Why go to confession??

Knowing that we cannot get to heaven by our own ability helps us see how important it is to go to the sacrament of confession.

The only way we can get to heaven is through the mercy, forgiveness and grace of Jesus Christ. Outside of Jesus being divine/God and Mary being without original sin, the rest of us are not perfect and commit sins. Sins are ways in which we offend God and either damage or break our relationship with God. Just as when someone hurts us and makes it harder for us to have a relationship with them, when we sin it makes it harder for God to have a relationship with us.

God will always love us. At the same time, God cannot love evil/sin at all, and when we incorporate evil/sin into our lives, we make it harder for God to love us, and we distance ourselves from God. Only Jesus restores our relationship with God through his one perfect sacrifice on the cross. Jesus, being without sin, endured God’s justice for all our sins and made a perfect sacrifice that God would accept on our behalf. After Jesus died and rose from the tomb, Jesus appeared to the apostles and said”

“Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”

Our relationship with Christ and God the Father is restored when we acknowledge we are wrong, being sorry for all our sins, and making a firm resolve to change our ways. In the New Testament, the Letter of James says:

“Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects.”

Keeping in mind that we pray and live out what we believe, we know and believe that we can only get into Heaven through Jesus; we cannot get to God’s heavenly kingdom by our own ability, we need God’s help. We know and believe that none of us can give ourselves a sacrament; sacraments are always given to us by someone else, usually a Bishop, Priest or Deacon. For example, we do not baptize ourselves.

So it is with the sacrament of Confession. When we sin, we confess our sins to Jesus through the priest, who Jesus uses as an instrument of his mercy and forgiveness under the sacred seal of the sacrament of Confession. When the priest hears confessions he acts in the person of Christ and keeps the sins hidden, secret under the seal of the confession so that whatever is mentioned is between God and that person. In Confession our relationship with God the Father is restored through the forgiveness, grace and mercy of Jesus Christ.