Forgive me Father, for I smashed a brick against my face.

otwith­stand­ing the seal of the con­fes­sion­al, I often think my own con­fes­sions should be filmed for noth­ing oth­er than the hilar­i­ty.

 

AN ALPHABET OF PRIESTS

“You’re back?” Fr. Anin says.  (I pre­fer the face-to-face con­fes­sion because I’m not cow­ard­ly and I pre­fer to know, from the priest’s face, what thick­ness of ice I stand on.)

“It has been two weeks since my last con­fes­sion.”

“As long as that!”

“The just man falls sev­en times a day, Father.”

“Ah.  I’m in for a long one.”

Fr. Bnin is not prone to tweak me with the acid of Fr. Anin.  I like Fr. Bnin; the joy of the Lord is his strength.  Once, when I was in the mid­dle of my enumeration—I have done x and y and z—I stopped, and with great ani­ma­tion said, “Fr., I con­fess these same sins every week!” and then con­tin­ued with the enu­mer­a­tion.

At the end of it, Fr. Bnin said, “Well, do you want oth­ers?”

I should be so lucky as to con­fess to Fr. Bnin every time—a saint­ly man, and a philo­soph­i­cal. I am not always that lucky, although I try.  I have the Con­fes­sion times mem­o­rized for the entire Arch­dio­cese of Cincin­nati, and I have a devel­oped sense of which priest to go to on which occa­sion.  No, Fr. Cnin is too hard on com­mand­ment x; best to go to Fr. Dnin at St. Enin for that one.  Fr. Dnin has sym­pa­thy for peo­ple who have failed at com­mand­ment x. But he tends to be harsh on com­mand­ment y, so if I com­mit that one I’ll go to Fr. Fnin at St. Gnin.

This strat­e­gy has worked for me, and I can feel rou­tine and com­pla­cent every time I enter and leave the con­fes­sion­al, as though it’s an errand to the gro­cery store.  Which is how I pre­fer it.

But some­times I’m stuck with Fr. Hnin. Fr. Hnin will lis­ten to me with an odd com­bi­na­tion of tol­er­ance and an expres­sion that might be trans­lat­ed, Just stop going on and on about it.

“Bless me, Fr., for I have sinned.  It has been two weeks since my last con­fes­sion.  I have sinned against com­mand­ments x, y, and z—of course, with com­mand­ment x, I notice that the times I’m most prone to fall into that are a, b, and c, but I used to think it was d, e, and f, although I’m not sure whether g, h, and i, of course j and k—”

Fr. Hnin will lis­ten to this until I get to the end of the alpha­bet, and char­i­ta­bly not even search around for a noose.  And then he’ll speak, and with much weight and grav­i­tas say:

“Well, I think your biggest sin is, you think too much.”

THE METAPHOR OF MORTAL SIN

What I have found, from lis­ten­ing to how some Protes­tants talk about sin and con­fes­sion, is a per­sis­tent lack of under­stand­ing of what the sacra­ment is, and an even more deep-root­ed lack of under­stand­ing of what mor­tal sin is and why it mat­ters.

When I was grow­ing up, I always heard this about Catholics:  “They sin all week and then go to Con­fes­sion.”  The impli­ca­tion being, Con­fes­sion gives Catholics a license to do what­ev­er they want. Go in, come out, say three Hail Marys, go right back to the broth­el.

This idea kept me look­ing askance at Catholics for years, but it’s a bad mis­un­der­stand­ing of the Sacra­ment. There must be true con­tri­tion and firm pur­pose of amend­ment.  With­out these, Con­fes­sion is of no avail, no mat­ter how much of the heart the priest pro­nounc­ing abso­lu­tion is inca­pable of peer­ing into.

An even more pecu­liar mis­un­der­stand­ing is the way some Protes­tants think of mor­tal sin as a sort of invis­i­ble snare that sneaks up on you, and grabs you by the leg, and pulls you down to Hell, with­out you being able to do any­thing about it.  Anti-Catholic flame-throw­er John MacArthur describes Catholics as con­stant­ly liv­ing under “the threat of mor­tal sin, which throws you back out of the King­dom.”

Dr. MacArthur almost per­son­i­fies Mor­tal Sin, as though it were a wild beast, more pow­er­ful than you, lurk­ing in the shad­ows, and the Catholic con­stant­ly has to walk with slow and soft steps.  All the action is on the part of Mor­tal Sin; it throws you. You were doing noth­ing but inno­cent­ly walk­ing in the woods, feel­ing secure with all your accu­mu­la­tion of vile works.

