What happened to the practice of confession?
Very often when our understanding of an important reality in our social or spiritual life deepens, we seek other terminology which more adequately expresses that newer understanding. Before Vatican II, we spoke of “going to confession.” The phrase conjured up the image of a person under a spotlight with the shadowy figure of a prosecutor saying “Confess!” Later we began to speak of the Sacrament of Penance. This terminology emphasized the need for us to change our lives but also retained a negative aspect. With the deeper understanding of the gift of forgiveness that Jesus gave to his church, we now characterize the sacrament as the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The term brings to mind the image Jesus Himself gave us of the Father welcoming home his prodigal son. The Sacrament of Reconciliation was the gift of forgiveness that Jesus brought from God to his people. This gift permeates the life of the Church. The grace of the sacrament is too narrowly confined to the practice of individua
