The Revenge of Conscience

Unfortunately, the condition of human beings since before recorded history is that we don't want to learn hard lessons. We would rather remain in denial. What power can break through such a barrier?

The only Power that ever has. Thomas Aquinas writes that when a nation suffers tyranny, those who enthroned the tyrant may first try to remove him, then call upon the emperor for help. When these human means fail, they should consider their sins and pray. We are now so thoroughly under the tyranny of our vices that it would be difficult for us to recognize an external tyrant at all. By our own hands we enthroned them: our strength no longer suffices for their removal: they have suspended the senate of right reason and the assembly of the virtues: the emperor, our will, is held hostage: and it is time to pray.

Nothing new can be written on the heart, but nothing needs to be; all we need is the grace of God to see what is already there. We don't want to read the letters, because they burn; but they do burn, so at last we must read them. This is why the nation can repent. This is why the plague can be arrested. This is why the culture of death can be redeemed. “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before thee . . . a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.”

J. Buziszewski is Associate Professor of Government and Philosophy at the University of Texas and author of Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law (InterVarsity). An earlier version of this article was published in William D. Gairdner, ed., After Liberalism (Stoddart).
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/12/001-the-revenge-of-conscience-38

"Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains ... an unuprooted small corner of evil.

Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world: They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person."
— Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn (The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956)

Frequent Confession

Fr. Bill McCarthy, MSA

Carl Jung, the great psychologist, estimated that more than 95 percent of all Americans walk around loaded with sin, guilt, bitterness, and unforgiveness. He said that it is the way the average person throughout the world lives. They pile on all the sin and guilt and unforgiveness of their childhood, their young adulthood, their twenties and their thirties, and try to enter a new day with peace, love and joy - the three great gifts of the Spirit.

Obviously, they cannot do so. So often, they settle with a quick fix of drugs, alcohol, promiscuity, sports, shopping, TV, and carnal living.

For thirty years, Carl Jung searched for an answer. When he was 84, God gave him the answer. One of his clients, he noticed, showed no signs of guilt or bitterness. He excitedly asked her why not. She mentioned that she was a practicing Catholic, and that she believed that Jesus, by His death and resurrection, had suffered and died for her sins; and then on Easter Sunday evening, He gave the power to forgive sins to His priests by saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven.” He looked at her with great amazement and said, “You’ve found the pearl of great price for which I’ve searched diligently for more than thirty years. Please never stop going to confession.”

Karl Menninger, another great psychologist, who decried the fact that psychologists were denying sin, wrote the now famous book, “Whatever Happened to Sin?” He claimed that sin and guilt as well as bitterness were the most crippling emotions in the human soul.

The Greatest Psychologist
Jesus is the greatest psychologist. He alone knows what the soul needs - a way to cleanse sin, guilt, bitterness, and hatred through His shed blood. That is why He said to His priests, “As the Father has sent me, I now send you.” Then He breathed upon them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven.”

Enter John Paul II and Sister Faustina
Realizing the darkness that has overcome mankind and the culture of death to which mankind has descended, Pope John Paul II--this great apostle of mercy, who has already beatified Sister Faustina--encourages every baptized Catholic to go to confession frequently. It is in the Sacrament of Confession that three awesome, wondrous miracles of grace take place. First, every bit of sin and guilt is washed clean through the Blood of the Lamb administered through the absolution of the priest. Second, all bitterness, unjust anger and resentment are released. Third, the penitents are given the awesome power to completely forgive themselves and get on with their lives.

The late Holy Father stated:
“I am also asking for renewed pastoral courage in ensuring that the day-to-day teaching of Christian communities persuasively and effectively presents the practice of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. As you will recall, in 1984 I dealt with this subject in the Post-Synodal Exhortation Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, which synthesized the results of an Assembly of the Synod of Bishops devoted to this question. My invitation then was to make every effort to face the crisis of “the sense of sin” apparent in today’s culture. But I was even more insistent in calling for a rediscovery of Christ as mysterium pietatis, the one in whom God shows us His compassionate heart and reconciles us fully with Himself. It is this face of Christ that must be rediscovered through the Sacrament of Penance, which for the faithful is ‘the ordinary way of obtaining forgiveness and the remission of serious sins committed after Baptism’.”

If you want to live a life with real joy, true peace of soul and awesome love, an integral part of the answer is frequent confession. The more you are cleansed of sin, guilt and unforgiveness, the more receptive your soul is for all the fruits of the Spirit.

Frequent Confession
Fr. Bill McCarthy, MSA
http://www.myfathershouse.com/pdf/Frequent-Confession.pdf

Second Confession

. . . At some point it was announced that confession would be available for those who desired it. No pressure was made to go. It was simply an invitation, an opportunity.

To my own surprise, I went. It was face to face, which I didn’t relish in the least. I was nervous, but once I got in the door, I couldn’t leave. Father sat on a chair and I kneeled.

