Confession Of Desire

[Maria Faustina]

In religion class the other day, a student asked the sister teaching my class, " What happens if you die on the way to confession and you are in a state of mortal sin?" The sister said that there was confesion of desire. How does this work, and is it only used in dire situations? Thanks!

In Christ,
Maria Faustina

[Thy Geekdom Come]

Well, "Confession of Desire" is a sort of makeshift term not used by the Church as far as I know, but the teacher was correct. So long as a person has true repentance and is intending to go to Confession and making the effort to go, they obtain the mercy of God even if they die on the way. This is an extention of Baptism of Blood, whereby a person wanting to be Baptized who dies before s/he can be still goes to heaven.

However, this cannot be taken advantage of. Some people might try to say that they are "repentant" but not seek Confession, even though they "desire" it. We humans have a great tendency to fool ourselves into complacency. A person has to make an honest effort to confess. There's a great scene in the movie [u]The Scarlet and the Black[/u] where a man who is arrested by Nazis and unable to confess his sins "confesses" to God in private while meditating on a cross he painted on his cell wall. We can rest assured that such a person is heard by God.

God bless,

Raphael