Quotes about Confession

Jesus asked, "But what about you? … Who do you say I am?" (Matt. 16:15 NIV).

To get right with God, we need to utter three difficult words: "I have sinned." God cannot forgive the sin we will not confess!

To a large degree we have preached our own version of the knowledge of good and evil as though it were the message of salvation. We need to confess that we have sinned in the gravest fashion by frequently loving our version of truth and ethics more than people, and even God himself. For one cannot genuinely love God while refusing to love one's neighbor (1 John 4:20).

Jesus has entrusted to his Church the means to apply this victory—the weapons, if you will, to win the spiritual war. These are the sacraments (especially the Eucharist and confession), the Bible, personal prayer, the rosary, etc. One of the tragedies of our time is that so many Catholics have dropped those weapons

Mr. Carpenter says fear is a vile thing, and is at the bottom of almost every wrong and hatred of the world. "'Cast it out, Jade,' he says—'cast it out of your heart. Fear is a confession of weakness. What you fear is stronger than you, or you think it is, else you wouldn't be afraid of it. Remember your Emerson—"always do what you are afraid to do.

On the evening after Mrs. Myra Murray of the over-harbour section had been buried Miss Cornelia and Mary Vance came up to Ingleside. There were several things concerning which Miss Cornelia wished to unburden her soul.

Confession designed to restore lost blessings is a management technique, it is not repentance.

Repression, a degree of restraint, and a little dedication to self-editing belong to love just as surely as a capacity for explicit confession.

We must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God, whether we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution. And is not the reason perhaps for our countless relapses and the feebleness of our Christian obedience to be found precisely in the fact that we are living on self-forgiveness and not a real forgiveness.

Christ became our Brother in order to help us. Through him our brother has become Christ for us in the power and authority of the commission Christ has given him. Our brother stands before us the sign of the truth and the grace of God. He has been given to us to help us. He hears the confession of our sins in Christ's stead and he forgives our sins in Christ's name. He keeps the secret of our confession as God keeps it. When I go to my brother to confess, I am going to God.

Confession is the God-given remedy for self-deception and self-indulgence. When we confess our sins before a brother-Christian, we are mortifying the pride of the flesh and delivering it up to shame and death through Christ. Then through the word of absolution we rise as new men, utterly dependent on the mercy of God. Confession is thus a genuine part of the life of the saints, and one of the gifts of grace.

The dividing line will run right through the confessing Church. Even if we make the confession of faith, it gives us no title to any special claim upon Jesus. We can never appeal to our confession or be saved simply on the ground that we have made it...The man who says "Lord, Lord" has either called himself to Jesus without the Holy Spirit, or else he has made out of the call of Jesus a personal privilege.