Shredding Shades of Shame

I can feel my spiritual self kicking and screaming as I lug my heavy, burdened body to the confessional. My feet want to run in the other direction; the last thing I want to do is face those dark memories. Thoughts fill my head. There won't be time for you; God doesn't want to hear your confession. He doesn't want to forgive your sins.

The Return of the Prodigal Son (Rembrandt)
"He was lost, and is found" (Luke 15:32)

Then I stopped short. WHAT?! What am I even thinking?
Of course Jesus will make time for me. He has already forgiven my sins and wants me to renew my soul. I got really angry that I let those lies in my head, that I was being tempted away from receiving God's grace. How DARE you.

Don't we all have our secrets? Things that we shouldn't have done, things that we should have done.

Shame does a terrible thing to a human heart. It's planted stealthily into the heart and grows its thorny branches, tearing it up from the inside out. In the darkness of night, thoughts creep in and nothing can distract me from them. I drown in waves of regret and self-deprecation. I plea for sleep to rescue me.

I don't deserve to pray because God can't possibly bother to forgive me in this state that I am in.
That's a horrible lie to believe.

And at this moment of inner turmoil, a mother of four children comes into the church and sits by me. I thought it was the mother in line, but then I noticed her oldest daughter (about 8 years old) sitting next to me, nervously fumbling with a flyer that guides the sacrament of confession. "Jesus is going to forgive your sins!" the mother whispers to her daughter. Then as an afterthought, she adds, "Don't worry. Father won't remember a thing." I smile and relax a little.

Quietly closing the door behind me, I enter the confessional.
"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned."
Deep breath. My voice shaking, I slowly and painfully lay it out one by one...
...

The priest on the other side of the screen was silent. The words I have just spoken hung uncomfortably in the air. I braced myself.

Then, he said gently, "That was a good confession. Thank you for your honesty."

I reach for the Kleenex box prepared for waterworks like me. While mopping my eyes, I cling to every word the priest says to me. Words of comfort, words of healing, and words of encouragement. The priest begins to pray, his voice now rising with boldness and authority. As I clutch tightly to wads of tissues, my Father says to me,

I absolve you of your sins.

A priest once said, "If you give an honest confession from the heart, the freedom you experience will make you feel so light on your feet that people will have to hold you down to stop you from flying away."

This was me after confession.

Leaving that confessional, I thought I had grown wings. Kneeling in the chapel in front of the tabernacle, I was even afraid to breathe. It was a sacred moment, to be fully clean and purified in front of the Lord, with all sins washed away.

Here I was, in the purest form of myself. I reached for God and He came, swooped me from my feet, and lifted me from the dirt I was in. How can we truly be free to ourselves and to God when we are tied down by sin? As a result from this sacrament of conversion, we gain freedom to ourselves and freedom to Love.

Pope John Paul II visits and forgives the gunman
who shot him in
1981

The sacrament of confession provides the healing that we crave for. It's not so much for God as it is for ourselves. These sacraments, these tangible signs of God's grace, are given to us because we need it. I constantly need to forgive myself because my Lord has forgiven me. Love keeps no record of wrong.