As Anglicans we seek to cultivate a culture of confession. A General Confession is traditionally a part of all Anglican public prayer from Morning or Evening Prayer, to the Eucharist to Compline. But one blessing that few avail themselves to in our tradition is the option of auricular (or private or "sacramental") confession. I have offered this form of private confession throughout my ministry but it has not been until this Lent that a number of people have been taking me up on it. And I am motivated to write on it largely because of the power and the fruit I have seen in such a context.
Private Confession (for ease of the conversation, lets just call it "confession" from here on out and you'll know what I mean) takes pastoral care to a whole new level. Repentance is the basis of Christian healing and so the power of unburdening and hearing a personal word of direction, penance and absolution brings that healing on a level that I simply have not seen anywhere else in my ministry (or really in my life within the Christian Church). It is simply a shame that after the Reformation much of the Christian West did away with the practice.
In Anglicanism too for the first 400 years of our history Confession was a lost practice. Perhaps owing to the abuses of Late Medieval Catholicism (and its strong association with penances and indulgences etc.) it was informally rejected in favor of the forms of corporate general confession which, as I have noted, the Reformers made a part of every public service. But in the late 1800's as a part of the Anglo-Catholic revival which brought many of the more "High Church" practices and paraphernalia back into the life of the Anglican Church auricular confession was brought back by an obscure few.
This was not initially met with enthusiasm on the part of the broader Anglican Communion. Many saw it as crossing a line and diverging from the Anglican tradition and returning to Rome. But the champions of the practice appealed to the pastoral sensibilities that have always been innate to the Anglican churches. Even within the 1662 Book of Common Prayer (the theological standard of Anglican liturgies) there is a pastoral provision that when a minister visits the sick the sick person may make a special confession of his sins if, "he feel his conscience troubled with a weighty matter. After which confession, the priest shall absolve him." The proponents argued that the sense of auricular confession is plain, though the form (with the exception of the absolution) is not prescribed. There is nothing ungodly about a form or Office for making particular confession they argued. And so the practice began to make its way into the consciousness of the Anglican Church. Before long, the practice spread from pastoral application exclusive to the sick to all of the "sin sick" who are in need.
As a result, in several of the "modern" prayer books a form for confession is included. Still, true to our ethos of "reformed-catholicity" confession is offered as a pastoral option, never a mandate. In Anglicanism the aphorism goes "all may, none must, some should." As I said at the outset, based on my personal and pastoral experience probably more of us are among the some that should than what actually do.
So what exactly does confession involve? Well, the first thing is to make an examination of conscience. That is, to take a time of personal prayer, silently and uninterrupted to ask the Holy Spirit what things you need to bring to the priest and confess. Of course, some who come don't have to take more than 10 seconds to think on this one. Some are haunted by the memory of a word or action or a pattern of thought that they want to cast far from themselves. But others, especially those who decide to take on confession as a disciplined part of the maturation in the Lord will need to take the time to pray and ask for Divine illumination of those subtle sins that we have given into without even thinking twice about it.
The second step is to make an appointment with the priest. Some priests (like myself) make particular times available for confession especially in penitential seasons such as Lent or even Advent. Others may be "by appointment only." In either case most Anglican churches do not have the traditional Roman style "confessional booths". The priest may meet with the penitent in the sanctuary, both facing the altar or in some other designated place. Typically, to ease the mind and nerves of the penitent the priest faces away from him or her and both priest and penitent orient themselves toward a cross or some other symbol of the faith. The priest will don the purple stole, a symbol of his God-given authority to absolve penitents (purple being the color associated with repentance).
Anything that is said within the confessional stays within the confessional. Priests are held to the absolute strictest standards of confidentiality when it comes to confession. The Church of England's canons state, "if any man confess his secret and hidden sins to the minister, for the unburdening of his conscience, and to receive spiritual consolation and ease of mind from him; we...do straitly charge and admonish him, that he does not at any time reveal and make known to any person whatsoever any crime or offence so committed to his trust and secrecy." I have known more than one priest (self included) that would rather face the legal charge of obstructing justice than face the judgement of God for transgressing the sacred nature of confession. I always tell penitents when they come to me that after I pronounce absolution I will never again bring up whatever we have talked about. If they wish to pursue counsel on how to make life-changes or restitution I am happy to talk to them but I will never pursue it. The confessional is between the penitent and God with the priest as spokesman and witness and when we confess our sins they are truly put away from us as far as the east is from the west. I personally pray that when I remove my stole and leave the confessional that I will be stricken with holy amnesia and actually forget everything that occurred there. Most times that works. But I believe it is the holiness, the set apartness of that time and space and the confidence in the complete confidentiality of the act that encourages penitents to share and receive pastoral care on this deeper level that just grabbing a cup of coffee with your priest doesn't get you.
Well, I guess this is what I get for not posting for so long. This has become quite the lengthy missive. In Part 2 I will actually post the liturgy for the Office of the Reconciliation of a Penitent as well as talk a little bit about Penance as it is understood in contemporary Anglicanism.
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