LORD, HAVE MERCY: THE HEALING POWER OF CONFESSION

by Scott Hahn

Doubleday, 2003

208 pages, $19.95

Available in retail and online bookstores

Like many Catholics, I approach the confessional with about the same degree of enthusiasm as I generally muster for the dentist's chair.

It's not that I think I don't need the sacrament. But who enjoys sitting one-on-one with another person and listing all the grievous acts they've recently committed?

“Don't be so hard on yourself,” you might say. “You're only human. Everyone screws up.” That might be true, but, while sin may be inevitable, it is not the way God intended things to be. The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23) — separation from God. It is out of the desire to repair this rupture that we should allow ourselves to be drawn to the sacrament of reconciliation — even when we feel like staying away. After all, our emotions have been compromised by original, as well as actual, sin.

In Lord, Have Mercy, popular speaker and author Scott Hahn hammers this point home in a warmly personal yet theologically rich way that should have many running for the nearest confessor.

Hahn begins by recounting how, as a teen-ager, he got caught shoplifting. With considerable wile, he managed to convince everyone — including the store detectives, the police and even his own mother — that he'd been coerced into committing the crime. Then his father came home. Faced down by the one person he couldn't fool, Hahn thought he was about to find himself on the receiving end of a rampage. Instead, his father quietly expressed his shame and disappointment. The young Hahn realized that he'd not only grieved his father. He'd also broken his heart.

With that vivid anecdote, Hahn introduces an in-depth discussion of God as a loving Father whose heart breaks every time our sin rends our relationship with him — yet who, through the confessional, always provides us with a gentle way back.

Following the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Hahn outlines the basic elements of confession: We must be sorry for our sins, we must confess our sins and we must complete the work of penance or restitution.

“To confess our sins is to accept responsibility for our actions and their consequences,” Hahn writes, “to take the blame squarely on our own shoulders, to admit that the decision to sin was ours alone, and to do all this — as best we can — without excuses, disclaimers or euphemisms.”

Tracing the ways in which the Church's confessional practices have changed through the ages, Hahn takes pains to show that its basic understanding of the sacrament has remained the same. He urges readers to begin the practice of regular penance if they haven't already. And, in three appendices, he gives the rite for reconciliation of individual penitents, acts of contrition and prayers to say before and after the sacrament. Then follows an excellent, thorough examination-of-conscience guide.

“Through confession, we begin to heal,” Hahn writes. “We begin to get our stories straight. We come home through the open door, to resume our place in God's family. We begin to know peace.”

No, confession isn't easy. But let's get over it. The chance to restore our relationship with God, our eternal Father, is well worth a short bout of the squirms. If you're not convinced of that, read Lord, Have Mercy.

Christina Kirsh is the Register's copy and associate news editor.