Concealing sins in confession
“And he was casting out a devil, and the same was dumb.”—Luke 11:14
The devil does not bring sinners to hell with their eyes open: he first blinds them with the malice of their own sins. “For their own malice blinded them” (Wis. 2:21). He thus leads them with him to eternal perdition. Before we fall into sin, the enemy labors to blind us, so that we may not see the evil we do and the ruin we bring upon ourselves by offending God. After we sin, he labors to make us dumb, so that, through shame, we may not confess our guilt. Thus he binds us with a double chain for hell, leading us, after the sin already committed, to commit a still greater one—the sin of sacrilege.
I wish to speak to you on this today, that you may grasp how great an evil it is to conceal sins in confession.
1. Writing on those words of David—“Set a door, O Lord, round about my lips” (Ps. 140:3)—St. Augustine says: Non dixit claustrum, sed ostium: ostium et aperitur et clauditur: aperiatur ad confessionem peccati: claudatur ad excusationem peccati—“He did not say ‘bar’ but ‘door’: a door is both opened and closed; let it be opened for the confession of sin, and closed to the excuse of sin.” He means that a man should keep a door at his mouth, so that he may close it to words that are unchaste, slanderous, or blasphemous, and open it to confess the sins he has committed. The holy doctor then concludes: Ita enim erit ostium continentiae, non ruinae—“Thus it will be a door of restraint, and not of ruin.” To be silent when we are urged to speak words injurious to God or to our neighbor is an act of virtue; but to be silent in confession about the sins we have already committed is the ruin of the soul.
And this is just what the devil wants of us: that after committing the evil, we keep our mouth closed and do not confess it. St. Antonine relates that a certain holy solitary once saw the devil standing in a church around some persons who wished to go to confession. He asked the fiend what he was doing in that place. The enemy replied: Reddo poenitentibus quod antea eis abstuli; abstuli verecundiam dum peccarent; reddo nunc ut a confessione abhorreant—“I now restore to these penitents what I before took away from them; I took away their shame while they were sinning; I now restore it, that they may shrink from confession.” “My sores are putrefied and corrupted, because of my foolishness” (Ps. 37:6). When sores turn gangrenous they bring on death; and such are the sins concealed in confession—they are sores of the soul that turn to gangrene.
2. St. John Chrysostom writes: Pudorem dedit Deus peccato, confessioni fiduciam: invertit rem diabolus, peccato fiduciam praebet, confessioni pudorem—“God has given shame to sin and confidence to confession; the devil has inverted the matter, giving confidence to sin and shame to confession” (Proem. in Isa.). The Lord has attached shame to sin, that we may keep away from it; and, on the other hand, he gives us confidence to confess it, promising pardon to whoever accuses himself. The devil does just the contrary: he gives confidence to sin by the hope of pardon, but once the sin is committed he sets shame before our eyes, that we may not confess it.
3. A certain disciple of Socrates, as he was leaving the house of an immoral woman, saw his master passing by, and went back inside so as not to be seen. Socrates came up to the door and said to him: My son, in this house it is a shame to enter, but no shame to leave. Non te pudeat, fili, egredi ex hoc loco; intrasse pudeat—“Be not ashamed, son, to leave this place; be ashamed to have entered.”
So I say to you also, brethren who have sinned: it is indeed a shame to offend a God so great and so good; but it is no shame to confess the sin after we have committed it. Was it a shame for St. Mary Magdalene to confess herself a sinner in public at the feet of Jesus Christ, when she was converted? By that confession she became a saint. Was it a shame for St. Augustine not only to confess his sins, but even to set them down in a book of his, that for his own confusion they might be known to the whole world? Was it a shame for St. Mary of Egypt to confess that for so many years she had led an unchaste life? By their confessions these became saints, and are now honored upon the altars.
4. In the tribunals of earth it is said that whoever confesses is condemned; but in the tribunal of Jesus Christ, in holy confession, whoever confesses obtains pardon and receives the crown of paradise. “After confession,” says St. Chrysostom, “a crown is given to the penitent.” Whoever has an ulcer must, if he wishes to be cured, show it to the physician; otherwise it will fester and bring him to death. Quod ignorat—“What it does not know,” says the Council of Trent, medicina non curat—“medicine does not cure.” And so, sister, if you find your soul ulcerated with sin, do not be ashamed to tell it to the confessor; otherwise your soul is lost. “For thy soul be not ashamed to say the truth” (Ecclus. 4:24).
