All Saints by the Lake, Dorval
February 22, 2023
Georges de la Tour, “The Penitent Magdalen,” c. 1640. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Are you ready for Lent? Because I’m not.
The last three Lents – 2020, 21, and 22 – have been spent under the cloud of COVID-19 and either going into, in, or coming out of lockdown. It’s been a long time since we had a “normal” Lent. And of course, arguably, this Lent isn’t exactly normal either, and who knows what a “normal” Lent is supposed to look like from now on?
Perhaps you’re ready to resume a former Lenten practice, or find a new one that works for you. Perhaps you’ve been dealing with health problems, or grief, or just general life chaos and frustration, and you feel like you’ve got quite enough Lent in your ordinary days, thank you very much.
Regardless, I suspect all of us have a lot to process from the past three years, that we may or may not really have gotten our heads around yet. Whether we’re basically back to our normal pre-pandemic existence or are still taking significant precautions, this experience will have left a mark.
And at its most basic, Lent is, of course, about forgiveness. Forgiving ourselves, forgiving others, and seeking their forgiveness in turn.
There are lots of ways each of us could start to work on some of our “stuff” this Lent, whether through prayer, conversation with a trusted friend, therapy, art, meditation, whatever works for you. And perhaps that is your chosen Lenten discipline this year.
But I want to remind us all of the existence of another practice of the church, one that’s often overlooked but which I think can play an essential role in times of uncertainty and confusion like this. I’m talking about sacramental confession.
Confession is also known as “the reconciliation of a penitent” (“penitent” means “the one who is confessing and seeking forgiveness”). The old English word for being absolved of one’s sins is “shriven,” and Shrove Tuesday, yesterday, got its name because it was traditional to go to confession before beginning the Lenten fast.
Confession is frequently understood to be the exclusive domain of the Roman Catholic Church, and most of us have only encountered it on TV, where the secrecy of the confessional is a perennial plot device heightening the suspense of detective shows. But confession has also been part of the Anglican tradition since the beginning.
No one is required to make a confession in Anglicanism. The classic pronouncement on the subject is that “all may, some should, none must.” Confession is not a hoop to be jumped through to access other sacraments; rather, it is an always-available option to add depth and nuance to one’s spiritual life.
I have both made and heard confessions, but neither one with great frequency. I think I could probably count each on the fingers of one hand. (And now that I think about it, I’m probably overdue for another confession of my own.)
You don’t have to have committed any dramatic, flagrant sins to seek out confession. You don’t even have to have committed any particular sins at all. You can simply be feeling the weight of what it is to be human, of the pervasive sin and brokenness of the world, and be looking for a structured way to bring that before God.
It is your choice, in confession, what and how much to say. There are books and resources that can help you prepare, or you can simply come in, sit down, and let the Spirit guide you to speak what is on your heart.
When I welcome someone for the sacrament of reconciliation, we usually sit in chairs on either side of the altar rail. The service itself, which can be found on page 166 of the BAS, begins with the priest and penitent praying together one of the penitential Psalms. There is then an exchange of ritual words between priest and penitent, with the penitent having the chance to spend as long as they like talking about what’s on their mind, and the priest offering comfort and counsel as appropriate.
Finally, the penitent affirms that they turn to Christ and forgive those who have sinned against them, and the priest pronounces formal absolution, a sacramental sentence which has the same power as the words of the consecration at the Eucharist or the blessing of the water at Baptism: it actually and effectively removes the sins the person has confessed.
To use the language of the Gospel reading, it’s a very effective way of intentionally encountering the God who sees in secret.
I can’t promise that confession will immediately guarantee that you feel better. But I can promise – as I can with any sacrament – that God is at work in the words and actions of the ritual.
Perhaps, this Lent, you’re looking for something a little more structured to contain your big, complicated feelings about your life right now, or the last three years, or who knows, maybe your whole life. And perhaps your chosen Lenten discipline, and the regular worship of the gathered community of faith, will be enough. But if you’re looking for something more, I encourage you to consider the sacrament of reconciliation. As Paul says, now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation. Remember: all may, some should, none must.
Amen.
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