Following a severe case of COVID last summer, I developed a bald spot. As with any flaw, I spend a disproportionate amount of time trying to hide it; AI tells me it could take a year for my hair to grow back. So I fuss and rearrange things and impatiently wait.
A similar thing happened a couple years ago. A tooth was damaged when I gave birth to my daughter and later needed to be extracted (if childbirth is on your calendar, let me advise a mouthguard or a block of wood [or a leather strap, as my splendid dentist joked] – whatever. Or just don’t bite down too hard). For a year, there was a blank space in my mouth, and I was self-conscious when smiling, talking, laughing, singing – any of the ways we communicate over the course of an ordinary day.
No, this isn’t a column on my becoming a hairless, toothless crone. It’s about Lent and confession.
It is said that people tend to understand God according to their own experience, or to see him as a projection of their own values. Some are drawn to the combined divinity and humanity of Jesus and his compassion; others prefer to reach for God via the comfort and mediation of a once fully human Blessed Mother, who was gifted with great goodness. I’ve always been drawn to God the Father, whom I tend to view as a vast intellect – an Intelligence so far beyond human cognition that we cannot begin to fathom it, a limitation we humans all share.
The most expensive piece of privately owned art in the world ($450 million, sold in 2017) is Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait of Christ, “Salvator Mundi” (“Savior of the World”). In it, Jesus is dressed in Renaissance finery, donning ringlets and holding a crystal ball, which represents the world (the “celestial sphere,” put elegantly). It’s a far cry from Jesus’ reality (see “The Chosen”), but the reason I find the painting so haunting is its beauty. It’s a close-up portrait but feels distant, as the Son of God does – the blessing hand in the foreground feels prophetic; the face and chest glow out of a shaded background. The eyes, “windows of the soul,” are intense – I see pain, accusation, knowledge, revelation and the absolute confidence of a divine being. To my mind, it is truly a work of genius, and although experts squabble about its origins, only the painter of the “Mona Lisa” could have pulled it off.
When I look at the painting, I think perhaps what puts us off about confession is, spiritually speaking, we are the hairless, toothless crones who kneel down on creaking knees and squawk out our flaws, and God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and always present – the source of all that is good, true and beautiful, flawless beyond our imagining. We worry about what he, or his representative, will think. We consider God’s more judgmental role – not a trendy topic these days, but plentifully present in the Bible. Or maybe we dread the vulnerability of confronting our own failures. We want to hide the ugly, even from ourselves.
This is Lent, and there are a number of practices we are encouraged to embrace – praying, reading Scripture, almsgiving, fasting from meat (although the Friday night fish fry can hardly be called a sacrifice), divesting ourselves of a bad habit or giving up something we enjoy.
We are also urged to go to confession. Statistically, only about a quarter to nearly half of Catholics confess annually – a shame, really, because the process is therapeutic and humbling and invites introspection, all good qualities. I have in the past balked at the prospect when deposited at the confessional by my parents (in my youth) or compelled by circumstances to go (a kindly woman offering to watch my toddler so I can confess). But I noticed a change this winter when my twins had their first Sacrament of Reconciliation. Parents are encouraged to model good behavior and go themselves; for the first time, I did not feel particularly self-conscious. Having considered in advance whether to dodge it, I reflected that God knows it all anyway – the bald spot, the fake tooth, my (many) failings. So what is there to hide?
I just finished Dr. Ron Levant’s memoir “The Problem with Men: Insights into Overcoming a Traumatic Childhood from a World-Renowned Psychologist” (2024). It may seem peculiar to tack it onto this column, but after I finished the book – Levant’s own story, beginning with his abusive father and ending with, well, a reference to his abusive father – I was struck by how much damage we inflict when we lack humility and introspection, when we allow our ugliest weaknesses to dictate our behaviors.
Levant made it his life’s work to study violence and masculinity, to help men move beyond their childhood trauma – and to use psychology to overcome his own share of the family mean streak – but he (a secular Jew) never treats his father’s lack of self-mastery as a character flaw or a moral failing. He simply attributes the behavior to bad genes.
Our faith teaches us otherwise. We are not victims of nature and nurture, doomed to repeat the sins of our fathers. We choose whether good or evil will triumph in us, and any self-discipline we may gain during Lent can help. I can surmise, based on the book’s conclusion, that Levant has never forgiven his father – so those sins are held bound, and the father carried them into eternity. Had the father confronted his own failing, humbly sought forgiveness from God and his family and worked to overcome his wrath, I’m guessing his soul would have been much happier in this world and the next.
