“I think that Confession must be a very real trial to anyone as sensitive as you are,” Caryll Houselander writes in a letter to a teenage girl struggling with nervous illness after a difficult childhood. “No one likes it; the toughest old Catholics of my acquaintance get a sort of squiggle in their insides even over the most paltry recitation of their sins, and nearly all have been through searching periods of nervous scruples which leave a miserable association of ideas.”
Caryll’s own lifelong battle with nervous illness made her particularly sensitive to the needs of others who suffered the same symptoms, and she understood with tremendous empathy the plight of those plagued by anxiety about the sacrament of Penance. In her writings, Caryll advises the following measures for anxious people to consider when approaching Confession:
1. Keep the examination of conscience short.
Caryll advises beginning with a brief prayer to the Holy Spirit to bring to mind what is most important to confess—“Let me make a good confession”—and then limiting the examination of conscience to two minutes.
“Confess only what comes to mind in those two minutes,” she writes.
Once the penitent has prayed to the Holy Spirit for light, a few minutes is all it takes to recall the sins that are most important to confess.
Not long ago, I came across an article in which a priest advised beginning the examination of conscience the night before Confession. Though well-intentioned, this kind of advice makes the sacrament of Penance a more difficult process than it needs to be, especially for anxious souls. Long hours spent examining one’s conscience will not help the anxious penitent. Overcomplicated preparations only increase stress. The sacrament should be simple and easy, so as not to “break a bruised reed” (Mt. 12:20).
“We are so apt to forget that it is Christ who does the most important things in the sacrament, and what He asks of us, to make Him able to do His part, is a very small minimum,” Caryll writes.
2. Remember that repentance is an act of the will, not a feeling.
To an anxious person worried that he doesn’t feel sorry enough, Caryll would answer that contrition is not a feeling but an act of the will.
“Sorrow for sin is just the will to be sorry, proved by receiving the sacrament of penance,” she writes to a friend. All God asks is that we should want to be sorry, because we want to be closer to Him.
“Going to confession is an act of love for God,” she explains in Guilt. “Like all love it is an act of will. Feeling may or may not enter into it.”
3. Avoid dwelling on venial sins, and don’t magnify imperfections.
Caryll emphasizes the fact that it is not necessary (or even possible) to confess every venial sin.
“Sometimes scrupulous people are well advised to confess only one sin,” she writes. At least, sticking to a small number rather than an exhaustive list is advisable. “All you forget or are unsure of is forgiven anyway; you are not obliged to confess any but mortal sin. So long as you confess something, the rest is forgiven with it.”
To a young woman suffering from crippling anxiety, she writes:
You are not bound to confess venial sins at all, even if you remember them at the time, and you are almost bound—in fact, really bound—not to work up and magnify imperfections “to be on the safe side.” Anyway, that would not make you safe—far from it. It would blind you to God’s loving desire to forgive you and take you closer to His heart. Only one thing ever makes you safe—putting your trust in God.
4. Don’t be afraid of God.
Just as the father of the prodigal son in the Gospel was deeply moved just to see his son returning to him, God the Father is deeply moved just to see His children coming back to Him in confession.
It would be a mistake, Caryll says, to believe that God is waiting to catch us in some failure.
“He is there with open arms to take us to His heart, and He makes it as easy as possible for us to come,” she writes. “He isn’t there rubbing His hands and saying, ‘Ha! X forgot something! I’ll jump on her for that!’”
“The devil loves to distract from God’s love and mercy by worry about sin,” she continues. “The only cure for this worry is to concentrate not on self-perfection but on the love and tenderness of God.”
5. Let Confession be easy and simple.
To make it as “easy as possible for us to come,” the Church, in Her wisdom, has ensured that the sacrament is both simple and accessible in its requirements.
“The whole process of going to Confession, which is a quick and simple process if it is rightly used, is ordered and controlled by the wise and gentle discipline of the Church,” Caryll writes in Guilt.
