Matthew 18:27. "And out of pity for him the lord of that servant released him and forgave him the debt." This is a line from the parable of the wicked servant whose massive debt was forgiven by his master, but who then would not forgive a fellow servant's much lesser debt, and so his master had the servant jailed until he could pay off his debt completely.

Note that the master forgave the servant's debt "out of pity for him." It is good to remember that when we go to God asking for forgiveness, we do not deserve it in the least, we are only forgiven because He loves us and has pity on us. Sometimes, I think, we can approach confession as if we are entitled to His mercy, but that is completely the wrong attitude to have and one that will lead us to act like this wicked servant. That attitude makes us the center of the sacrament - we think something like "I am in dire straits due to my own bad behavior and asking for mercy from God is the only solution I can think of." With that attitude, we can leave confession unchanged, still holding grudges against and failing to forgive others, still looking on others' sins as much worse than our own and not deserving of our forgiveness, because we do not see that the mercy flows from love, not from our entitlement or God wanting to clean up His books.

When we learn, though, to go to confession because we've hurt God and the debt we owe is one of failure of love, then our perspective changes. Then we want to forgive others as we have been forgiven, because we are truly experiencing love, not just the removal of our debt from a divine ledger. Confession is a sacrament, an encounter with the living God. It is not a debt workout, it is the pouring out of God's mercy and grace. It changes our hearts if we receive it properly.