Good Advice

While I appreciate the wit, and I don’t know this priest, I am often dismayed by a tendency of the modern clergy to make everything “no big deal.”

It would seem that this convert is making a serious effort to take confession seriously and do it well. She has received advice only about her physical body.

Correctly understood, confession is a fearful and powerful thing. Crucial to salvation, priest acting in persona Christi, staring our own wickedness straight on without the usual evasion.

(Confession really does deserve more than one poorly scheduled hour a week and a thinly veiled fart joke.)

My advice, having been there and done that, would be that there is nothing new under the sun. Christ (and likely the priest through whom you are confessing) has heard it all before. He promised to forgive you if you came to Him. I would also tell her what I have heard from several priests – that they sedom remember what is told to them in confession. I would also advise this lady to do it with the screen, even if you are the only one confessing that day. Face to face is awkward. I think it emphasizes the human on the other side instead of the God who is working through that human.

Our new church has one confessional. The priest’s door opens onto the vestibule hallway. The penitent’s door opens in the back of the church.
The confessional is not sound proofed. The priest’s door bottom is 1/2 inch from the frame. The priest has a loud voice. Sitting up close to the altar several of us can hear the voice of the penitent. That’s a distance of twenty plus pews. I and others have asked the priest to have weather stripping added to both doors. Father’s answer is to play Gregorian chant inside the confessional. Hopeless. Many of us go to other churches to confess.