Adrienne von Speyr: Confession

Earlier this evening, I read Hans Urs von Balthasar's introduction to Adrienne von Speyr's book Confession. A central insight of this book is to see Jesus' self-offering and death on the Cross as being the archetype of the "confession" of the faithful in what is now known, according to its title in the 1983 Code of Canon Law, as the Sacrament of Penance.

It is fashionable today to speak of a "sacrament of penance" instead of "confession". In a certain superficial historical sense this may be correct to the extent that in the first centuries confession was present in Christian consciousness primarily under the aspect of penance. However, everyone knows that in reality this was only an initial seed and not the full-grown plant. Indeed, it was a seed that scarcely suggested the dogmatic basis just mentioned, a basis whose centre is expressed by "confession" (Augustine's confessio, to admit or confess). Thus there is no real reason to dispense with the traditional word.

Fr von Balthasar was writing in 1960, before the Second Vatican Council, and before the revision of the Code of Canon Law. One wonders what he (and Adrienne) would make of the predominance in some circles today of the title "Reconciliation" to refer to the Sacrament! I had thought I had begun to detect a return to the use of the title "Confession" a couple of years ago, but this does not seem to have been sustained.

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church (nn.1423-1424), the Sacrament is described by the titles conversion, Penance, confession, forgiveness and Reconciliation, each title revealing a different aspect of the reality of the Sacrament. From a catechetical point of view, the exclusive use of one of these titles, without any reference to the others, will give only a partial impression of the Sacrament. My own choice when I have to use just one title is usually "The Sacrament of Penance", simply because that is the title used in Canon Law.

It is called the sacrament of confession, since the disclosure or confession of sins to a priest is an essential element of this sacrament. In a profound sense it is also a 'confession' - acknowledgement and praise - of the holiness of God and of his mercy towards sinful man.