What does confessing to a priest actually do, Father Hugh Barber, is next.

Hello and welcome to Focus the Catholic Answers Podcast for living, understanding,

and defending your Catholic faith. How am I making Jesus happy? Is that a real thing?

Can you make Jesus happy? Well, one of the great insights that Father Hugh shares with us

in this episode about confession is that there is something about confession that Jesus

actually tells us brings joy to his human heart. Here's what Father Hugh had to say.

Father Hugh Barber, thank you for being with us again. I'd be here.

And you've heard some confessions in your life. Hello, is it your last confession?

Oh, oh, excuse me. Sorry, I'm not hearing confessions. We're talking about confessions.

This is being filmed in audio. We're talking about confessions. Oh, yes.

Let it go any further. Okay. Yes. Oh, I'll go. I'll go. Bless me, Father.

No, okay. So the sacrament of confession, I want to get into the depth of it a little bit with you.

What it is in its essence, what it is. And here, let me start you off with a problem.

I don't know what the matter of the confession is. There's no water. There's no oil.

There's no laying on of hands. What constitutes the sacrament? What makes it sacramental?

I mean, like, what kind of sacrament is that? There's not any visible signs?

I mean, I'm not shrugging at it. I'm like, why can't I mean, I know what I'm just saying.

Well, actually, it's a very good question. The only abriant mind could have conceived of the

question. Oh, wow. Okay. It's very, very good. I would say that it's very important to understand

that the meaning of the word sacrament, it's actually it's very word origin tells you.

It's the presenting of or making of or offering of something holy is what a sacrament is sacrament.

It also referred in ancient times to oaths like the oath of a soldier was a sacrament when you made a

...