Confession

“ My confession then, O my God, in Thy sight, is made silently, and not silently. For in sound, it is silent; in affection, it cries aloud. For neither do I utter any thing right unto men, which Thou hast not before heard from me; nor dost Thou hear any such thing from me, which Thou hast not first said unto me. What then have I to do with men, that they should hear my confessions- as if they could heal all my infirmities- a race, curious to know the lives of others, slothful to amend their own? Why seek they to hear from me what I am; who will not hear from Thee what themselves are? ”

“ You seek sympathy, and all you get is the most evanescent sense of relief—if you get that much. For a confession, whatever it may be, stirs the secret depths of the hearer’s character. Often depths that he himself is but dimly aware of. ”

“ True confession can never be made into a priest's ear,—to men we can only confess the wrongs which we have done to men; but true confession is the awful tale of what we have done to God, against whom only we have sinned and done evil in His sight. ”

“ I have known this many a day that there needs no priest to make a confession valid, but that to every truly penitent heart the way to the very throne of Heaven is open, and that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin. If I regretted aught, it was that I must die without another kind of confession—the confessing my faith openly before men. ”

“ We see faces that he startles, lips that the sight of him shuts, lips that the memory of him, after he has passed in silence, opens to bitter confession of neglect and misunderstanding; but himself we see not. His aspect and his bearing, his work for God and his influence on men, are shown to us, through the recollection and conscience of the speakers, with a vividness and a truth that draw the consciences of us who hear into the current of the confession, and take our hearts captive. ”

“ Instead of brotherly confession one to another, or the pastoral sympathy of a fatherly elder, the religious mind of the day was instructed in an awful mysterious sacrament of confession, which gave to some human being a divine right to unlock the most secret chambers of the soul, to scrutinize and direct its most veiled and intimate thoughts, and, standing in God's stead, to direct the current of its most sensitive and most mysterious emotions. ”

“ But the abominable, auricular confession which is so highly esteemed by the world, is nothing but hypocrisy, human righteousness and superstition, open delusion of unbelievers, a false hope of the impenitent sinner, and a subtle invention of gain by the avaricious priests, whereby they set aside true confession and repentance, and comfort and encourage the world in their reckless, ungodly life. ”

“ That confession springs from the root of the heart. Sometimes thou hearest a man confessing, and knowest not whether he believes. But thou oughtest not to call him one confessing, if thou shouldest judge him to be one not believing. ”

“ I am beginning to hope that my surmises are correct, but I know it is hardly fair to force a confession from you that I shrink from making myself. It may be true that 'open confession is good for the soul,' but I find it is particularly mortifying to the body. ”

“ A confession, which they intend should include all mortal sin, and a few vocal prayers, comprise the whole of their preparation for the most solemn of all duties. The God of all sanctity is then introduced into a soul defiled with innumerable stains. ”

“ Yet, ev’ry week, for some transgression,
She went to sigh devout confession.
For ev’ry trifle seem’d to make
Her self-reproving Conscience ache;
And Conscience, waken’d, ’tis well known,
Will never let the Soul alone. ”

“ Are you sincere in all your religious practices? In your confession, do you look more to what is in your heart, than outside it? Do you always make a good intention and often say: “All for the greater glory of God”? ”

“ How canst thou in confession cover some sins through shame, if thy faith tells thee of this confusion thou shalt suffer for concealing them? Eemember what thy Redeemer saith, " Nihil opertum quod non reveletur, neque occultum quod non sciatur " There is nothing covered which shall not be revealed, nor hidden which shall not be known." ”

“ Let confidence begin early, move the lips first lisping for utterance, and continue in maturity, when the world’s folly that sometimes names itself experience shall try to teach disguise as prudence, and artifice as wisdom. Whatever we may think of the confessor, as an official person, confession is founded in the nature of things, and God bids us confess our faults one to another. Who ought to be confidential, if not those whose experience and destiny so unite their lives? I cannot even glance at the chief forms of this confidential relation. ”

“ My dear Christian, when you come to confession, you must not be satisfied in repeating with the mouth a prayer which you have committed to memory, or to permit a prayer of confession to be repeated to you by your confessor, but you must yourself bring with you a penitent heart, out of which your confession will then freely flow, for to confess without a penitent heart is mocking God, and without it no forgiveness of sins can take place.
To a penitent heart in the first place belongs, that you confess your sins and experience sorrow and penitence on account of them. ”

“ Secondly, because, when confession is our duty, God will not fail to make known to us our greatest faults; for then He himself examines; and the soul will feel the end of examination more perfectly accomplished, than it could possibly have been by all our own endeavors. ”

“ Would that respectable lady go any more to confess to that man if, after her confession, she could hear him lamenting the continual, shameful temptations which assail him day and night, and the damning sins which he has committed on account of what she has confessed to him? ”

“ So it is evident that the work of confession is nothing else than an occasion by which God is called to the fulfilment of His own promise, or by which we are trained to believe that we shall without doubt obtain the promise. ”

“ See men pray and hear them confess and you will be sure of this, that prayer and confession, no matter by whom, no matter to whom, are always true, have always their effect upon the heart. Whatever is false, they are not. It is one absolute truth that all men will admit. ”

“ This form of confession, therefore, instead of being a condition of forgiveness, as is our inner confession to God, is a privilege of the justified man, who, before he has made such confession, has been forgiven, and whose sins that lie still concealed from his knowledge are just as truly forgiven as those over which he grieves. ”

“ The impulse to confession almost always requires the presence of a fresh ear and a fresh heart; and in our moments of spiritual need, the man to whom we have no tie but our common nature, seems nearer to us than mother, brother, or friend. ”

