Patron Post:The Love of God in the Sacrament of Reconciliation

If you’ve heard pretty much any discussion of religion these days, whether online or in real life, you’re sure to hear Christians lamenting how many people don’t love God. What’s rarer, but arguably even more needed now, is to address the sad fact that many people don’t believe that God loves them.

Time and again in Sacred Scripture, God reaches out to His people with a mercy that endures forever. And nowhere is this love more clearly expressed than in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. This divine gift allows the people of God to fully live out their love for God while receiving His inexhaustible charity.

Though sacramental theology varies across Christian traditions, the beauty of this sacrament is accessible to all who, with integrity and humble heart, seek to understand the most perfect expression on earth of divine mercy. Because Confession can’t be reduced to a legal obligation or a mere formality—it is an encounter with the Good Shepherd Himself, who carries us back home to His Father no matter how far we have strayed.

Let’s look at just a few deminsions of the Sacrament of Reconciliation as typified in Scripture and alluded to in popular media.

Eden Restored

Before sin entered the world, Adam and Eve walked with God in Eden. Their communion with Him was intimate, reflecting the deep love He had for them and they for Him. In baptism, Christians undergo spiritual regeneration that restores their status as children of God and heirs to His promises. Yet, human weakness leads even the baptized to fall into sin, damaging or even destroying their relationship with the God who suffered and died to redeem them.

Even for those whose theology denies its necessity, the Sacrament of Reconciliation stands as a powerful symbol of God’s steadfast mercy. The image of the contrite penitent convicting himself in the divine tribunal of the confessional, and hearing Jesus Christ, through his confessor, pardoning his sins as He did for the adulteress and Simon Peter, presents a stirring testimony to faith in God’s enduring love.

Because no matter how serious the transgression, God’s mercy is always greater. Just as Adam and Eve once knew the intimacy of walking with God, so too does the sinner who is reconciled to God through the Sacrament.

The Few, Simple, and Effective Sacraments of the New Covenant

God, who knows all things, knew that the Hebrews would falter in keeping the Old Covenant, So, too, did He know that those baptized into the New Covenant would stumble. So no poor sinner should think that his sins, however grave, can surprise God. Indeed, Christ has already prepared the remedy.

Related: What We Talk About When We Talk About God

When Peter asked Jesus how often one should forgive, expecting a limit, Jesus shattered his, and the audience’s, expectations with His response: “I say not to thee, till seven times; but till seventy times seven times" (Matthew 18:22).

Note that the number seven is an expression of perfection in ancient Hebrew, so Jesus means that there should be no limit to our forgiveness, just as there are no bounds to His. This infinite forgiveness is not an unreachable ideal; we are called to live it. And the Church sets a visible example of limitless mercy in action through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. This symbol of love freely given fulfills Our Lord’s command by bringing about the perfect mercy it symbolizes. No sin is too great; no failure too persistent, for God’s love to conquer. And through this sacrament, the Church mirrors that love by extending the mercy of Christ perpetually until the end of the world.

Related: The Problem of Evil

A Parable from Middle-earth

As longtime readers may be aware, I’m fond of citing Boromir’s death scene from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring as a striking illustration of the love revealed in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Boromir, despite his noble heart and good intentions, falls to the Ring’s temptation and betrays the Fellowship. Overcome by sorrow and shame, he fights valiantly to redeem himself, ultimately suffering mortal wounds. In Boromir’s final moments, Aragorn, the true king and heir to the priesthood of Númenor, kneels beside him. Boromir confesses his failure, yet Aragorn does not condemn him. Instead, he receives Boromir’s confession with compassion, restores his dignity, and reassures him that he has not fallen beyond grace: "You have kept your honor."

In this moment, Boromir dies at peace, fully reconciled to the Fellowship and to his place among the Dúnedain. “Be at peace, son of Gondor.”

This fictional scene echoes the reality of Reconciliation. Christ, our true King and High Priest, looks upon the penitent from the Cross, listening not with condemnation but with love. In convicting himself of his crimes, the sinner is not cast away but embraced, assured that failure does not define him. The scene from Jackson’s film adaptation of Tolkien’s work serves as an apt reminder that Christ’s love is restorative, lifting the broken and reintegrating them into the body of believers.

Letting God Love Us to Fall in Love With Him Again

The Sacrament of Reconciliation is not about tallying failures. After all, if God “marked iniquities, who could stand?” (Ps 130). Instead, Reconciliation draws us back into the love of God by making an act of love for Him. It is a sacrament that embodies the self-emptying love between Christ and His spouse the Church; she expressing her unceasing willingness to offer His mercy to those who seek it, and He showing that He never wearies of forgiving, never hesitates to restore, and never ceases to gather His people to Himself.

For anyone—Catholic, Protestant, or otherwise—who has ever felt distant from God, the love expressed in the Sacrament of Reconciliation offers a powerful invitation. It speaks to a truth that transcends credal differences. Because the faith that penitents affirm by confessing their gravest failings to God through the members of His mystical body offers powerful testimony to God’s infinitely enduring mercy.

Thanks be to Almighty God! And many thanks to the cherished patron who commissioned this post.

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