The Penitential Act

Confessing sin was a common practice in ancient Israel. It was and is an acknowledgement of unworthiness when approaching the sacred Presence of God. There are many instances of both public (Neh 9:2 ) and private, spontaneous acts of repentence (Ps 32:5, and Ps 38:19) throughout the Old Testament. The Wisdom books (Prv 28:13; Sir 4:26) encouraged it and it was codified as binding law (Lv 5:5, Nm 5:7) to confess certain sins.

The practice continued into the New Testament and we find John the Baptist (Mt 3:6, Mark 1:5) asking the people to repent at the Jordan. At the Transfiguration, Peter, James and John react in fear, wonder and realize their unworthiness (Matthew 17.6). In the book of James we are to confess our sins to one another (Jas 5:16). St. Paul in 1 Cor 11:27, 28 demands an examination of conscience before sharing in the Eucharist.

The practice continued into the early Church in response to Jesus' command to be reconciled with our brothers and sisters before presenting an offering before God (Mt 5:23-24). An ancient document called the Didache (c.60) gives two instructions: "Confess your sins in church, and do not go up to your prayer with an evil conscience" and "Come together on the Lord's day, break bread and give thanks, having first confessed your sins so that your sacrifice may be pure" (4:14, 14:1). It seems that in the early Church there may have then existed a penitential rite like the washing of the disciple's feet by Jesus before the Last Supper. The ancient Antiochene and Alexandrian Rites of the Eastern Church begin with the celebrant's confession of sin.

Yet, for many centuries, the Mass had effectively no "penitential rite" since the Confiteor was part of the private prayers said by the priest and the ministers at the foot of the altar. It wasn't until Vatican II that a penitential rite was added in keeping with the ancient traditions practiced in the early Christian church.

The Confiteor

Our English word "confess" comes from the Classical Latin confiteor, confessus, "to acknowledge, confess, own, avow (an error, mistake, or a fact previously denied or doubted, etc., implying a sacrifice of will or a change of conviction". In ancient Christian Latin, a confessio was the witness, unto death, made by a martyr. Confiteor was used for recognition of the greatness of God, and then later recognition of one's faults. When we speak of a Confiteor now, we mean the public declaration, together with others, of our own fallen sinful state at the beginning of Mass.

In The Confiteor the words: "I confess to almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault" are replaced with "I confess to almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have "greatly sinned". The words I have greatly sinned is actually a quotation from the Bible. King David uses this phrase in the 1st Book of Chronicles (1 Chr 21:8) confessing his abuse of military power. The phrase is also reminiscent of another great sin of King David, killing Uriah the Hittite so that he could marry Uriah's wife Bathsheba (2 Samuel 12:1-15). David confessed his sin and repented when confronted by the prophet Nathan.

Notice that "through my own fault" is dropped here....

... but don't be fooled into thinking that we are no longer held responsible for our sins because it is inserted later when we not only say it once... but three times - while striking our breast!!

This threefold repeition borrows from the Hebrew language where repeating something three times marks a superlative degree. The repetition also helps us to emphasize how really sorry we are. When we apologize to someone and really want them to know how sorry we are.. we express our contrition by repeating ourselves over and over again.... I'm sorry.... I'm so sorry.. please forgive me....These new words help us express a heartfelt contrition.

Striking the Breast

One of the instances we find of this in the New Testament is in Luke 18:13 - "But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, 'O God, be merciful to me a sinner.'"

The early Christians were familiar with the practice, and this is evident from the writings of St. Augustine and St. Jerome:

St. Augustine also wrote how the people automatically beat their breast whenever they heard the word confiteor. In another place he said they struck themselves so forcefully that the sound resounded in the church. In the 20th century, Romano Guardini, a writer of the Liturgical Movement explained in his work Sacred Signs:

The future Pope Benedict XVI wrote in Spirit of the Liturgy (p. 207):

Penitential Act B

Penitential Act B now reads ... :

These new words not only flow more easily but follow the Old Testament more closely in Baruch 3:2 and Psalm 85:8.   And there is a pronounced shift in accountability with these words. Now it is all of the people – not just the priest – who say, we have sinned.