Confession: Letting Jesus Heal the Wounds of Our Hearts | Sunday Reflection

I love the sacrament of confession. It is a wonderful place where we can encounter Jesus Himself who comes to save us and heal us. The sacrament of confession is one of the two healing sacraments of the Church - and that categorization is actually quite important.

Confession is a healing sacrament - its purpose is to bring healing to the place of woundedness and brokenness in our hearts and souls. 

Sometimes we might think of confession like needing to “fess up” to the things we did wrong so that we don’t get punished. And while there are times where a healthy fear can be the thing we need to get started, this is not a sufficient image because it is one where we see God as a parole officer. God is not a parole officer, He is our loving Father. As a Father, He does not desire to watch our every move to see if and when we mess up. Instead, our heavenly Father sees what the real problem is. The problem isn’t us, the problem is sin.

When God created us, He created our nature to be a beautiful reflection of His goodness. We are made to be in His image and likeness. Living out that image and likeness was not difficult because we were immersed in God’s grace. We lived in such a way that we could satisfy the good and holy desires of our heart, living in wonderful freedom and joy. However, all of that changed when sin entered the picture. The harmony we experienced within ourselves and between us and God was ruptured. Where there was once peace, there is now a deep wound. While the good and holy desires of our heart still exist, our woundedness makes it far more difficult to satisfy those desires. Those desires end up getting warped because we don’t want our wounds being touched and hurting us, and so we end up acting out in sin, thinking that we are getting something good, but ending up hurting ourselves more in the process. It creates a vicious cycle, our hearts become distorted, and we find ourselves unable to live and love as we ought - we aren’t fully ourselves. But, there is good news. God loves us too much to leave us like that, so He gives us the healing we need.

Jesus is our Divine Physician. Sin is the problem and He is the solution. Sin is the disease and His love is the cure. He gives it all to us readily accessible in the sacrament of confession. The wonderful thing about this sacrament, like all sacraments, is that it actually does the thing it says it does. Sins are not metaphorically forgiven, they are actually forgiven. Our relationship with God is not metaphorically restored, it is actually restored. Our wounded souls are not metaphorically healed, they are actually healed.

The sacraments always work, but our full experience of their effects are somewhat dependent on our disposition to receiving Him and His grace in the sacrament. So, our sins will always be forgiven, but the full experience of healing that we can experience can differ with our disposition. We can go to Jesus and say “sign off on my confession so that I can get on with my life” or we can go to Jesus and say, “I need you Lord and I want to give you my whole heart so that your love can be the rhythm of my life.” Jesus will only heal what we give to Him. Not because He is limited, but because He loves us too much to heal us without our free will and permission. What we give Him, He will heal. We just have to give Him the wound.

If I come to Him with a minimalist attitude, He will forgive the sins, but it doesn’t mean we will be living the fullness of life that He has called us to. Jesus calls us to a beautiful life and He has given us everything we need to live it. Will you allow Jesus to heal you entirely? Healing doesn’t happen overnight - it does take a lifetime of conversion and giving our hearts constantly over to Him. But, He does heal. We are healed by His love. We just have to let Him into that woundedness. So, let us unlock the full potential found here in this sacrament and let Him heal us entirely.