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| Lourdes, France. |
Over two summers I spent three weeks in Lourdes hearing confessions; nothing else, just hearing confessions. Lourdes is the town in the south of France where in 1858 Our Lady appeared to St. Bernadette who was just 14 years old. It is where Mary identified herself as the Immaculate Conception, meaning she was conceived without any sin. She is the sinless one.
Many people are often surprised to hear me say that it was one of the most beautiful experiences I have had as a priest. That may sound strange, but it is true. The Lord showed me two things through this: first the sickness of sin and second, god’s healing mercy. The human race is suffering from the sickness of sin. I listened to people from all over the world and they were all confessing the same things: adultery, abortions, injustice at work, cheating, broken relationships, dishonesty, everything and these are the people who are coming to confession. In one way you could see it is a horrible picture, but that’s not what I saw. What I saw was the sickness of the human race, but more importantly the mercy of God which brings healing. If this is how we are as a race, the mercy of God must be enormous to put up with us and of course it is. What I experienced more than anything else was the compassion of God for all these people, because the Spirit prompted them to come back to him through confession.
What I also see is people being healed, spiritually and physically. Sin affects us physically and spiritually. When someone confesses sin that they have been carrying for years, you can see the change in their face when they know they have been forgiven. They are physically changed and healed.
You know how stress can affect us physically. Our shoulders tighten up, or muscles in our back. We can get headaches and our mouth dries up. Stress is psychological and it affects us physically. How much more so with sin? The body will decay after death, but the spirit is immortal, so what affects our soul is far more important.
All of us are in need of healing, whether it be physical, psychological or spiritual. Much of this has come from Original Sin. When our first parents rejected God, sin came into the world and one of the consequences was sickness of different kinds.
Remember the story where people brought a man to Jesus who was completely paralysed, hoping Jesus would heal him. There were so many people there that they had to let him down through the roof to get to Jesus. The first thing Jesus did was to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven’ (See Mark 2:1-12). The religious authorities said to themselves, ‘This is blasphemy. Only God can forgive sins.’ And then Jesus said, ‘Which is easier, to say, “Your sins are forgiven,” or to say, “Get up and walk. But to show you that the Son of Man has the authority to forgive sins,” Jesus said, “I tell you, get up. Take up your sleeping mat and walk.” And the man was healed.
Why did Jesus begin by saying, “Your sins are forgiven.” I’m sure the people there could care less about his sins being forgiven. They just wanted the man to be healed. But Jesus was showing us that there is a direct connection between spiritual and physical healing. Sin affects us physically.
The greatest healing ministry of the Church is the forgiveness of sins and the primary way that God offers us that forgiveness and healing to us, is through confession.
There are a million reasons we can think of for not going to confession, but God keeps drawing people to him through this beautiful gift and that is what it is, a gift. Sadly many people have come to see it as a burden, as something we are told we have to do, as though it was inflicted on us, whereas in fact it is the complete opposite. It is a tool that God has given us so that we can be at peace, so that when we fall, we can come back to God, knowing that we are forgiven. It is a sacrament of healing.
Many people say, ‘I don’t have to go to a priest, I can just go and tell God that I am sorry myself?’ Well you can if you want, but it is not the same thing. The Lord knows what we are like and that we need a concrete way of being able to relate to him. That is one reason why He gives himself to us in the form of bread and wine. It is something we can see and touch and taste. It is the same with confession. We have a psychological need to confess what we have done wrong to another person. And if you don’t believe me just listen to the chat shows on TV and radio where you will regularly listen to people confessing their sins, and confessing to the whole country too! I’m sure you have often heard how someone in prison will often confess to another cellmate a crime that they have committed. We have a psychological need to confess, because when we do, it helps us to heal. That is why the Lord gives us a means of confessing in complete secrecy, to someone he has specially appointed for this. It doesn’t mean that priests are holier than anyone else, as we well know, but the Lord has given us this gift through the priesthood. Jesus said to Peter, ‘Whatever sins you forgive, they are forgiven. Whatever sins you retain they are retained’ (Jn 20:23). He was giving his power to forgive sins to the priesthood. In other words, it is God who forgives through the priest. The Lord has given us this because he knows how much we need it. Sadly many of us have neglected it and come to see it as a burden rather than as something the Lord gave us to help us.
Think also of this: who does not want us to confess our sins? Satan. He knows how powerful confession is and he does not want us to experience that healing and the grace, or what you might call the divine strength, that God also gives us through it.
It is interesting how in the many places where Our Lady has appeared on earth to help us, she always speaks about the seriousness of sin and how it is offending God. She also says, ‘Tell the people to go to confession.’ She doesn’t say, ‘Tell the people to tell God they are sorry for their sins,’ rather, ‘Tell the people to go to confession.’ If God the Father has sent Mary to appear to us, it must be for a very serious reason and it is. Sin is the one thing that can separate us from God for all eternity and God wants us to be with him and with our loved ones for all eternity. That is what He created us for. That is why God has also given us the forgiveness of sins through the priesthood. God has already won forgiveness for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus and God offers us that forgiveness, but we must ask for it.
The weeks that I spent hearing confessions in Lourdes and other places are where I saw real miracles. They were real miracles because I saw people being relieved of great burdens of guilt and shame, being able to leave in peace because they were at rights with God. Confessing and being absolved by the priest is a real gift.
In today’s Gospel Jesus says to us that the son that did the Father’s will was the one who did what he asked, and not the one who just said he would do it. The Lord also asks us to confess what we have done wrong, so that we can live in peace. In St. Matthew’s Gospel Jesus says, ‘It is not those who say, “Lord, Lord,” but those who do the will of my Father in heaven.’ (Mt 7:21). It is tempting to think, ‘I don’t need to do that,’ but think about what you are saying: ‘I don’t need to use what God has given to us, because I know better.’
The greatest healing ministry of the Church is the forgiveness of sins.
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