Confession: There's an App for That!

Is the confessional a thing of the past for Catholics? Perhaps. But confession is good for the soul.

quot;If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?" (Psalm 130:3, NIV). The psalmist is glad that God doesn't keep a database of iniquity on God's people, because "with [God] there is forgiveness" (v. 4).

That's the good news, of course, especially since we sinners tend to be repeat offenders. Maybe that's because of the fact that while God's memory of our sins is short, ours is even shorter. We make a bad decision, suffer the consequences, do the proper contrition, ask forgiveness, feel better and then believe that things will be different from now on. Old habits die hard, however, and if we don't take steps that bring about real change, we can be right back on that sin-cyclic hamster wheel from hell.

But what would happen if instead of engaging in a cycle of pathological forgetfulness of our sins, we took the bold step of keeping a record of them, tracking the habitual ones and getting real about where we're most vulnerable? What if we had a way of keeping a running...