Then I acknowledged my sin to you, my guilt I covered not. I said, “I confess my faults to the Lord,” and you took away the guilt of my sin. Psalm 32:5
This is the last Sunday before Lent, which begins this Wednesday. Lent is a time to prepare ourselves to celebrate Easter. It is an especially good time to examine our lives and bring the Lord anything that is “unclean” in our hearts and minds. We declare ourselves unclean (Leviticus 13:45) whenever we truly acknowledge our sins and confess them to the Lord.
St. John taught this important truth about the importance of acknowledging our sinfulness: “If we say, ‘We are without sin,’ we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we acknowledge our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrongdoing. If we say, ‘We have not sinned,’ we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:8-10). This should bring us peace. All we must do is admit that we have sinned and repent, and God will forgive and cleanse us.
When we bring our wounds to the Lord in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we imitate the leper who approached Jesus, fully aware of his condition: “A leper came to him and kneeling down begged him and said, ‘If you wish, you can make me clean’” (Mark 1:40). The leper knew he couldn’t save himself; he knew he needed a savior. It’s a trap to think that we do not need to confess our sins, that we do not need a savior.
When we are embarrassed by our sins and hide them from God, like Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:8), we try to cover our sins by ourselves. This is something we cannot accomplish on our own. When we acknowledge our sins and show God our wounds, He will cover our sins for us: “Blessed is he whose fault is taken away, whose sin is covered” (Psalm 32:1). This is the beauty Reconciliation. We only must acknowledge and repent from our sins and bring them to God. Jesus does the rest. He covers over our sin with His own righteousness: “For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.