Good afternoon,
I am new here, and stumbled upon these forums looking for an answer for something else. Anyway, as a priest who spends a lot of time in the confessional, I can tell you, from personal experience, that I often encourage those who have not gone in a very long time to make more frequent use and even those who tell me they go every month, for one simple reason. I explain to them that the longer we wait to go to confession, the easier it becomes for us to sin. The reason is because our venial sins start to “build up,” as it were, and we find we are becoming very impatient, sinning easier (if even venially) and getting very angry at the slightest things. The way I look at it is that that is your conscience’s way of telling you that it is time to go to confession, it is, in a sense, your conscience crying out telling you that it needs to be relieved of this burden.
What happens is that the longer we wait, the less inclined we are to go, and one week, becomes 2 then 3 and before you know it, it has almost been a year since your last confession. This, of course, does not necessarily apply to those who have made a habit out of it, but most people do not make confession a habitual thing, but rather a thing they need to do in order to feel better.
As a priest, I can see what happens when people frequently confess, and you start to see that though the Eucharist gives a myriad of graces, the confessional gives a myriad of different graces. While you can become stronger from the Eucharist and venial sins are washed away in His blood, we are also washed in the water that flows from His side, this is why many saints would call the confessional a “second baptism.” I often tell people that the tears they shed in that confessional is just that, a baptism, of sorts, where they are washed clean and made ready to receive Christ, a spiritual shower that clears their conscience and makes them that much more disposed to receive Him in, for lack of a better word, in full communion.
You have to remember that Christ is also in the confessional, and sometimes before we receive Him we have to speak the words out loud and tell Him we are sorry, even if it was something “small,” but again, small things can get bigger, and just because venial sins are washed away by the Eucharist that does not necessarily mean that all of them are washed away, what of those we hold dear and near to our heart, not ready to give up, those that have become a part of us, as it were? We can only be forgiven of those things we admit to, and if we don’t admit to them, then how will they be forgiven? This is why we need a way of speaking them out loud, admitting them, in humility, and asking for pardon and forgiveness.
For me, the confessional seems to be the door in the beginning, the one we have to walk through in order to receive the Holy of Holies, akin, akin to the first priests who had to purify and cleanse themselves before even thinking about entering the sanctuary.
That is how I see it, perhaps, one of the apologists may have something better, but that is one view from someone who hears confessions mostly everyday.
God Bless
Fr. Brian