There are many who complain of the . . . almost extreme measures used by the Church to make it easy for the weakest. For example, that any words expressing sorrow suffice for the act of contrition, that venial sins need not be confessed at all, that forgotten sins are included in the forgiveness anyway, that it practically never happens that a confession made in good will need be, or should be, repeated.
How strange it is, many decide, to surround a sacrament with so many little rules. But it is sufficient to spend one hour with the anxious or over-scrupulous person, to realize that these are the rulings of divine mercy. They are the balm poured into the wounds, the calm and rest insisted upon by the divine Physician.
6. If you aren’t sure if it’s a mortal sin, it’s not a mortal sin.
I once had a conversation with a mother who was in great agony over a sick child. So distraught was she that, in her exhausted mind, she began to worry that she was in a state of mortal sin without knowing it.
Since one of the conditions for mortal sin is full knowledge, this poor mother was clearly not in mortal sin; but sadly, her suffering was heightened by this needless fear.
“You will never be, never could be, in any doubt about mortal sin,” Caryll assures a friend in one of her letters. “If there is doubt there is no mortal sin. That is certain.”
7. Do not re-confess sins or redo penances.
Confess once and only once, and then leave it all behind. If the same sin happens again later, it can be brought to the next confession, but there is no need to re-confess what has already been forgiven.
Likewise, say the penance once and only once, no matter how distracted you may feel while doing it.
I would also add from personal experience that it helps to know that penitents can ask for a different penance if the penance given feels too burdensome or vague. For example, if the penance is to “focus extra hard while you say a chaplet” (this type of mental exertion is highly stressful, if not impossible, for someone who struggles with anxiety and attention deficits) or “be extra nice to your family” (how do we know when the penance is completed?), the penitent is free to ask the priest for a different penance.
8. Be gentle with yourself in making resolutions.
Making sweeping resolutions to overcome sins of weakness through sheer will power often leads to discouragement when those resolutions fail and the same sins prevail or even increase. Instead, Caryll recommends a gentler form of retraining.
“Repetition of ‘I will’ or ‘I will not’ is again a concentration on self,” she writes in Guilt. “Such acts of will become a strain, and tiring too; and for nervous people fatigue is an added danger.” She continues:
It is advisable not to focus upon [the sweeping promise never to sin again] but to stick simply to the purpose of amendment, pray that one may not sin again, and concentrate upon some way of avoiding some one sin. It may be a negative way—to give up a place where the temptation always lurks, or the company that provokes it; or it may be a resolution of humility that will help—for example, the irritable could decide to take more sleep, the censorious to make fewer voluntary acts of self-denial.
Likewise, one should not expect a sudden transformation; the change that takes place in a soul might not be visible, and will likely happen slowly.
“Christ grew secretly, imperceptibly, in Mary, and He grows secretly in us,” Caryll writes.
9. Remember that the heart of the sacrament is love.
In the end, the heart of Caryll’s message is the heart of the sacrament itself: the mercy of God, which is infinitely greater than our sins. Caryll encourages anxious penitents to go regularly to Confession, but not to worry about it at all, as it is an occasion for joy, not fear.
The Father who longs more for the return of the lost child than does the child himself, who makes the way back as easy as he can and comes halfway to meet the child . . . asks not for a microscopic, dreary history of his misdeeds, or for a trembling, broken expression of sorrow—but only for an expression of the child’s love and trust in His love.
“To imagine, once you’ve done your best, that God isn’t satisfied, is an insult to God,” she says. “He is overjoyed, and so should you be.”
Author’s Note: This is part II of a series inspired by the books Caryll Houselander: Divine Eccentric; Guilt; and The Letters of Caryll Houselander, all available from Cluny Media. Read part I here.
For further reading, Caryll Houselander recommends the book Pardon and Peace by Alfred Wilson, C.P. (Sheed & Ward, 1947).
Photo by Nick Castelli on Unsplash