“ A. We should confess frequently, if we wish to lead a good life.
Q. 1351. Should we go to confession at our usual time even if we think we have not committed sin since our last confession? A. We should go to confession at our usual time even if we think we have not committed sin since our last confession, because the Sacrament of Penance has for its object not only to forgive sins, but also to bestow grace and strengthen the soul against temptation. ”

“ Secondly, true confession must be promptly made, for dread of death, of increase of sinfulness, of forgetfulness of what should be confessed, of Christ’s refusal to hear if it be put off to the last day of life; and this condition has four terms; that confession be well pondered beforehand, that the man confessing have comprehended in his mind the number and greatness of his sins and how long he has lain in sin, that he be contrite for and eschew his sins, and that he fear and flee the occasions for that sin to which he is inclined. ”

“ But those alone confess ‘in Him,’ who live in the confession and conduct according to Him, in which He also confesses, who is contained in them and held by them. Wherefore ‘He never can deny Himself.’ And those deny Him who are not in Him. ”

“ Giving no sign of regret or repentance, saying never a word in vindication of his doctrines, what, I ask you, is to be thought of the man who, at such a time, and with full liberty to speak, made no confession one way or another, any more than if he had been a stock or a stone? ”

“ "It was not intended as a compliment. It was a confession. Now that I have made it, something seems to have gone out of me. Perhaps one should never put one's worship into words." ”

“ Although the life or salvation of a man, or the ruin of the state, should depend upon it, what is discovered in confession cannot be revealed. The secret of the seal—confession—is more binding than the obligation of an oath. ”

“ Fanaticism, in that deplorable age, was carried to such excess, that confession was an additional engagement to the perpetration of villainy; an engagement deemed sacred, because confession is a sacrament. ”

“ Does confession really relieve your mind? Does it make your sins fall off you like an old garment? My friends have told me so, but I cannot believe it.’
‘Oh, sir, your friends were right, indeed. It is the greatest comfort anyone can have. Why, when the priest absolves you, they are all gone. You not only need not trouble yourself about them again, but you are strictly forbidden to do so. It would be doubting God’s goodness, and the power He has imparted to His priests. Oh, sir, do try it, only just once,’ continued the woman, who saw in Hindes a possible convert. ”

“ CONFESSION.
Before going to Confession, be sure to make a careful examination of your conscience. Do this, if possible, alone and in quiet; or do it in the church—there is no better place.
Beg light from God the Holy Ghost to see yourself, as far as may be, as you are in His sight. Call to mind all the sins of deed, word, thought, and omission that you have been guilty of since your last Confession.
If you have examined your conscience daily you will not find this difficult. ”

“ After having carefully examined your conscience, excited yourself to a hearty sorrow for your sins, and made a firm purpose of amendment, go and make your confession to the minister of God, who, in virtue of the power and commission which he has received to that effect, is either "to forgive or retain, to loose or bind," according to the preparation of your heart, the nature of your transgressions, their number, their enormity, &c. In going to confession, humble yourself by considering the majesty of God, and your own many infirmities and great unworthiness. ”

“ I would give you some characters out of the text, to discover unto you the vanity and emptiness of your ordinary confessions. The confession of sin must be particular, universal, perpetual, or constant;—particular, I say, for there are many thousands who confess that they are sinners, and yet do not at all confess their sins; for, to confess sins is to confess their own real actual guiltiness, that which they indeed have committed or are inclined to do. So the true and sincere confession of a repenting people is expressed, 1 Kings viii. ”

“ It is an odd fact that writers and philosophers and even poets, all people who live necessarily a little apart from their kind, are frequently chosen as confessors by those who feel the need of confession. ”

“ After confession keep your soul in peace, and be on your guard—this is a point of cardinal importance—against giving access to any fear about the validity of the sacrament, either as regards the examination of conscience, the contrition, or anything else whatsoever. These fears are suggestions of the devil whose aim it is to instil bitterness into a sacrament of consolation and love.
*“After confession is not the time to [48] examine ourselves to find if we have told all our sins. ”

“ We need some John the Baptist, wandering through the land, crying: “Repent! repent!”
3. Confession of Sin. If we have true contrition, that will lead us to confess our sins. I believe that nine-tenths of the trouble in our Christian life comes from failing to do this. We try to hide and cover up our sins; there is very little confession of them. Someone has said: “Unconfessed sin in the soul is like a bullet in the body.”
If you have no power, it may be there is some sin that needs to be confessed, something in your life that needs straightening out. ”

“ In a word, a public confession, by virtue of the very fact that it is public, cannot be, and ought not to be pretended to be, just the expression of his faith which each one who accepts it as representing his faith would have framed had he only himself to consider. ”

“ When he confesses his sins he counts and calls them deeper than those of others; when he recounts the benefits he has received from God, he says that they are greater than others have enjoyed. Glad praise and weeping confession correspond to each other in a true heart, as correspond the height of the sky and the depth of its shadow in still waters. When the clouds above you become high, the shadow of them beneath you becomes correspondingly deep. ”

“ But it is not Nature's generous impulses, its tender yearnings, its noble aspirations, that the stricken conscience pours into the confessor's ear. The strugglings and writhings of the soul, the convulsive efforts to cast off an insupportable burden, to escape from an insufferable anguish, to find rest for itself in its weariness, peace for its warring passions, an answer and a solution to its doubts,—these are the events of the confessional. ”

“ Those who tread these paths should be informed of a matter respecting their confession, in which they are apt to err. When they begin to give an account of their sins, instead of the regret and contrition they had been accustomed to feel, they find that love and tranquility sweetly pervade and take possession of their souls: now those who are not properly instructed are desirous of resisting this sensation, and forming an act of contrition, because they have heard, and with truth, that this is requisite. ”