Ego Te Absolvo – “I Absolve You”

What is one of the worst things for our spiritual health as Christians? Your mind may run down a list of vices. What if I argued it was sloth?

Sloth!? Being lazy?? You’re saying laziness is a sin on par or worse than lust or greed?! There is a different word that I think better, though not perfectly, captures the genuine problem with sloth—acedia. Plugging “acedia” into Google will yield results implying apathy, laziness, etc. This still doesn’t capture the real problem of acedia.

I would tie acedia into despair. God sees you in a way we fail to see ourselves. As a young person, I was bullied for years. I came to see myself as loathsome, stupid, and useless. When I got into high school, the bullying stopped but the compensations started. In an effort to not be viewed as useless, I found ways to make myself quite useful. Because I struggled in math, I held onto obscure trivia to demonstrate that I wasn’t stupid. I combated a sense of loathsomeness by becoming more of a class clown. I built up my own ways to see myself as someone worth being. I would try to control situations, albeit diplomatically, so that I could avoid getting hurt.

Spiritually, this image of myself I constructed made it difficult to accept how God sees me, Imago Dei—made in His own image and likeness. As Christ began to show me His love for me, I would see how good He is. I would see how deeply He loved others, and I would rejoice for them. But for my part, I held a lie. I believed God is all good, but I also believed I could never be loved by God. Wounds from decades ago, lies I accepted, compensations I built—all these things were a wall others started but I finished. I suffered from despair. I had acedia.

Thankfully Christ is a carpenter by trade. Sometimes in order to build you must tear down and clear the work site. Christ wants to tear down the ramshackle house I built for myself and give me a mansion. In prayer, confession, and spiritual direction, He showed me, over the course of months, the wounds He desires to heal, the compensations I no longer need (even if I still habitually have them), and the confidence He wants for me (check out Ephesians chapter 6).

In confession we bring our sins, our pains, our brokenness, our ramshackle constructions to the Lord through the priest. It is there, in the confessional, that we encounter the Sacred Heart of Jesus in His tenderness and mercy. Sure, we might need a challenge from the priest as we open ourselves up to Christ, but it is tender mercy, nonetheless, to receive correction just as a parent corrects a child from playing in the middle of Broadway here in Quincy. Satan wants us to rely on our own means, but Christ wants us to rely on Him and not ourselves (see Isaiah 55:8-9). When the priest says, “Ego te absolvo...,” or “I absolve you...,” it is Christ Himself working through the priest as an instrument, forgiving us, restoring us, and bringing us closer to Himself.

Six years ago, I finally went to confession after years of not going. I found healing and committed myself to going at least every two weeks. What a beautiful thing a long confession line is!

Will you let Christ tear down your ramshackle house and give you the mansion? Will you surrender your spiritual safe space to live in the confidence Christ gives us? Do you trust Jesus will love you? “Do you want to be healed? (John 5:6).” Confession is ready for you. Christ is waiting there to heal you. Will you meet Christ’s Sacred Heart and be healed through Confession?

-Thomas Marten