I’ve recently been helping a friend with Religious matters (She is a Catholic that doesn’t really go to Mass), and I’ve been taking her to Mass every Sunday (and Holy Days). However, I’m afraid that she might be receiving Communion in a state of mortal sin; and whenever I advise her to go to Confession, she says that she feels ‘judged’ for her mistakes. Does anyone her know how I can help her overcome this fear?
Yes, tell her that to receive Communion without Confession is equivalent to her passing judgment unto herself, as it is written:
For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy way eats and drinks judgment to himself, if he does not discern the body of Christ. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep.
You can quote the Didache or Teaching of the Twelve, that so writes about the Eucharist:
Confess your sins in church, and do not go up to your prayer with an evil conscience. This is the way of life. . . . On the Lord’s Day gather together, break bread, and give thanks, after confessing your transgressions so that your sacrifice may be pure
You can also remind her of the words of Church Father Irenaeus, who said:
Some of these women make a public confession, but others are ashamed to do this, and in silence, as if withdrawing from themselves the hope of the life of God, they either apostatize entirely or hesitate between the two courses.
or those of Ignatius of Antioch, who we honor as being a successor of Peter in Antioch (the first city where the disciples were called Christians) and a disciple of John the apostle, who said:
as many as shall, in the exercise of penance, return into the unity of the Church, these, too, shall belong to God, that they may live according to Jesus Christ.
And you may remind her of the warning of Cyprian of Carthage:
But [the impenitent] spurn and despise all these warnings; before their sins are expiated, before they have made a confession of their crime, before their conscience has been purged in the ceremony and at the hand of the priest . . . they do violence to [the Lord’s] body and blood, and with their hands and mouth they sin against the Lord more than when they denied him.
Of how much greater faith and salutary fear are they who . . . confess their sins to the priests of God in a straightforward manner and in sorrow, making an open declaration of conscience. . . . I beseech you, brethren, let everyone who has sinned confess his sin while he is still in this world, while his confession is still admissible, while the satisfaction and remission made through the priests are still pleasing before the Lord.
And you may remind her that she is in very good company, for everyone from the humblest layman to the Pope in Rome confess, and even further, Basil the Great recalls:
It is necessary to confess our sins to those to whom the dispensation of God’s mysteries is entrusted. Those doing penance of old are found to have done it before the saints. It is written in the Gospel that they confessed their sins to John the Baptist, but in Acts they confessed to the apostles.
As for this power granted to priests to listen to our sins privately in the name and in the person of Christ the Head and to absolve us, we must necessarily give praise to God in the words of John Chrysostom:
‘Whose sins you shall forgive,’ he says, ‘they are forgiven them; whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.’ What greater power is there than this? The Father has given all judgment to the Son. And now I see the Son placing all this power in the hands of men.
If she follows your kind guidance on the sacred matters, perhaps the wisest thing to do may be to simply lead her to talk to a priest, not in confession but just casually, and expose this fear or worry that she has. The priest, then, who is endowed with the gifts needed for his ministry, as each of us is, will be able to dispel her fear and lead her to the Sacrament.
He may, perhaps, make her heart experience the feeling of the lamb at the sight of the Good Shepherd that is not angry at her running astray, but is rejoicing at her return, or like the son who, returning full of humility and shame, sees his father running full of joy to embrace him. Such things you cannot transmit to her: you reflect Christ the friend, but the priest acts in the person of Christ, the mighty to save.
May the Lord reward you a hundredfold in this life and the next for your love, and strengthen you as you work for your own salvation.
