LOVE IS WAITING FOR YOU IN THE CONFESSIONAL
During my sophomore year, I went on a weekend retreat run by the Catholic Campus Ministry in my college town. It was Saturday night, and in classic Samantha-on-retreat fashion, I was crying.
That year, I had dove deeper into my faith than ever before, but there were still pieces of me afraid to go even deeper. All week leading up to the retreat, I felt a tug on my heart. God was calling me closer… but I was afraid.
I was afraid because I knew the relationship He was inviting me into was one of complete love––but that love also meant complete honesty. And we both knew there were things I was trying to hide.
That week He was calling me to the Sacrament of Confession, but Confession was the thing I was most afraid of. Even in my few attempts to go, I was never able to open my heart or own up to my failures. I was afraid of how the priest would respond. I was afraid God couldn’t forgive me. I was afraid I would never become more than my sins.
But I knew I had said no too many times already, so there I was, crying in Confession as I voiced everything I had been hiding in the darkness. There, in the light shining out of the windows of the rec hall, the priest smiled at me ever so gently. I can’t remember exactly what the priest spoke to me that night, but I do remember there in that smile was the tender mercy of our Heavenly Father welcoming me home.
I considered making this blog post an “Apologetic for Confession.” Then it was going to be a “How-to Confession.” Instead, I want to tell you a story. It’s our story–– it’s your story just as much as it is mine. It is the story of a Father who is inviting us home.
THE LOST GARDEN
In the beginning, there was a garden where a man lived with his wife. Life in the Garden of Eden was exactly how God intended it to be. Adam and Eve worked and lived together in the garden where they walked with God and had access to the fruit of the Tree of Life. The fruit of this tree would sustain and nourish them for this life and for a loving communion with God and each other.
But you and I both know how this story ends. Tempted by the serpent, they ate from a different tree—the only tree that was forbidden. Adam and Eve broke their relationship with God and each other. By choosing to eat from that tree, they rejected the life of communion that God so wanted to give them, and they had to leave the garden. They lost love, faith, and trust and pursued a “goodness” that fell short of the goodness God wanted to give.
This story unfolds in the first pages of the Bible, and every page after reveals God’s pursuit of His beloved creation in order to restore the relationship that was lost. Every page reveals the love that wants to wash us clean, make us free, and bring us home. In the greatest love story ever told, every patriarch, prophet, and king prepares us for the moment when we will once again come face to face with the Tree of Life.
WASHED CLEAN
In the fullness of time, there was a hill outside of Jerusalem where a man named Jesus Christ was hung on a cross and breathed His last for our redemption. To human eyes, that hill couldn’t resemble the heavenly garden any less, but there on that hill stood the Tree of Life and the Food that would sustain our lives. From the Body of Jesus Christ, true God and true man, flowed Blood and Water.
With His arms outstretched, God invites us to this place. When we enter the confessional, we enter the Garden of Eden and sit at the foot of the Tree of Life to be washed by His Blood and Water. Father Mike Schmitz, referencing Venerable Fulton Sheen, explains the confessional as the place where “the very Blood of Christ is dripping from [the priest’s] fingers onto [our] heads, washing the penitent clean.”
This is our story. It’s my story. It’s your story. Once separated from God because of sin and shame, He opens His arms to welcome us back into love and mercy.
STEP IN
The Church in my college town offered Confession every afternoon before daily Mass. Some days there was a line forming before the priest came in at the appointed time. Other days, I would be sitting in the pews when the priest would walk into the Confessional and turn on the light. He would leave the door open and I knew that God was opening that door for me.
Yes, sin is real and shame can be crippling, but it is a lie from the pit of hell that you are unforgivable. God already conquered them. By His death on the cross, He overcame every single failure and turned it into victory. Our sins may be countless, but they will drown in the river of mercy flowing from Christ’s side if we only step in.
From my heart to yours,
