WHY WE NEED TO CONFESS OUR SINS TO A PRIEST.

One asked me why we need to confess our sins to a priest instead of just confessing straight to God inside our rooms.

1. When Jesus was about to go, He gave the apostles the power to forgive sins: “If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” (Jn 20:22-23:). The apostles passed this power to their successors through the laying on of hands which has continued till our own times. (1 Tim 5:22; 2 Tim 1:6, etc)

2. John the Apostle wrote “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 Jn 1: 8-10)

3. James wrote: “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” (James 5:16)

4. When Abimeleck sinned unknowingly by taking Abraham’s wife, without even committing anything with her, God punished him. When he begged for forgiveness and healing since he didn’t know that Sarah was Abraham’s wife, God told him to tell Abraham to pray for him and he would be healed. Why didn’t God just listen to the innocent prayer of forgiveness by Abimelech and heal him, why must God refer him to Abraham? And then, when Abraham prayed for him, he was forgiven and healed. (Gen 20).

5. When the priest sits there at the Confessional, he doesn’t sit in his name, he sits in the name of the Church, in the authority of Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father. I too as a priest, I confess my sins to a fellow priest; bishops confess their sins to the priests they ordained; the pope himself too confesses to a priest. No one takes this honour upon himself, he must be called .. (Hebrews 5:4).

6. Christ is the only Mediator between God the Father and man, and He chose to continue that office through His apostles, and now His priests. Ignoring them and saying you’ll pray your way out is in a way rejecting what God ordained. However, one can still confess his sins in his room asking for forgiveness, but the advantage of going to an ordained priest for confession is that the sins would be forgiven immediately; praying it out on your own may take centuries. Still the more, one may be found telling Jesus that He was irrational by giving powers to the apostles to forgive sins.

—Fr. Gabriel Okeke