A reflection for Lent on the sacrament of confession. This reflection is taken from the latest edition of our parish newsletter.

Recovering a Forgotten Rite by Rev. Joshua Peckett

On the approach to Easter, we hear much in scripture of the call to repent and seek forgiveness. Preaching repentance and fostering reconciliation are a vital part of what it means for the Church to continue the work of the Incarnation.

“Repent and be baptized”, said Saint Peter (Acts 2.38) to the first Christian converts - a reminder that our baptism is a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 3.3).

Only the repentant should be baptized and baptism deals with the effects of our sins, being a participation in the death and resurrection of Christ. But we all know that we sin after baptism. In one sense, baptism fulfils repentance, but ours is a life of constant ‘conversion’ – of turning to Christ – because we have a habit of wandering off and needing to come back home to God.

Thankfully, there exists a great aid to this predicament – private confession. Now, when one hears the words ‘private confession’, you’d be forgiven for first thinking about whispers in confessional booths and the wild plots of some Hollywood films. The truth is rather different and confession is a realistic sacrament acknowledging that, as sinners, we need help and we need to know that we are forgiven. It is an opportunity to be restored to the newness of baptism when we fail, and takes seriously the sentiment of the Prayer Book that ‘by frailty of our mortal nature we cannot always stand upright.’

The sacrament of confession embodies the sureness with which we can know that all who turn to Christ will not be tuned away (John 6.37), and as a way of taking stock of our lives before reaching out urgently to God for grace to make progress on the way to the perfect likeness of Christ, it is a wonderful reconnection with our baptism.

Sometimes a question is asked here - isn’t this all very Catholic and we don’t do this in the CofE? Well, while the popular image associates private confession with the Catholic Church, it is not exclusively a Catholic rite. At the Reformation, it was retained in some Protestant Churches. For example, it is an important part of Lutheran tradition and in the Church of England provision for it was made in Prayer Book when ministers visited the sick and dying who, possessing a disquieted conscience, could not find consolation in the General Confession of the liturgy. Today, private confession goes by various names: ‘The Reconciliation of the Penitent’, ‘the Sacrament of Reconciliation (or Penance)”, or simply “Confession”, are all commonly used and emphasize different aspects of the same rite. For those wary of it, the Anglican attitude to its practice has traditionally been summed up by the aphorism ‘All can, some should, none must’.

Whatever the name, private confession continues to be used when a person’s conscience is burdened with a particular sin, they wish to make a new beginning in the Christian life, or they wish to incorporate it as part of a regular personal discipline. The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, said that Christians should take care about the confession of their sins. As time passes the habit of being critical about people and things grows more than each of us realize, and regularly examining both our conscience and our behaviour is a healthy spiritual discipline.

As we move from through the Christian year, from the celebration of the Incarnation at Christmas to Christ’s Passion and Resurrection at Easter, let me commend private confession to you if you have never considered it before. As an opportunity to be unburdened of our sins, seek solace and advice, and hear the joyful words of God’s absolution pronounced upon us, it is entirely fitting with the Lenten journey to Easter. So, however we prepare for the great celebration of our redemption at Easter, let us do so as people committed to following Christ with our whole selves, knowing our faults and seeking good in our lives, and let us be ready to proclaim the same freedom to others we now know in Christ.