My First Confession

Fear, embarrassment, relief, liberation

Confession according to the imagination of MidJourney AI

Before you can be baptized, you must undergo the sacrament of Holy Confession. I was instructed to schedule it within a week or two of my baptismal date. While I don’t pretend to know all of the reasons why this must be done before baptism, my understanding is that it’s both a cleansing process in preparation for baptism and our first official act of participating in the atonement and repentance process that is at the core of Christianity. Baptism, in part, symbolizes the washing away of your sins, but forgiveness of sin always comes after genuine repentance; and what is repentance? From the Greek metanoia, which means a change of mind. We might also say a change of heart.

The gift of God's forgiveness is received through private prayer, corporate worship, the disciplines of prayer and fasting, penitential services and above all through the sacrament of Holy Confession.

The value of Holy Confession is twofold. First, through this sacramental act of the ordained priest and the Christian believer we have the assurance of divine forgiveness, according to the words of Christ (Jn 20:23). Secondly, Holy Confession provides the opportunity to talk about one's deep concerns, to receive counsel and to be encouraged toward spiritual growth, all of which are universally recognized as extremely beneficial to personal life.¹

In reflection, I feel that Holy Confession is kind of the start of the baptismal process. It allowed me to go into my baptism free from the weight of the past and with maximum spiritual clarity.

However, as you may recall from my last post, I was on an emotional rollercoaster and spiraling into doubt and despair at the time.

The Road to Baptism

Trying to prepare for confession drove my anxiety even higher than it already was. The thought of writing down and then having to confess all of the sins of my entire lifetime terrified me. Some of those sins are tied up in or originate from childhood traumas - and rehashing that was not an appealing process. I felt a lot of shame and guilt, knowing that I would have to tell my Priest everything. I was also worried about what he would think of me afterward because I have come to love and respect him, and the thought that he may look poorly on me afterward was scary.