Saint Alphonsus Liguori
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Doctor of the Church
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Null and Sacrilegious Confessions
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(EXCERPT FROM THE WORK: "TO CONFESS WELL")
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4.-On confession
Let us now come to the confession of sins. Confession, if it is to be good,
must be integral, humble and sincere.
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SECTION 1.
Integrity of confession
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36. He who has gravely offended God has no choice, if he wishes to escape eternal damnation, than to confess his sin.
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-But what if I repent with all my heart? What if I do penance for the rest of my life?
What if I go to a desert to feed on herbs and sleep on the ground?
-You can do what you want; but if you do not confess the sin you have committed and that you have in your memory, there will be no forgiveness.
I say that you have it in your memory, because if you have forgotten it by no fault of your own, and in confessing you had general sorrow for all your offenses done to God, it was indirectly forgiven; it is enough that, when you remember it, you declare it in confession. But if you kept silent about it voluntarily, you still have the obligation to confess that sin and to confess again all the other sins that you have confessed, because your confession was null and void and sacrilegious.
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37. Damn shame! how many poor souls it casts into hell! That is why St. Teresa recommended to preachers: "Preach, preach, priests, against bad confessions, for by bad confessions the greater part of Christians are condemned.
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38. One day a disciple of Socrates entered the house of a bad woman. When he went out to the the street, as he noticed that his master was passing by, he stayed inside so as not to be seen. But Socrates, who had noticed everything, looked out of the doorway and said to him: "You should be ashamed to enter this place, not to leave it".
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I say the same thing to those who commit sin and then do not dare to confess it:
"My son, it is the sinning that is shameful, not the coming out of the sin by confessing it." The Holy Spirit says: There is a confusion that is the fruit of sin and a confusion that brings
glory and grace with it, Ecclesiastes, chapter 4, verse 25. Let us judge as dishonoring to make ourselves enemies of God by sin; but let us not consider it a dishonor to recover divine grace and heaven by the confession of our faults.
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39. Shame, but why? was it by any chance a disgrace to Mary Magdalene, Mary Egyptian,
the confession they made of their faults? Precisely for this reason they conquered
paradise, where, as princesses of such a glorious kingdom, they enjoy God and will enjoy Him
for eternities without end.
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St. Augustine, after his conversion, not only confessed his bad life, but also wrote it down in a book, so that the world might know all his deviations.
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40. St. Anthony tells that a prelate once saw the devil at the side of a woman who was waiting
her turn to go to confession. He asked him what he was doing, and the the demon replied: "To fulfill the precept of restitution. When I incited this woman to sin, I robbed her of her shame so that she would sin; now I am restoring it to her so that she will silence her sin.
Yes, this is the ruse of which the devil makes use, as St. John Chrysostom writes:
"God put shame in sin and confidence in confession; the devil reverses
things, putting confidence in sin and blushing in confession". The wolf drowns out
the cries of the sheep by gripping its throat with its claws, thus succeeding in carrying it away and devouring it. This is exactly what the devil does with some poor souls: he holds them by the throat so that they do not declare their sins and so that he can take them quietly to hell.
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41. It is referred in the life of the Jesuit Father Juan Ramirez who, while preaching in a city, was called to confess a dying young woman. She was from a good family and had led an apparently saintly life, for she went to communion often, fasting and doing other penances. She confessed with many tears to the said confessor, who left the confessor, who came away greatly consoled. But behold, as he was on his way home, the companion whom he had brought with him said to him: -Father, while you were confessing the young woman, I saw that a black hand was squeezing her throat.
Upon hearing this, Father Ramirez returned to the sick woman's house; but when he arrived, the young woman had already died.
Father Ramirez retired to his convent, and while he was in prayer, the deceased appeared in a horrible form, surrounded by flames and dragging chains, who told him that she was condemned for dishonest actions with a man; that she had never discovered those sins to her confessor; that at the hour of death she wanted to confess them, but that the devil, as usual, put a great shame in her spirit and induced her to keep silent about them. And she disappeared, giving frightful screams amidst a loud roar of clanking of chains.
