From the Rector

EDITOR’S NOTE: During Fr Robert’s sabbatical, the Bell & Tower is publishing a series of articles he wrote to explain the Episcopal liturgy.

Having considered the Prayers of the People we now come to the Confession. The Confession of the whole community (rather than private confessions) was new to the liturgies of the Reformation. In the early Church Christians acknowledged their own faults by focusing on giving thanks for the mercy of God.

The emergence of individual Confession emerged later in the Middle Ages and seems to have grown from the custom of a priest making a Confession to an assistant before saying mass. He would also hear the server’s Confession and proclaim forgiveness before coming to the Altar. (Our custom of saying the Collect for Purity at the beginning of the liturgy is an outgrowth of this custom).

First John reads, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us; but if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

The opening line of the individual rite of Confession on page 447 of the Prayer Book reads “The Lord be in your heart and upon your lips that you may truly and humbly confess your sins: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

I find it heartening that those words, that blessing, is mirrored in the liturgy. When the deacon brings the Gospel Book to the priest for a blessing, the priest says “The Lord be in your heart and upon your lips that you may worthily proclaim his Holy Gospel.”

There is a vital link between being able to honestly confess our sins, faults, and failures in the sight of God and to being equipped to proclaim the Gospel. It is right that these lines are so similar. Both proclaiming the Gospel and confessing our sins are works that demand of us an obedience to the Lord and that we lay aside our pride and vanity.

It is impossible to truly proclaim Good News without knowing ourselves forgiven by Divine Mercy.  Confessing and Proclaiming both find their root in the heart of the Christian faith—our acknowledgment of the glory of God and the vital presence of his gracious love.

Confession and Proclamation are at the heart of the Christian message. We are truly sorry, we humbly repent, we are forgiven by the Lord who came into the world to save sinners, and we can’t help but proclaim that grace boldly—full of thanks and praise for God’s unfailing mercy. Our whole ministry as Christians is bound to the reality of God’s forgiveness—to the washing away of our sins in the flowing waters of baptism. Confession and repentance make proclamation truly possible.

Theologian John Macquarrie writes, “Sin, or rather the conviction of sin, is the presupposition of baptism. We have a sense that all is not well with us.” We are washed from sin in Baptism. Yet, we also recognize the reality of sin in our lived Christian experience. How do we hold onto that centered place in which we find ourselves at one with Christ, literally donning Christ at the font?

Confession and repentance are means by which we can keep our Baptism in front of us as we walk. They are the recognition that sin, washed from us at Baptism, still enters the Christian life and dims the awareness of the fullness of Christ’s indwelling. Repentance makes the unobservable and the easily avoided more concrete so that we also feel and know the reality of the grace of Baptism.

Sometimes penitence takes on a dismal quality. It is never fun work but we too often find folks who seem to revel in an unnatural focus on sin and the self-flagellating of confession. The problem with this approach is that it is no less self-centered than a wholesale and ultimately empty affirmation of the narcissist. God’s mercy is wider than we can ask or imagine.

Confession is a call to honesty. To honestly see our faults. To honestly ask for forgiveness. And to honestly believe that our sins are put away—that we are forgiven, that we may walk in newness of life. Anglicanism, at its best, is a tension of commendable impulses. We balance, healthily, the joy of Easter with the pain of Good Friday. We are not an Easter people alone nor are we a Church that grinds the penitent down with the guilt of Good Friday.

We know that the fullness of the Christian life is revealed in all of these moments and more. Easter makes little difference without Ash Wednesday. Without its reminders of our mortality and failings, the joy and redemption of the Resurrection make little real sense (not that they ever truly do which is part of the profound blessing).

Confessing our sins is not about us; it is about the other. It is about God. Confession is the willingness to accept the forgiveness and mercy of God, so that we may love God with all of our being, and grow in love and charity toward our neighbor. Not because it is simply a kind thing to do but because we are called to mirror the love of God—to strive to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect—and to know we will fail and be called to confess and to strive anew.

Confession is a Sacrament of the future—restoring hope rather than simply punishing transgression. It is not a Sacrament of judgment alone but of restored souls and renewed relationships. It reminds us of our whole saved being whose nature and hope is found in the One identity we all share as the Body of Christ. 

Confession only makes sense in light of our many, many relationships as our souls and bodies are drawn ever closer to God and ever closer to our Baptized self so that we can be a sign of God’s forgiveness to others as well, so that we may worthily proclaim His Holy Gospel as others perceive within us the fruits of Christ’s redemption.

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Robert