The following is a part of a seven-article series on the sacraments, written by two University of Notre Dame students. We encourage you to read both perspectives and check our website regularly for the rest of the series!

Why Confession? By Mary Biese

Never solitary,[i] the penitent, through the Church’s sacrament, undergoes a concrete encounter with God’s transformative, reconciling, and incarnated grace.[ii] Once the person recognizes the objectivity of his or her sin via divine assistance[iii] and mourns his or her unconditional status as a sinner,[iv] the penitent opens his or herself to a radical and fundamental change in existence,[v] a total overhaul of his or her soul and life.[vi] The words of Confession solidify the obedient disappropriation inherent to the sacrament.[vii] In this self-emptying, one audibly hands over control of the narrative of one’s own sins,[viii] concretely claiming them as one’s…