and feelings. But I can be ridiculously dismissive of the thoughts and feelings of others.

Last week after a particularly dismal failure in character, I found myself shaking my fist (metaphorically) at the sky.

I imagine God got a good chuckle out of my tantrum. I mean, did I really think I was better than anyone else? Did I really think myself immune to the same failures and breaches of integrity that plague all of us?

I called up a friend--who happens to be a priest--and started arguing with him. Thankfully my friend knows that arguing is how I figure stuff out and he doesn't take it personally. Also, he's unafraid to argue back.

Which can be frustrating. And annoying. I want validation and sympathy. Not cold, hard truth.

"I'm gonna quit calling you," I said. "Because you say the same thing every time."

"What's that?" he asked.

"You tell me to quit feeling sorry for myself, cheer up and start praying for others."

He laughed. "Well, I'm preaching to myself, too," he said.

I'm finding that most of my angst can be directly correlated to lack of prayer. I neglect prayer because I'm not good at it. But I should know better.

Have I forgotten that the only thing that brought me through the first two years of my twins' lives was prayer? It was sink or swim. Prayer helped me swim. Prayer was my source of strength.

If I wait around until I feel like praying--I'll never pray. Truth is, I'm never going to evolve past the point of needing to pray.

Most of the time I just have to do it in spite of my stubborn, complaining self.

Why confession is good for my soul

Confession helps me see myself properly. It is easy for me to see the faults and sins of others. But I have an uncanny ability to excuse and justify my own wrong-doing.

Without Confession, I am prone to lie to myself about my sin. The trouble is that belittling my sin also belittles the Cross.

Oswald Chambers wrote: "The only basis on which God can forgive us is the tremendous tragedy of the Cross of Christ...Forgiveness, which is so easy for us to accept, cost the agony at Calvary."

God's forgiveness of my sins enables me to forgive others. I love much because I have been forgiven much.

And yet, forgiveness does not preclude consequences. Doesn't a good conscience seek penance? I am grateful for penance because it provides a way for me to demonstrate contrition to God and reparation to those whom I have hurt.

Sometimes I am tempted to believe the lie that "as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else, it's OK." I would like to believe that I am an island, that my actions do not affect others. However, this kind of thinking ignores and belittles what my sin cost God.

There is no such thing as consequence-free sin. To sin with impunity is to trample the Cross.

This is why Confession--regular Confession--keeps me honest. It aids me in remembering that God's heart was broken in grief. For my sin.

Oswald Chambers notes that God's conscience was satisfied at the Cross. And I know that my conscience is satisfied at Confession.

Yes, Confession is humiliating--but only insofar as I am unwilling to admit wrongdoing. Am I so proud that I imagine myself as not needing the forgiveness of God? Am I the one human being who does not need to be restored to a right relationship with God?

And anyway, the necessary humiliation of Confession is nothing in comparison to the humiliation of the Cross.

When I see the sins of my spouse or children, I should not become surprised or angry. But perhaps only be surprised that I do not see my own failures as clearly. My very reluctance to confess ought to illuminate my hypocrisy.

God's forgiveness cost the agony of Calvary. Remembering that truth motivates me to keep short accounts with God.

It's the least I can do to repay the debt of love I owe Him.