My Bride,and I went to Confession tonight. As always, I felt after Confession as if a ton of weight had just been taken off my shoulders,
Here is the formula that I have followed for Confessions since childhood:
Bless me Father for I have sinned, it has been ____________ since my last Confession and these are my sins.
I then recite my sins. I follow the rule of three B’s in Confession:
Be Blunt
Be Brief
Be Gone
I say my sins, with no attempts to minimize or justify, no matter how much it shames me to do so, and often I do feel great shame, which I suspect is a good sign. I end my recital with the statement that these are all the sins I can recall but that I am truly sorry for those I cannot recall.
After the priest absolves me, and what a wonderful word absolve truly is, I say an Act of Contrition:
O my God I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest of all my sins because I dread the loss of Heaven and the Pains of Hell, but most of all because I have offended Thee my God who art all good and deserving of all my love. And I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance and to amend my life, amen.
If any of you who read this have been away from Confession, please go before Christmas. Welcome Christ this year with a clean slate.
The Cathedral in Springfield IL has in recent years scheduled extended (noon-6 and 7 a.m.-5 p.m.) confession hours on the Friday and Saturday before Christmas and a Friday or Saturday prior to Holy Week. I took advantage of it yesterday and it was great — no rush and only 1 or 2 people in line at any given time. Heartily recommend that other parishes try it!
The RCC talks a good game re confession. But having it available from 3:45 to 4 PM on Saturday afternoon tells me all I need to know. Actions speak louder than words.
Okay fine. But 45 minutes on a Saturday afternoon simply doesn’t cut it. If they were serious, it would be available one or two evenings each week.
Our parish in suburban Dallas has an hour of confession five days per week, including once at the noon hour, three evenings just before daily Mass, and Saturday mornings. And the priests stay until everyone is heard. If you want to hear your absolution in Latin (and get some really serious penances in the bargain), you can go to our sole FSSP parish (for as long as they are permitted to exist by the current Vatican) where they hear confessions before, during, and after every Mass. That should really be the case everywhere.
We drive 40 minutes to the Cathedral in the city for confession. Mass is every hour (except between midday and 3pm) with confession on all day during Mass. however last Sunday we saw that it had been cut back to only an hour at 4pm (with the morning sessions remaining).
The Marists are due to finish up running the Church in 2025…but I suspect there is a shortage of priests. This Cathedral is nearly full at every hourly Mass and most come
here like us because confession is always available…
https://catholicweekly.com.au/marists-leave-church-hill/
With all due respect to beer & Dr Franklin:
CONFESSION
is proof that God loves us,
and wants us to be happy.
IMHO, squeezing this life-saving sacrament into an hour on Saturday afternoon expresses contempt for its importance. It is another symptom of the “it’s all good” heresy of the modern Church.
Very glad to hear so many places are offering extended and varies hours.