Pardon and Peace
by Alfred Wilson C.P.
Nothing to Tell
Many earnest penitents are genuinely distressed because they find so little to say whenever they approach the Sacrament of Penance. It seems absurd that they, who have an almost habitual and cloying sense of sinfulness, should be not able to put their finger on definite sins, and they find it hard to reconcile such a purblind inability with sincerity and earnestness.
Inability to find matter for confession may be due to a bad memory. It is one thing to have committed sins and quite another thing to be able to remember them. It is consoling to find that St. Gertrude complained of inability to recall her sins. Inability to remember sins is an inevitable consequence of a bad memory, which could not be obviated without miraculous intervention by God.
The real trouble with most penitents, however, is not so much that they cannot recall their sins, as that they cannot detect them. They know that they are suffering from self-deceit, and it seems a shameful mockery to carry this self-deceit into the confessional; yet no matter how hard they try to unmask themselves and how carefully they prepare, they never seem to be able to focus the searchlight of truth on their souls. In consequence, they are never satisfied with their preparation, and never feel ready for Confession. If they go to Confession in this mood, they come away dubious of their own sincerity, discouraged and dissatisfied. If they defer Confession, in the vain hope of being more successful next time, they become even more dissatisfied.
The earnest desire to be absolutely sincere may make examination of conscience a positive agony. For the comfort of souls who suffer in this way, I want to make it clear that the acquiring of self knowledge is the work of a lifetime-not the work of ten minutes or a half hour before confession. As well expect to explore a continent in half an hour as expect to explore the unexplored (and without Divine Light – unexplorable) continent of the soul in the same time. Self-knowledge can be acquired only gradually and by degrees. At each confession we must do our bit to acquire it, but a bit is all we can do.
“The harder we sweep,” says the wise St. Phillip Neri, “the more dust we raise.” Complete self-analysis, made at one session, would imply a morale miracle, and would prostrate us. God cannot allow us to see how bad we are, until we begin to see how good He is. To cope with comprehensive and vivid self-knowledge, we should need a very outstanding development of the virtue of hope. Vaguely we suspect this, and hence we have a certain misgiving about praying for self-knowledge.
“Oh would some power the gift give us,
to see ourselves as others see us.”
If we adopted the words of Burns as a prayer, we should have a sneaking hope that the Lord would not take us too literally. Naturally we are puzzled and dismayed by the contradictions and apparent insincerity of our attitude. We want to be sincere and yet fear to be sincere. It may seem melancholy satisfaction to be told that this conflict of desires is inevitable; but it is real satisfaction to those who have been hoping, and yet not hoping, to do too much at each Confession.
To know ourselves is the hardest thing in the world…A truthful man is the rarest of all phenomena…The fact is, we are all of us thoroughly untruthful, those of us most so who think ourselves least so, those of us least so who think of ourselves most so…It is worth spending two-thirds of our life in doing this work alone, trying to be less of liars than we are. (Frederick W. Faber – Spiritual Conferences)
Two-thirds of our life! Not ten or twenty minutes, or even twenty hours, before Confession! Effective self-analysis is the work of a lifetime. “Perfect self-knowledge stands not at the beginning, but at the end of the path of virtue.” (Scharsch)
The comprehensive self-knowledge which we expect to acquire at each Confession cannot be attained all at once without a very exceptional grace. “Ad impossibile nemo tenetur” – “no one is obliged to do the impossible.” If a self-analysis were an essential requirement of the Sacrament of Penance, we could never approach it. Let us not expect too much. There is a latent pride and impatience in expecting to take the kingdom of heaven by storm at one attack. We can never be fully satisfied with our preparation for Confession until we realize how much (or, if you like, how little!) we can expect to do. Sufficiently prepared we can easily be; fully prepared we shall never be.
When it is insisted that a brief and relatively cursory self-analysis is sufficient for Confession, there is no intention of proclaiming emancipation from the laborious and insistent task of keeping a close watch on our motives and of striving to attain self-knowledge. All that is asserted is (1) that at Confession there is not sufficient time for adequate self-analysis, as there are then other more important things to do; and (2) that excessive self-analysis obscures the purpose of Confession.