“How long has it been since your last confession,” he asked.

“A long time,” I said.

“Two months?”
“More like ten years.”

With such a novice, Father figured he’d better go through the ten commandments to help me recognize my sins. I stopped him and told him, defiantly, that I knew what my sins were. They had been in my conscience, bothering me all my waking hours.

After a few minutes, as I was rattling them off, Father began to cry silently.

He gave my absolution and I left feeling no particular emotion.

A while later I went on a hike by myself and thought over the whole experience. I began to cry, which I don’t remember ever doing. It was a cry of elation. I knew from all my Catholic upbringing that God had forgiven me. I was able to start having a relationship with Him. . . . (more)

Second Confession, By Jack Smith
http://catholickey.blogspot.com/2009/03/second-confession.html

Introduction to a Devoute Life

19. On Confession
. . . Some people go on confessing venial sins out of mere habit, and conventionally, without making any effort to correct them, thereby losing a great deal of spiritual good. Supposing that you confess having said something untrue, although without evil consequences, or some careless words, or excessive amusement;-- repent, and make a firm resolution of amendment: it is a mere abuse to confess any sin whatever, be it mortal or venial, without intending to put it altogether away, that being the express object of confession.

Beware of unmeaning self-accusations, made out of a mere routine, such as, "I have not loved God as much as I ought; I have not prayed with as much devotion as I ought; I have not loved my neighbour as I ought; I have not received the Sacraments with sufficient reverence;" and the like. Such things as these are altogether useless in setting the state of your conscience before your Confessor, inasmuch as all the Saints in Paradise and all men living would say the same. But examine closely what special reason you have for accusing yourself thus, and when you have discovered it, accuse yourself simply and plainly of your fault.

For instance, when confessing that you have not loved your neighbour as you ought, it may be that what you mean is, that having seen some one in great want whom you could have succoured, you have failed to do so. Well then, accuse yourself of that special omission: say, "Having come across a person in need, I did not help him as I might have done," either through negligence, or hardness, or indifference, according as the case may be. So again, do not accuse yourself of not having prayed to God with sufficient devotion; but if you have given way to voluntary distractions, or if you have neglected the proper circumstances of devout prayer--whether place, time, or attitude--say so plainly, just as it is, and do not deal in generalities, which, so to say, blow neither hot nor cold.

Again, do not be satisfied with mentioning the bare fact of your venial sins, but accuse yourself of the motive cause which led to them. For instance, do not be content with saying that you told an untruth which injured no one; but say whether it was out of vanity, in order to win praise or avoid blame, out of heedlessness, or from obstinacy. If you have exceeded in society, say whether it was from the love of talking, or gambling for the sake of money, and so on. Say whether you continued long to commit the fault in question, as the importance of a fault depends greatly upon its continuance: e.g., there is a wide difference between a passing act of vanity which is over in a quarter of an hour, and one which fills the heart for one or more days. So you must mention the fact, the motive and the duration of your faults. It is true that we are not bound to be so precise in confessing venial sins, or even, technically speaking, to confess them at all; but all who aim at purifying their souls in order to attain a really devout life, will be careful to show all their spiritual maladies, however slight, to their spiritual physician, in order to be healed.

Do not spare yourself in telling whatever is necessary to explain the nature of your fault, as, for instance, the reason why you lost your temper, or why you encouraged another in wrong-doing. Thus, some one whom I dislike says a chance word in joke, I take it ill, and put myself in a passion. If one I like had said a stronger thing I should not have taken it amiss; so in confession, I ought to say that I lost my temper with a person, not because of the words spoken so much as because I disliked the speaker; and if in order to explain yourself clearly it is necessary to particularize the words, it is well to do so; because accusing one's self thus simply one discovers not merely one's actual sins, but one's bad habits, inclinations and ways, and the other roots of sin, by which means one's spiritual Father acquires a fuller knowledge of the heart he is dealing with, and knows better what remedies to apply.

But you must always avoid exposing any one who has borne any part in your sin as far as possible. Keep watch over a variety of sins, which are apt to spring up and flourish, often insensibly, in the conscience, so that you may confess them and put them away; and with this view read Chapters 6, 27, 29, 35 and 36. of Part 3, and Chapter 7. of Part 4 attentively.

Do not lightly change your Confessor, but having chosen him, be regular in giving account of your conscience to him at the appointed seasons, telling him your faults simply and frankly, and from time to time--say every month or every two months, show him the general state of your inclinations, although there be nothing wrong in them; as, for instance, whether you are depressed and anxious, or cheerful, desirous of advancement, or money, and the like.

Introduction to a Devoute Life (cont)
PART II. Containing sundry counsels as to uplifting the soul to God in prayer and the use of the Sacraments (cont).
19. On Confession
http://www.catholictreasury.info/books/devout_life/dev42.php