Confession

This is what I prefer, except sometimes I'm afraid I
won't be able to stand up again when I'm through.

Father A. is African and he says, "No stories, no excuses, just accuse yourself." Okay, that's fine with me. 

When I confess to Fr. B., I confess without story or excuse and he says, "What was going on when you did thus and so?" He wants to get to the heart of the matter so I can arm myself against the temptation next time. 

Fr. C. is an old friend. He was my pastor when the kids were little. He wants to know how Bill is, how my family is doing, and what about this or that friend. He keeps me so long that I think the people in line must hate me and wonder what kind of horrible sins I have committed since last week because most of them know that I went to Confession then, too. 

Fr. D. quotes the same scripture that I was praying about privately before Mass--not something in the scriptrues for the day. Then for my penance, he tells me to pray for the group of people that I had privately offered my Mass for that morning. He's a new pastor and I was worried whether or not he would be a good confessor. This goes a long way toward reassuring me that he will.

Fr. E. is in the box. He opens the little door, listens, gives me absolution and my penance, closes the door. That's it.  

Fr. F. was a friend before he was in seminary. He sends messages to my kids. Tell so-and-so he should go to Mass. Tell her she should start a youth group in her parish.

I've never seen Fr. G. before and he makes me feel like the woman at the well. He tells me something out of the blue that is so exactly what I need to hear that it is scary. It's not something that has anything to do with anything I've confessed. How does he know?

I know that sometimes people are confused by all the different ways that priests hear confessions and the different expectations they have from the penitents--just accuse yourself/tell me what happened then. It must be especially difficult for people who don't got to Confession very often. But, I love it. I love it! It's like having a lot of different doctors to take care of all your different kinds of ills.

This list of priests may give you the idea that I run all over the place going to Confession when, in fact, I almost always go in the same parish after Saturday morning Mass. It's the priests that move around, not me. There are always two in the parish that alternate Saturdays and then I go talk to Fr. B when I need some serious direction. Unfortunately, he is going to be out of the area for three years, so I'm not sure what I'll do about that.

I started to go to Confession weekly several years ago after listening to some tapes by Fr. Thomas Dubay. He said that there were three stages in the spiritual life and that the second was getting rid of all venial sins--the second! I don't even remember what the third was because I couldn't imagine every accomplishing the second.

And then, there was this sin that I couldn't imagine stopping because I always committed it without thinking. It had to do with saying really unkind things. How was I going to stop doing something that I didn't even realize I was going to do until it was done? So, I figured that I needed to get serious, and that I needed all the grace I could get, thus weekly Confession.  After a few weeks, I began to notice that a small space seemed to open up between the time that I had the angry thought and the time I said something. It was just long enough for me to make a decision about whether or not to say it. I actually started to make some progress in this area. I was amazed because I had been praying about this for years and years and it had seemed absolutely impossible.

Later, I missed some Saturdays for different reasons, some of them good (I was sick for about 10 weeks, for example.) and some of them not. Of course, once you get out of the habit of going every week, especially when it means you have to get up early on the one day when you don't have to get up early, it's really hard to get started again. Now, I can only go about two weeks before I can really tell the difference in my willingness to resist temptation and to pray as often as I ought, and I'm pretty sure that my poor husband can tell the difference too.

So, I've had to really struggle to get back into that habit again. Every Saturday, it's a pitched battle. Even sometimes on Friday night I start thinking that maybe I will just sleep in the next day. I have to basically lie to myself to make myself get out of bed. "Oh just get up and eat," I say, "and then if you're still tired you can go back to bed." If I can sell myself that, I've got it made because I never do go back to bed. And then when I get to Mass I wonder why I ever considered not going.

Now the reason I've said all this is not to say that I think everybody needs to go to Confession every week. I have no idea what's best for anybody else, and I think that you and the Lord can figure that out by yourselves. What I really want to say is that the confessional is not just someplace where you go to leave something behind--your sins--and get forgiven. It's also a place where you to go to take something away, something that strengthens your soul in a way that nothing else can.

AMDG