-To be continued
Nothing to Tell
Many earnest penitents are genuinely distressed because they find so little to say whenever they approach the Sacrament of Penance. It seems absurd that they, who have an almost habitual and cloying sense of sinfulness, should be not able to put their finger on definite sins, and they find it hard to reconcile such a purblind inability with sincerity and earnestness.
Inability to find matter for confession may be due to a bad memory. It is one thing to have committed sins and quite another thing to be able to remember them. It is consoling to find that St. Gertrude complained of inability to recall her sins. Inability to remember sins is an inevitable consequence of a bad memory, which could not be obviated without miraculous intervention by God.
The real trouble with most penitents, however, is not so much that they cannot recall their sins, as that they cannot detect them. They know that they are suffering from self-deceit, and it seems a shameful mockery to carry this self-deceit into the confessional; yet no matter how hard they try to unmask themselves and how carefully they prepare, they never seem to be able to focus the searchlight of truth on their souls. In consequence, they are never satisfied with their preparation, and never feel ready for Confession. If they go to Confession in this mood, they come away dubious of their own sincerity, discouraged and dissatisfied. If they defer Confession, in the vain hope of being more successful next time, they become even more dissatisfied.
The earnest desire to be absolutely sincere may make examination of conscience a positive agony. For the comfort of souls who suffer in this way, I want to make it clear that the acquiring of self knowledge is the work of a lifetime-not the work of ten minutes or a half hour before confession. As well expect to explore a continent in half an hour as expect to explore the unexplored (and without Divine Light – unexplorable) continent of the soul in the same time. Self-knowledge can be acquired only gradually and by degrees. At each confession we must do our bit to acquire it, but a bit is all we can do.
“The harder we sweep,” says the wise St. Phillip Neri, “the more dust we raise.” Complete self-analysis, made at one session, would imply a morale miracle, and would prostrate us. God cannot allow us to see how bad we are, until we begin to see how good He is. To cope with comprehensive and vivid self-knowledge, we should need a very outstanding development of the virtue of hope. Vaguely we suspect this, and hence we have a certain misgiving about praying for self-knowledge.
“Oh would some power the gift give us,
to see ourselves as others see us.”
If we adopted the words of Burns as a prayer, we should have a sneaking hope that the Lord would not take us too literally. Naturally we are puzzled and dismayed by the contradictions and apparent insincerity of our attitude. We want to be sincere and yet fear to be sincere. It may seem melancholy satisfaction to be told that this conflict of desires is inevitable; but it is real satisfaction to those who have been hoping, and yet not hoping, to do too much at each Confession.
To know ourselves is the hardest thing in the world…A truthful man is the rarest of all phenomena…The fact is, we are all of us thoroughly untruthful, those of us most so who think ourselves least so, those of us least so who think of ourselves most so…It is worth spending two-thirds of our life in doing this work alone, trying to be less of liars than we are. (Frederick W. Faber – Spiritual Conferences)
Two-thirds of our life! Not ten or twenty minutes, or even twenty hours, before Confession! Effective self-analysis is the work of a lifetime. “Perfect self-knowledge stands not at the beginning, but at the end of the path of virtue.” (Scharsch)
The comprehensive self-knowledge which we expect to acquire at each Confession cannot be attained all at once without a very exceptional grace. “Ad impossibile nemo tenetur” – “no one is obliged to do the impossible.” If a self-analysis were an essential requirement of the Sacrament of Penance, we could never approach it. Let us not expect too much. There is a latent pride and impatience in expecting to take the kingdom of heaven by storm at one attack. We can never be fully satisfied with our preparation for Confession until we realize how much (or, if you like, how little!) we can expect to do. Sufficiently prepared we can easily be; fully prepared we shall never be.
When it is insisted that a brief and relatively cursory self-analysis is sufficient for Confession, there is no intention of proclaiming emancipation from the laborious and insistent task of keeping a close watch on our motives and of striving to attain self-knowledge. All that is asserted is (1) that at Confession there is not sufficient time for adequate self-analysis, as there are then other more important things to do; and (2) that excessive self-analysis obscures the purpose of Confession.
-To be continued
posted by G. Michaels at 12:23:00 PM
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