Now the Catechism brings us into the realm where sin becomes real sin, and not some mere infraction of pious rules. The sins Luther points us to are the sins that affect the community, and are based on deep and honest reflection on the Ten Commandments. And there is revealed Luther’s idea of the true spiritual intent of the Commandments: not to make us be good little boys and girls, but to kill all pride and hypocrisy and denial about ourselves.

But that is to be done not to make us feel miserable, but to liberate us from exactly what I wrote about yesterday: the everlasting need to pretend to be what we are not. Notice that Luther admits that in speaking to God we are likely and even encouraged to be a bit general—to confess those sins we don’t even know about. But not so when confessing to our confessor: then we need to tell about the specific, fractured, ugly truth of our “hidden” lives. Not much about us is really hidden from those who know us well. It’s is kind of like the quiet joke Alcoholics Anonymous is: by the time an alcoholic considers going to AA, about the only person in his world who doesn’t already know he is an alcoholic is himself!