According to the illustrious historian Father Antonio Astrain in his History of the Society of Jesus, this happened in Valencia in the year 1562, when Father Juan Ramirez, the famous preacher of the Society of Jesus in Spain, was residing there,
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42. --My daughter, if you have already committed a sin, why don't you confess it at once?
-I am ashamed.
-You unfortunate woman," exclaims St. Augustine, "you think only that you are ashamed, and you do not think that you are ashamed of yourself, and do not think that if you do not confess, you are condemned!
How ashamed you are!
"But, how! -insists the same saint, "don't you have it to make the wound to yourself and you have it to put on the bandage that will cure it? "The physician," says the Council
of Trent, "if he does not know the disease, he cannot cure it”.
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43. Oh, what havoc is wrought within the soul that, in going to confession, keeps silent out of shame about some mortal sin!
"What was a remedy for sin," says St. Anthony, "becomes Satan's victorious trophy”.
When a battle is won in war, the soldiers proudly parade the weapons taken from the enemy.
Oh, what an air of triumph the devil gives himself with sacrilegious confessions, glorifying himself of having snatched from the Christian those very weapons with which he could have defeated him!
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Poor souls, who thus turn medicine into poison! That unhappy woman had only
one sin on her conscience; by keeping it quiet in confession, she committed a
sacrilege, which is a much greater sin. That is the triumph of the devil.
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44. Tell me, sister, if by not confessing your sin you had to see yourself burned alive in a cauldron of boiling fish, and you knew that your sin would be known to all your relatives and neighbors tell me: would you keep silent about it? Surely not, knowing, on the other hand, that by confessing it, your sin would be hidden and you would be free from the fiery furnace.
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Well, it is most certain that, if you keep silent about your sins, you will burn in hell for all eternity and your sins will be exposed on the day of judgment, not only in front of your relatives and countrymen, but to the face of the whole world. All of us
shall be made manifest before Christ, (Second letter to the Corinthians, chapter 5, verse 10).
I will strip you naked, lifting up your garments to your face, I will uncover your nakedness to the peoples, I will show your shame to the kingdoms, (Nahun, chapter 3, verse 5).
45. Have you committed sin? If you do not confess it, you condemn yourself. Then, if you want to be saved, there will have to be a confession of your guilt sometime. And if it will have to be some day, why not now?
If aliquando," says St. Augustine, "cur non modo? What are you waiting for?
What are you waiting for? For death to surprise you, after which you will never be able to make confession?
Convince yourself that the longer you delay in confessing your sin and the more you multiply your sacrileges, the more your shame and obstinacy in not confessing will grow.
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From the retention of sin," writes St. Peter Blesense, "is born obstinacy.
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How many unfortunate souls have become accustomed to keep silent about their sins, saying: "When death comes, I will confess them!” But that time came and... they did not confess them either!
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46. Keep in mind, moreover, that if you do not confess your sin, you will have no peace for the rest of your life.
My God, and what a hell must the sinner experience within himself who leaves the confessional without having declared his guilt! He always carries in his bosom a viper, which is constantly biting him in his heart.
Unhappy person, a hell on earth and another in eternity!
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47. Now, therefore, brothers, if by misfortune any of you find yourselves in the sad case of having kept silent about sins out of shame, be of good cheer and confess them as soon as possible. Tell your confessor: "Father, I am ashamed to tell a sin I have," or, more simply, "I have certain scruples about my past life". This alone will be enough for the confessor to take it upon himself to remove the thorn from your heart that kills it, and to leave your conscience completely in peace. What joy you will have after having thrown that viper out of your heart!
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48. But, furthermore, is it by chance that you have to manifest your sin to many people?
