As part of his assignment in the class on “how to be a good confessor” the student interviewed experienced confessors (including me!) about how to approach the sacrament. Looking back, what struck me was that adults almost always confessed either that they missed Mass on Sunday or some kind of sexual sin. However, sin has a much greater hold on our lives than that. Part of King David’s greatness was his willingness to confront his sinfulness. Unless we do the same we will never come to know Jesus since he is the “lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” When St. Paul gave his list of sins he certainly include “sexual excess and impurity” but he had a much longer list of sins that, quite frankly, no one ever confesses: “idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envy and drunkenness” (Gal. 5:20). In fact, we look on our “dissensions and factions” as a human reality that we possess as a birthright in the political arena. We must examine our attitudes and actions and see where they fall short of the law of love we received from Jesus.
