I thought for a moment and replied truthfully, “When I encounter Christ in the Gospels, I sometimes find him intimidating. The sermon on the mount is not easy. Jesus makes a lot of difficult demands. He insists, ‘Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.’ Intellectually, I am aware of God’s mercy. But it’s not always foremost in my mind.
We parted company, but as soon as I got home, I realized there was one place where I was never intimidated by Jesus, never afraid to look at him, and always experienced his merciful heart. That place was in the persons of his priests, especially in their ministry of reconciliation.
There are two reasons for this.
The first reason is that I believe the words of the Gospel: “Whoever’s sins you forgive are forgiven,” and “Whoever hears you hears me.” I truly believe that Christ has given priests the authority to absolve sins in his name and that when they perform this sacramental action, it is really Jesus who is absolving me. Because I have faith, it is possible for me to perceive the pure mercy of Christ in this sacrament. Faith is essential. Were I not to believe that the priest could absolve me, then I would derive no comfort.
Holocaust survivor Simon Wiesenthal describes the time he was taken to the bedside of a dying Nazi soldier who was overcome by remorse for his horrible deeds. The soldier desperately wanted the forgiveness of a Jew, to hear a Jew forgive him on behalf of the Jewish people. Wiesenthal was aghast at the request but also totally dumbfounded. How on earth would this be even possible? How could one man absolve another of guilt, and on behalf of an entire group?
Wiesenthal is not the only one to find the idea of absolution incredible. Jesus forgave the sins of the paralytic who was lowered down to him through the roof. When he saw the man, Jesus said, “Your sins are forgiven.” His contemporaries were incredulous asking, “Who is this man who thinks he can forgive sins? Who can forgive sins but God alone.” In order to demonstrate his authority to forgive sins, Jesus healed the paralytic and sent him on his way.
The authority to forgive sins would be incredible if Christ had not demonstrated his authority through miracles, especially by rising from the dead, and if God did not give us grace to believe. But Catholics have motives for belief in Christ’s words in his miracles, and we experience the gift of faith. Because we have faith, we can experience the boundless, reconciling grace of God in the Confessional.
Faith is one reason that I have experienced Christ’s mercy in the confessional. There is another reason. The reason is that I have only known merciful priests in the confessional. Outside the confessional, I have known priests who are witty; others extremely pious. A few are sarcastic; others are extremely sensitive. Some are highly intellectual; others are more practical. Some are quite business like. Others are easy going. In a word, they are human. But in the confessional, I have experienced only compassion.
I know that some people have had unpleasant experiences in the confessional, but I am persuaded that this must be a minority of cases. A relative of mine once expressed concerns to a priest about going to confession. Genuinely concerned, the priest asked, “Why? Have we ever been mean to you?” “No,” was the truthful answer.
Pope Francis has continually emphasized that priests are instruments of Christ’s mercy. In Misericordia Vultus, his Bull of Indiction calling for a year of mercy, he wrote:
I will never tire of insisting that confessors be authentic signs of the Father’s mercy . . . Let us never forget that to be confessors means to participate in the very mission of Jesus to be a concrete sign of the constancy of divine love that pardons and saves. We priests have received the gift of the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of sins, and we are responsible for this. None of us wields power over this Sacrament; rather, we are faithful servants of God’s mercy through it.
I am writing this reflection while sitting in a Catholic parish. As I drove into the parking lot, I met a priest going out. We spoke for a moment, but he left because he was needed at the hospital.
A few moments later, I stepped outside to take a phone call and met another priest. We also spoke only for a moment because he was on his way to the hospital.
I could not count the number of times I have met priest in the hospital, or in a crisis, in the middle of the day, and even at the dead of night. And when the need has been great, the priests have come.
How do I experience the grace of Christ? In the fifteen years I have been Catholic, I can think of nowhere I have experienced Christ more compassionately than in the persons of his priest. They have always been for me the face of Christ’s mercy.