But, you say, I feel a great shame to confess this sin. This is the very shame you must conquer if you wish to be saved. “For there is a shame that bringeth sin, and there is a shame that bringeth glory and grace” (Ecclus. 4:25). There are two kinds of shame, writes the inspired author: one shame leads men to sin—and that is precisely the shame that makes you keep silent in confession about the faults you have committed; the other shame is the one felt in disclosing one’s sins, and this shame wins for you the grace of God in this life and the glory of paradise in the next.
5. St. Augustine writes that the wolf, so that the sheep may not escape his grasp, seizes her by the throat, so that she cannot cry out for help, and thus carries her off in safety and devours her. So too the devil deals with many a poor sheep of Jesus Christ: after he has driven them to sin, he seizes them by the throat, that they may not confess, and so carries them off securely to hell. For those who have committed a grievous sin, there remains no other remedy for salvation but to confess it.
But what hope of salvation can there be for one who goes to confession and conceals the sin, and uses confession to offend God all the more, and to make himself doubly the slave of the devil? What would you say of the life of a sick man who, instead of the remedy prescribed by his physician, took a cup of poison? O God, what does confession become for a sinner who conceals his sins, but a cup of poison, which adds to his conscience the malice of sacrilege?
When the confessor gives absolution to the penitent, he dispenses to him the blood of Jesus Christ; for it is by the merit of that blood that he absolves him from his sin. What, then, does he do who conceals a sin in confession? He tramples under foot the blood of Jesus Christ. And if he then also receives Communion in sin, he does, says St. John Chrysostom, the same as if he cast the consecrated host into a sewer. Non minus detestabile est in os pollutum, quam in sterquilinium mittere Dei Filium—“It is no less detestable to put the Son of God into a polluted mouth than to cast him into a dunghill” (Hom. 83 in Matt.).
Accursed shame, how many poor souls does it bring to hell! Magis memores pudoris quam salutis, says Tertullian—“More mindful of shame than of salvation.” Wretched souls! They think only of the shame of confessing their sins, and do not consider that, if they do not confess them, they are certainly damned.
6. That penitent says: But what will my confessor say when he hears of this fall of mine? What will he say? He will say that you are a wretched creature, like all who live on this earth and are prone to fall; he will say that, if you have done evil, you have also done a glorious deed in conquering shame and confessing your sin sincerely.
7. But if I confess this sin, I am afraid it will become known. I ask: to how many confessors must you tell this fault of yours? It is enough to tell it to a single priest, who, as he hears your sin, so hears a thousand others like it from other people. It is enough to confess it once: the confessor will give you penance and absolve you, and your conscience will be left in peace.
But, you say, I feel the deepest repugnance to tell this fault to my spiritual father. Then tell it to another confessor, in this place or in another. But if my confessor comes to know of it, he will be displeased with me. And what do you mean to do? To avoid displeasing your confessor, will you commit so great a sin and remain condemned to hell? That would be folly indeed.
8. But I am afraid the confessor will make my sin known to others. What are you saying? What madness is it to suspect that your confessor is so wicked that he would break the seal of confession and make your sin known to others? Know that the seal of confession is so strict that the confessor may not, outside confession, speak even of the smallest venial sin, even to the penitent herself; and if he did so, it would be a most grievous crime.
9. But you object: I am afraid that the confessor, hearing this weakness of mine, will give me a great rebuke and scold me sharply. O God, do you not see that all these fears are tricks of the devil to carry you off securely to hell? What rebukes! What scolding! The confessor will gently give you the counsels that are fitting. And besides, know that no confessor can have greater consolation than to absolve a penitent who, with true sorrow and sincerity, accuses herself of her faults.
If a queen were wounded to death by a slave, and you could heal her with some remedy, how glad you would be to heal her and deliver her from death! Such is the consolation of a confessor who absolves a soul fallen into sin: by his work he delivers her from eternal death, and, restoring to her the grace of God, he makes her a queen of paradise.
10. But you have so many fears, and you have no fear of damning yourself by committing so great a sin as concealing a sin in confession. You fear the rebuke of the confessor, and you do not fear the rebuke that Jesus Christ will give you when he is your judge at the hour of death. You fear that your sin may come to be known by others (which is impossible, when you reveal it secretly to the confessor), and you do not fear the day of judgment, on which, if you now conceal your sin, all the men of the earth will come to know it.
