Often, we hide. We do not show people the parts of ourselves we are most ashamed of. But in confession, we get to stop hiding. We make ourselves vulnerable with the absolute confidence that what we get in return is an even deeper love

When you go to confession, God doesn’t just bring you back up to the same level where you were before the confession. When you go to confession and you experience the grace of reconciliation, you are restored and raised up even higher. St. Paul says,

Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.

Romans 5:20

That is one of the ways that confession is so powerful. Another way to understand the power of confession is that when you go and receive absolution, your sins are so truly gone that Satan has no idea what they were. But if you don’t go to confession, he knows.

I once spoke with an exorcist about his work who said he would always go to confession before he performed an exorcism. During an exorcism, the demon would taunt him by saying something like “I know what you did.” But the demon would not actually be able to name his sins because the exorcist had gone to confession. That is how real absolution is. That is just one of many things that verifies the reality and the power of the sacrament.

Confession takes sins so far away that God tells us,

“I removed your sins from you as far as the East is from the West. I’ve made you as pure as the driven snow”

Psalm 103:12

Even though your sins have been red as scarlet, there is a real transformation that happens in confession.

So many people look at confession as the place where they have failed, but it is the opposite. Sin is the place where we fail, and confession is the place where Jesus gets to win. If you ever are tempted to think, “I don’t want to go to confession because I feel so embarrassed and ashamed,” I understand. But confession is where you go to be restored.

Confession is always a place of victory. It is the place where you can say, “Jesus, you get to win again.” What if I went to confession last week? No problem. He gets to win again. In confession, nothing is wasted. Every time we go to confession, Jesus wins, and we can say, “Jesus, I’m not going to waste today. Jesus, what you did on the Cross for me is not going to be wasted. I’m going to let you forgive me.”

When Our Lord was in the garden of Gethsemane going through his agony, he was under so much strain that he began to sweat blood. His capillaries rose to the surface of his skin and then burst. His whole body was bleeding and bruised because of the stress he was undergoing. And his prayer was,

My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.

Matthew 26:39

Luke 22:43 says that as Jesus was in this moment of agony, an angel came and ministered to him. An ancient tradition tells us that when the angel came to him, the angel showed Our Lord God your action of going to confession, and that strengthened him.

He knew that in the future, one of his children would need the grace from this moment of his agony, and that child of his was going to receive the grace from this moment. And that strengthened Jesus, knowing that two thousand years in the future, what he was going through would not go to waste.

So realize this every time you go to confession: in some mysterious way you are strengthening Jesus in his agony. You are not a disappointment to him. You are giving him courage.

Jesus wants nothing more than to set each of us free. He wants to abide in a relationship with each one of us and fulfill the deepest desires of our hearts with his infinite love. Sin can never satisfy us. If we hold onto our sins, we close ourselves off from receiving the unconditional love that God has for us and the many graces that come with being in a relationship with Christ.

When we go to confession and allow Jesus to receive us and restore us, his victory on the Cross brings us back into communion with him. Our hope and prayer for you is that you will console the Heart of Jesus by receiving the gift of the sacrament of Reconciliation, so that you can abide with him in his Eucharistic Presence on earth and share his victory in the kingdom of heaven for all eternity.

Confession is a Place of Victory