The following article originally appeared in the Gulf Pine Catholic, Diocese of Biloxi.
BILOXI – Our Lady of Fatima Parish’s Legion of Mary sponsored a Day of Recollection on Jan. 15.
Newly-ordained Jesuit Father Anthony Wieck, of Spring Hill College in Mobile, was the speaker for the event and touched on a number of topics during multiple talks, including the Sacrament of Penance.“Confession is ultimately an attitude,” he said. “You and I are called to imitate Christ, who is constantly confessing our sin to the father. So, you and I should also have this attitude of coming clean early and often when we sin. We come clean. We don’t hide it. We don’t try to cover it up or explain it away. We don’t say,‘Well, it was really their fault. They started it. I didn’t fail. I’m innocent.’ Confession is an attitude where you come clean with the Lord and you desire to come clean. You have this desire to be known for who you truly are without hiding things, without covering up.”
Father Wieck, who was ordained in June 2010, added, “There is such a temptation in our weakness, in our vulnerability, to try to hide and cover up for our sin and our selfishness – Adam and Eve’s experience of nakedness and trying to cover themselves up. They played the blame game. Adam said, ‘She made me do it’ and Eve said, ‘The devil made me do it.’’”
Father Wieck said, “Out of our fear and vulnerability, we’re afraid to admit when we do something wrong.”
To illustrate the example “the blame game,” Father Wieck related the story of a theologian who was a student in medical school, whose instructor brought in a very sick patient on a gurney to give that patient an injection.
“He gave the patient the injection and the patient shot up and then fell back dead on the gurney. The doctor, instead of taking ownership for that mistake for giving him the wrong injection, started blaming the nurse. He said, ‘She gave me the wrong serum. She should’ve checked that before she gave it to me.’ He started claiming to the students that he was innocent,” Father Wieck said. “The theologian, who was protestant at the time, was so incensed by his inability to take ownership for that horrible mistake that she began this journey looking for confession. She wanted to know, ‘Where can we truly come clean before the Lord and be forgiven for all of our sins and selfishness?’”
The Sacrament of Confession, Father Wieck said, is that gift.
“Our Lord wants to give us that gift. In fact, it’s so important to him that it’s the first gift that he gives after he’s raised from the dead. He says, ‘Peace be with you. Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven. Whose sins you retain, they are retained.’ It’s the first gift to the apostles – the gift of confession,” Father Wieck said.”
Father Wieck said it’s important to go to confession with a contrite spirit.
“We ask pardon of our sins that we remember and there are probably many sins that we don’t remember,” he said. “After we confess our sins, it’s nice to add something to the effect of ‘For these and all my sins, I am sorry’ because there are probably a lot more sins that we don’t even know we’ve committed that we need to be forgiven for. That’s one of the graces of confession. We’re forgiven for all our sins, even the ones we’ve forgot, which is wonderful. You don’t have to go back because you forgot to confess something. It’s already gone. Don’t go back to it.There’s an Old Testament passage about a dog returning to its vomit. It’s a horrible image, but that’s what we do if we go back to our sin. Don’t live in the past. Live in the present.”
When one goes to confession, Father Wieck said that person “should put it all out there.”
“A priest in confession is given two graces. One is, the more you confess, the more clearly and precisely you confess, the more exalted you will be in the eyes of the priest,” he said. “It’s an amazing gift that we receive as priests. You think, ‘Oh, he’s going to think badly of me.’ It’s the opposite. It is the opposite. The more you put it out there, the more exalted you are in the eyes of the priest. It’s an amazing thing.”
The second grace given to a priest in confession, Father Wieck said, is “amnesia.”
“Blessed amnesia,” he said. “It’s where he forgets the sins you confessed, which is a great gift. I’m really glad for that one too.”
Father Wieck encourage attendees to make confession a regular practice in their lives.
“It’s very important to imitate Our Lord in confessing His sins to the Father,” Father Wieck said
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