Is Sacramental Penance Necessary?
Fr. Brian Carpenter
Originally posted on 6/13/2010

How necessary is the Sacrament of Penance in the lives of most church-going Catholics?

This question has been asked of me. The reason behind this is that it is not required for Catholics to go to confession if they are not in the state of mortal sin (that is having committed a grave sin). And the Eucharist is a means of forgiveness for venial sin (those everyday, small sins). So what is the need of the sacrament of Penance?

Before discussing this further, I would like to table the discussion as to whether or not most Catholics are in the state of mortal sin, as this would be another article all together. Instead, I am going to start from the premise that most Catholics do not believe themselves to be in the state of mortal sin. As such, they do not believe that they need to make use of the Sacrament of Penance.

Technically speaking, if a person is truly not in a state of mortal sin, then they do not need to go to sacramental confession. By attending the Eucharist they can be forgiven for venial sins. So the sacrament of Penance may seem superfluous to such a person. However, while this may be the technically correct answer, this response often seems to come from an attitude that I believe to be spiritually unhealthy, or spiritually immature at best. It is an attitude that seems to seek the minimum requirement, what is the minimum I must do to obtain salvation.

This same type of question was asked to Jesus in His earthly ministry, most notably in the story of the rich young man. In St. Matthew’s account of this interaction (Matthew 19:16-22) we learn that Jesus is calling us to greatness, not to the bare minimum. The story begins with the young man asking what is necessary for salvation. After Jesus instructs the young man to follow the commandments, and specifies which commandments to follow the young man asks what more can be done.

This should be our response in our faith life. We should not seek to do the minimum, but to constantly ask what more can I do. Is there anything else that will benefit me, even if I am doing everything required of me? In other words, as I stated in my article Strive for Perfection we are not to enter into a “quest for mediocrity” but to strive for excellence.

Jesus Himself acknowledges the merit in striving for excellence when speaking to the rich young man. He does not tell the rich young man “you have done enough already, go home and pat yourself on the back.” Instead He encourages the rich young man to strive for perfection. Jesus gives the rich young man instructions on how to achieve not only eternal life, but to perfection.

In a similar manner, the sacrament of Penance can assist us in our own quest for perfection. Avoiding mortal sin may be what is necessary for gaining eternal life, but seeking out additional graces is what leads us to perfection.

The sacrament of penance provides us with an opportunity to seek out additional graces, even when we are not in the state of mortal sin. Or put another way, the Sacrament of Penance is not only about the forgiveness of mortal sins. To think of it solely as a means for forgiveness of Mortal (and venial) sins is to reduce it to a function. But like all sacraments, the sacrament of penance is not given to us to provide a simple function. It is a means of grace.

By receiving the sacrament on a regular basis, even when you are not in the state of mortal sin, you position yourself to receive special graces. Among those is the ability to grow in holiness. By receiving the sacrament on a regular basis, we become more aware of our own sinfulness. This awareness will lead us to a greater holiness.

This is confirmed by the lives of the saints. The saints are indeed a very diverse group of people. They have different spiritual charisms, different approaches to living out the gospel. St. Francis instructed his followers to preach the gospel through their actions. St. Dominic preached the gospel in words. St. Thomas Aquinas had a very intellectual spirituality, St. Thérèse of Lisieux had her “little way” of living out the Gospel. Yet despite this diversity, almost universally the saints are people who recognize their own sinfulness, and their dependency on God’s forgiveness. Almost universally, they are people who spent a lot of time in the confessional, seeking forgiveness from their sins.

By making use of the sacrament of penance, even for venial sins, the saints became aware as to precisely how unworthy they were of God’s mercy, and how, despite their unworthiness, God was willing and able to forgive them. Because of their deep understanding as to how unworthy they were, and how dependent they were on God’s mercy, they were able to become people of profound love.

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus tells us, “the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” (Luke 7:47). If we constantly go around thinking that we do not need the sacrament of penance because we are not in the state of mortal sin, we may be correct in terms of technical necessity. But we would be making a grave error, in that if we wish to become saints (and let’s face it, we all want to be in that number when the saints go marching in), we need to be people of great love. And we can only love to the extent that we have been loved. The sacrament of penance provides us with an opportunity to experience God’s love in a profound way. It allows us to understand that our sinfulness does not put us outside the reach of God’s mercy. This shows us how penetrating God’s love actually is. Frequent reception of the sacrament can help us to understand that our sins are not “small venial sins” but offenses against God (small as they may be). And they keep us from reaching the perfection that God calls us to. In short, the sacrament can help us understand how radically dependent we are on God, not only in big things but also in little things. This understanding can bring us to a spiritual understanding of how intensely God loves us, that unworthy as we are, He wishes to be in relationship with us. And after experiencing that love of God, we can pass on what we have received by being beacons of God’s love to the world.

This is why the Sacrament of Penance is important not only to those in mortal sin, but to all Catholics. It provides us with an intense experience of God’s love, one that can change our understanding of what it means to have been forgiven, and how we need to forgive others.