No. By saying it to only one, to your confessor, and telling him only once, everything is remedied,
And in order that the devil should deceive you, you must know that it is only obligatory to declare mortal sins. Therefore, if your sin was not mortal, or if at the time you committed it, you did not consider it mortal, you are not obliged to confess it. For example: a person did dishonest things in the days of his childhood; he did not then consider it a sin, nor did it cross his mind that it could be a sin; he is not obliged to confess it.
But if, on the contrary, when he did those things, he felt in conscience the remorse of mortal sin, then he has no choice but to confess it or condemn himself.
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Confess it or be condemned.
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49. -But... What if the confessor discovers my sin to other people?
-Discover? What are you saying? You must know that if the confessor were to be burned alive for not manifesting a single venial sin heard in confession, he would be obliged to let himself be burned than say it.
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The confessor cannot speak of what he heard in confession even with the penitent himself.
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50. -I fear that the confessor will scold me when he hears my faults.
-What is he going to scold you! All these are false fears that the devil puts in your head.
The confessor sits in the confessional, not to listen to ecstasies and revelations, but to hear the sins of those who kneel at his feet, and his greatest consolation is to have a sinner before him who plainly reveals to him his miseries.
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If it were in your hand to free from death, without effort, a queen wounded by her enemies, what joy would you not have in saving her by your care? For this is what confessor does when a sinful soul comes to him to tell him her sins, by giving her the absolution, he cures her of the wound opened by sin, and he rescues her from the eternal death of hell.
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51. The Life of St. Francis, St. Bonaventure brings the following fact. A woman,
in her deathbed, has just died in the presence of her relatives. But behold when she was about to be shrouded, she suddenly sat up in bed and, shaken from head to toe, seized with horror, she declared that her soul, at the moment of expiring, was ready to sink into hell for having kept silent about a sin in confession; but that by the prayers of St. Francis she had come back to life.
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She immediately asked for a priest; she went to confession in tears and then recommended to all those present that they should be careful not to conceal any sin in their confessions, because the mercy that God had shown her would not be shown to all.
Having said this, she expired again.
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52. If the devil tempts you to conceal any sin, answer him as a certain lady named Adelaide did.
She had had dishonest relations with a gentleman, who, in a moment of desperation, had strangled himself with his own hands, dying with signs of reprobation. The woman then withdrew to do penance in a convent.
And it happened that, going one day to confess all her sins, the devil appeared to her and said: "Adelaide, where are you going? She answered, "to confuse myself and to confuse you by going to confession". That must be your response when the enemy tempts you to hide some sin in confession: "I am going to confuse myself and to confuse you,"
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The catechist should be aware that this practice of keeping silent about sins out of shame in confession is a very common evil that occurs everywhere, especially in small towns.
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Hence, when giving catechetical instruction, he should not be content with speaking of this matter only once, but to return to it many times and with much emphasis, so that the people may understand the ruin that sacrilegious confessions cause in their souls. And since examples usually make a great impression on the people, I have given below a portion of them of persons who, by keeping silent in confession about sins out of shame, have condemned themselves.
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[may be the translation would be included in this post in the future]
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SECTION 2
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Confession must be humble
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53. When the penitent goes to the confessional, let him imagine himself to be a prisoner condemned to death, burdened with as many chains as the sins he bears on his conscience, and who presents himself to the confessor, who, as God's lieutenant, is the only one capable of breaking his bonds and freeing him from eternal death.
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Therefore, he must speak to the confessor with great humility.
Emperor Ferdinand, making confession in his own room, himself came forward to offer the chair to the confessor and made him sit on it. As the confessor marveled at such an act of humility, the emperor said to him: "Father, now I am the subject and you the superior".
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There are those who go to argue with the confessor and speak haughtily, as if the confessor were the subject and them the superiors.
What profit are they going to get from their confessions?
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Therefore, treat the confessor with the utmost respect. Always speak to him with humility and obey humbly all his commands. If he reproves you, keep silent and receive receive his admonitions submissively. Accept with humility the remedies that he indicates to you to make amendment and never be indignant against him by calling him indiscreet or uncharitable