Many Protes­tants for­get, as Dr. MacArthur does, that mor­tal sin is a freely-cho­sen act. It is objec­tive; it is some­thing you do, not some­thing that hap­pens to you. I think that Dr. MacArthur can describe mor­tal sin the way he does because his Calvin­ism pre­vents him from con­ceiv­ing the pos­si­b­li­ty of suf­fi­cient free­dom of the will.  He can­not con­ceive of a con­scious act by which you can lose your sal­va­tion. Once you’re saved, accord­ing to Calvin­ism, you can nev­er lose your sal­va­tion. It is impos­si­ble.

So he describes mor­tal sin as though it is a brick that sud­den­ly falls out of the sky onto your head. But that is not what mor­tal sin is. Mor­tal sin is when, of your own free will, you pick up the brick and smash it against your face.

Now, when you smash a brick against your face, there are two things that could hap­pen next.

You could say, “That was a bloody stu­pid thing to do.  Let me get myself to the hos­pi­tal.  I’m not going to try that again.”

Or you could say, “That felt good.  Let me do that again.”

And so you keep smash­ing bricks against your face until you are a wretched dis­fig­ure­ment, but you have to keep smash­ing them more fre­quent­ly and more fre­quent­ly, because at least that way you can remind your­self that you feel some­thing.

And what that leads to is the state of mind that says, “Oh, I can’t take any anti­sep­tic right now, that would hurt too much.” You are so delud­ed, and brain-dam­aged by bricks, that you pre­fer the hurt of the brick to the hurt of the anti­sep­tic.

Or you shop around for the anti­sep­tic that hurts the least.  You take it home, you dilute it with water, and a lit­tle more water, and a lit­tle more, and a lit­tle more, and a lit­tle more, and then you say, “That was a nice relax­ing bath.”

And then you pick up the brick and smash your face again.

That’s mor­tal sin.

THE ANTISEPTIC OF CONFESSION

A rough and seem­ing­ly end­less stretch of time can lead one to search about for bricks. It has seemed as though, for all this year, I could not get through the first hour of the day with­out want­i­ng to smash a brick against my face.

I don’t want to think about this too much.

If sin hurts God, and sin hurts oth­ers, sin also hurts our­selves.  We are made in the image of God, and when we smash our face with a brick, we dis­fig­ure the image of God.  I like the pic­ture, above, of the Prodi­gal Son, by Sebald Beham; I like it because it is a pic­ture of suf­fer­ing, and yet the Prodi­gal Son is not suf­fer­ing because he’s a poor swine­herd. He’s suf­fer­ing because he’s remem­ber­ing the rich­es of what he reject­ed.

I like the pic­ture because I know the look, and I know the feel­ing: I did­n’t have to become this.

I argue with Protestants—some of whom are fam­i­ly, and I love them very much—about the Sacra­ment of Con­fes­sion. I try to cor­rect their mis­un­der­stand­ings.

No, I will say, Con­fes­sion is not meant to be some­thing you just do as a rou­tine, and then go back to smash­ing bricks against your face. Con­fes­sion is not meant to be about find­ing the priest who will go easy on you with a penance and not say mean things.  It’s not about priest-shop­ping.  You have to be tru­ly pen­i­tent.  You have to have a firm pur­pose of amend­ment. Oth­er­wise, you are mis­us­ing the Sacra­ment and it is of no effect.

But what have I done, from Fr. Anin to Fr. Znin? Let me not go to Fr. Inin at St. Jnin, he’s too surly. I’ll go to Fr. Knin at St. Lnin; he’s half-deaf and will nev­er know what he’s absolv­ing.

But no. There is only one thing that can help if you’ve been smash­ing bricks against your face for a whole year.  Or more.  It is to look at your­self in a mir­ror and say, “I’m a bloody awful wretched dis­fig­ured mess.”

It is to throw the brick away and get your­self some very strong, very astrin­gent, and very heal­ing anti­sep­tic.  Does a priest who’s surly hurt worse than a brick?

It is to say, “I have sinned against heav­en and against you.”

And with some time, and with some penance, and the Eucharist, and return­ing to Con­fes­sion (yes, go back, and go back, and go back), you will find that the face in the mir­ror looks less and less like the face of a dis­fig­ured mon­ster and more and more like the face of a man.

So after this long and rough and seem­ing­ly end­less stretch of time I will get myself up and I will return.

And I will not run a cir­cuit through the Arch­dio­cese, but go to my own parish, where there’s a lot of holi­ness, and long lines at Con­fes­sion, and three con­fes­sion­als, and who you get is who you get and prob­a­bly who you need at the time.

And I will go in before the priest, and I will say, “For­give me, Father, for I smashed a brick against my face.”