If you knew that, by not confessing that sin to the confessor, it would come to be known by all your relatives and all your neighbors, you would certainly confess it; but have you faith, or have you not? Do you not know, says St. Bernard, that if for shame you fail to tell your sin to one man, who is himself a sinner like you, that sin of yours must, on the day of judgment, be made known not only to all your relatives and neighbors, but to all men? Si pudor est tibi uni homini et peccatori peccatum exponere, quid facturus es in die judicii, ubi omnibus exposita tua conscientia patebit?—“If you are ashamed to expose your sin to one man, and a sinner, what will you do on the day of judgment, where your conscience shall be laid open to all?” (St. Bernard, On John 11).
Lazare, veni foras—“Lazarus, come forth.” If you do not now confess, God himself, for your confusion, will then make known not only this sin, but all the foul deeds you have committed in your life, in the presence of the angels and of the whole world. “I will discover thy shame to thy face, and will show thy wickedness to the nations” (Nah. 3:5).
11. Listen, then, to what St. Ambrose counsels you. The devil keeps ready a record of all your sins, to accuse you of them at the tribunal of God. Do you wish to escape this accusation? says the saint. Anticipate your accuser: accuse yourself, of your own accord, to a confessor, and then you will have no accuser against you. Praeveni accusatorem tuum; si te ipse accusaveris, accusatorem nullum timebis—“Anticipate your accuser; if you accuse yourself, you will fear no accuser” (On Penance, Bk. 2, ch. 2).
On the other hand, says St. Augustine, whoever excuses himself in confession shuts the sin up within his soul and shuts out the pardon of God. Excusas te, includis peccatum, excludis indulgentiam—“You excuse yourself, you enclose sin, you exclude pardon” (Hom. 12.50).
12. Come, then, take courage—I speak to anyone among you, if there be such, who has made this mistake of concealing sins through shame: take courage, and tell all to a confessor. “Give glory to God with a good heart” (Ecclus. 35:10). Give glory to God, and confound the devil. A certain penitent was tempted by the devil not to confess, through shame for a sin she had committed; but she took courage, and as she was already going to find the confessor and tell him all, the devil came before her and said: Where are you going? She answered bravely: I am going to confound myself and you. So I say to you also: if you have ever concealed some grievous sin, tell it plainly to the confessor, and confound the devil. Listen: the greater the effort you make in confessing it, the greater will be the love with which Jesus Christ will embrace you.
13. Come, then, drive out this viper that you harbor in your soul, that continually gnaws at you and gives you no rest. Oh, what a hell a person suffers who keeps in his heart a sin he has failed to confess through shame! He suffers a hell beforehand. It is enough to say to the confessor: “Father, I have a certain scruple about my past life, but I am ashamed to tell it.” It is enough to say this much; the rest will be the confessor’s task, to draw out this serpent that gnaws your conscience.
And that you may not make a scruple where there is no room for one, know this: if that sin you are ashamed to explain was not mortal, or if you never held it to be mortal, you are not obliged to tell it; for we are obliged to confess mortal sins alone. Moreover, if you doubt whether you ever confessed some old sin of yours, but you know that in the past you carefully made your examination of conscience and never failed to tell your sins through shame, in that case—even though it had been a grievous fault—you are not bound to confess it, because it is morally presumed certain that you have already confessed it.
But if you already knew that the fault was grievous, and you know that you never confessed it, then there is no remedy: either you confess it, or you are damned. But no—go quickly, lost sheep, for Jesus Christ is waiting for you, and stands with open arms to pardon you and embrace you, if you confess. I assure you that, after you have confessed everything, you will feel such consolation at having unburdened your conscience and gained the grace of God, that you will forever bless the hour in which you made this good confession. Go quickly, as quickly as you can, to find the confessor; do not give the devil time to keep tempting you and to put off this confession of yours for long. Quickly, for Jesus Christ is waiting for you.
Points for Reflection
1. “This is the very shame you must conquer if you wish to be saved. For there is a shame that bringeth sin, and there is a shame that bringeth glory and grace” (§4)
2. “Anticipate your accuser: accuse yourself, of your own accord, to a confessor, and then you will have no accuser against you” (§11)
3. “After you have confessed everything, you will feel such consolation at having unburdened your conscience and gained the grace of God, that you will forever bless the hour in which you made this good confession” (§13)