Sometimes, people think that confession is when you go to God and say, “God, I promise that I’ll be good. Please give me another chance.” But that is the wrong perspective. God is the one who initiates confession. God is the one who moves first.

Whenever we come to the sacrament of Reconciliation, our confession is a response to God, who is saying, “Please come to me.”

You are saying yes to God’s question, “Will you give me another chance to love you? Will you give me another chance to give you my mercy? Will you give me another chance to make you new?” That is what happens with every confession. Confession is simply coming before God in our weakness. To be open to his mercy and honest in our weakness, we need to turn away from our sins.

Purpose of Amendment

After I examine my conscience, I make a firm resolution not to return to the sins I have committed. I also make a firm resolution to avoid the near occasion of sin in the future. In other words, I resolve to avoid the people, places, things, and activities that tend to precede the sins I commit. What is a near occasion of sin for me might not be a near occasion for someone else, so I need to become aware of what my near occasions are and under what circumstances they act as triggers for me.

Once I discern my near occasions, I must avoid them if I am going to truly repent. I renew this resolve during confession when I make my act of contrition and promise “to avoid the near occasion of sin.”

The Latin word here that we translate as “avoid” is fugiturum. Its literal meaning is “to flee”—that is, to run away from evil or danger. So it is important for us to flee whatever is not good for our relationship with Jesus in our walk toward eternity. This resolution to turn away from our sins and from the things that lead us into sin is called a purpose of amendment.

If someone goes to confession and it is clear that he is not willing to break from his former way of life, then the priest must say, “I can’t offer you absolution.” The priest is not the master of the sacrament. He is the servant of the sacrament. And yet the priest has an active role to play. He is not merely the dispenser of God’s mercy; in some ways, he has to serve as a discerner.

When Jesus breathed on the apostles and gave them the Holy Spirit, he said to them,

“If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained”

John 20:23

What does this mean?

It is actually a very hard teaching of Jesus, because it illuminates the degree of the authority that he is extending to his priests. He is saying that priests need to determine whether a person coming to confession has contrition. Priests need to determine whether a person is actually coming back to Jesus. Jesus has given the apostles and their successors the authority to make that determination.

Keep in mind that having a purpose of amendment does not mean you have to be perfect after your confession. For example, if someone says, “Father, I bring you this sin in my life that is recurring, and I don’t want the sin again. But based on my past, I know myself, and I know that this is a weakness that I have.” Of course, that person desires to be free from the sin.

That is very different from someone saying, for example, “I’m not married to the person I’m living with, I plan to continue living with him after I leave this confessional, and I’m not going to take any steps to remove myself from this situation.” In that case the priest cannot offer absolution, because the penitent is telling him that she is literally planning on going right back to the same sinful situation that she is confessing. Obviously, that is painful for the penitent, and it is the worst thing for the priest.

Again, there is a difference between someone who struggles and recognizes weakness, and someone who is planning on going back to the same sin. If someone says, “I have really struggled with pornography and masturbation for the last fifteen years of my life. I’ve been trying and trying and trying, and I know that I might fall back into the sin. But I don’t want to, and I don’t have any plans to.”

The priest is not going to condemn that person. That’s someone who is trying to change. That sin can be confessed and absolved. It is very different from the case of someone who is not interested in changing, in which the priest cannot offer absolution because the person does not actually want it.

Coming Back to God