Scottish Catholic Observer

One morning in September, on the feast of St Matthew the Apostle, a young man was on his way to meet his girlfriend. He was a high-school student and about to turn 17. By chance, he passed a church and went in to say a prayer. He was surprised to see a priest waiting in the confessional and felt an irresistible but inexplicable urge to go to confession. He did so, opened his heart to the priest and, after receiving absolution, remembered that, ‘right there, out of nowhere, I knew I had to be a priest.’

The young man was Jorge Mario Bergoglio who, as Pope Francis, would proclaim to the world the richness of God’s mercy which he had experienced first for himself as a teenager in that church in Buenos Aires all those years ago. His sense of priestly vocation and his experience of God’s mercy were inseparably tied together, and summed up in the motto he chose as a bishop, ‘miserando atque eligendo,’ a phrase which describes the calling of St Matthew, who was both forgiven and chosen to be a disciple in the one same, loving glance of the Lord.

My own story isn’t nearly as dramatic as that of St Matthew or of Pope Francis. But it’s nonetheless true that regularly going to confession as a university student, regularly receiving God’s forgiveness through the ministry of his priests, was a vital part of growing in a loving, trusting relationship with God and discerning his will in my life.

It’s also true that my own experience of this Sacrament and my own gratitude to the many wise, patient and gentle priests who’ve heard my own confessions over the years has led me to value a great deal this aspect of my own priestly ministry.

Our Canon Law course in the seminary was an unlikely forum for spiritual advice, but I remember our professor once telling us that when a penitent opened their soul to us in the confessional, we were being given privileged access to the sanctuary of God’s Temple. He warned us that we should only dare to enter that holy of holies with great reverence and with great humility, and to handle that soul with as much delicate care as we would handle the Blessed Sacrament itself.

To hear confessions is, certainly, a tremendously humbling experience. I hope I never forget that the people who come to me for confession, many of whom are far older, far wiser and far holier than I am, are not coming for my wisdom or my advice or my example: they’re coming to me because, in that moment, I’m privileged to represent Christ to them: Christ the gentle healer, Christ the merciful judge. It is him who is at work in the Sacrament, using my own wounded humanity as an instrument of healing for others.

Hearing confessions is not, as many people think, a depressing task. For me, it’s one of the most joyful, most hopeful and most inspirational moments of my week. I can’t tell you how much a priest’s heart rejoices when, as fishers of men, they land what St John Vianney used to call a ‘big fish’: someone who hadn’t celebrated the Sacrament for many years, someone who was carrying an especially heavy burden of guilt or shame, someone who desperately needed to hear Christ telling them that they are forgiven and that they can go in peace.

At the same time, it’s also true that priests really don’t remember the sins that they hear in confession. I never believed priests when they told me this before, but it really is true. I couldn’t understand how the priest who’d heard my confession that morning could quite naturally chat with me over a pint that evening. I remember a priest once telling me that this is because sins, even the most serious sins, are generally not very memorable or very impressive: once they’ve been forgiven, they’re really not worth thinking about again.

Because the focus of confession, ultimately, is not our sins. The focus of the Sacrament is the victory of Christ’s death and Resurrection in our lives, and the strengthening grace that he pours out into our hearts when we open them up to him.

Every time I sit in the confessional, I meet people who are turning away from sin and turning towards Christ’s love. Every time I sit in the confessional, I meet people who are aware of their sins but who are trying hard to be saints. Every time I sit in the confessional, I’m reminded of my own experience on the other side of the grill, I’m reminded of my ongoing need for Christ’s forgiveness and I’m reminded that, like Pope Francis, I have been ‘called in mercy’ to be a minister of mercy to others. I hope I never forget it.