From a reader:
Dear Father,
Through your influence both my husband and I went to confession today. First time in 19 years for me, 24 years for him. It was AMAZING. We had to do some searching to find somewhere with a traditional booth (we both prefer that) but we feel so fortunate to have had your guidance.
Thank you!
One of the nicest things I could have read this Good Friday.
Thank YOU!
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This is fantastic and I love that they went as a couple!! Yay!
I honestly am the husband mentioned above. It is essentially correct except that it was 26 years. It will not be 26 years until my next visit to the confessional.
I can just imagine the joy they caused in heaven.
Father Z, We should label you the Father of Reconciliation or the Father of Unity…..God bless all.
That is so beautiful it almost makes me weep. Congratulation to this wonderful couple. This will be such a glorious Easter for them!
In my whole life, I’ve only ever seen my mother go to confession once (right before her marriage situation with my father was finally regularized, almost fourteen years ago). I am staying with my folks for Easter this year, and I told them that I wanted to go to the penance service on Holy Thursday. My mother went with me, and praise God, she got in the confession line too and went.
Now we just need to work on my father, who was baptized fourteen years ago but has NEVER been to confession. No one taught about it in his RCIA classes, and I cannot convince him that it’s important. He’s 74 now, and not in good health–please pray that he will understand this great sacrament before it is too late!
@ Janet C: I had a similar situation with my own parents. Growing up, my two sisters and I never saw them approach the confessional whenever we had to go (I remember how my heart would ‘thump’ with apprehension when Mom said to us on Saturday afternoon, ‘You’re going to confession today’….and boy, she meant it!). We never even had a second thought as to why they didn’t.
It wasn’t until I was in my early teens when Mom sat us girls down one evening before Christmas and told us that she had been married before [briefly] before she met Dad, and that she had to get an annulment before they could receive the sacraments again. The long-time pastor of our hometown parish (who baptized me and my sisters) was on the diocesan marriage tribunal, and he met with them for several Friday evenings to get all the details done.
My parents were able to go to confession and receive Communion for the first time [since they got married in the early 1950s] that Christmas Eve in the early 1970s. My mother shed tears of joy!
I don’t remember if my father ever went to confession after he became ill with Alzheimer’s in the early 1980s. But he did receive the Last Sacraments before he died.
Mom went to confession when she felt she needed it. She also received the Last Sacraments before she died eight years ago this month (on Divine Mercy Sunday).
But this post about the couple who went together is very heartening!
NEVER been to confession. No one taught about it in his RCIA classes
It’s hard to believe such a RCIA program could exist. Everyone responsible for it should be run off with a pitchfork (if not excommunicated). What did they teach, if not the sacraments–which distinguish us as Catholics?
Henry, unfortunately, it’s all too true…when I was in RCIA 13 years ago (West Coast, USA) it was “recommended” that we go to confession before Confirmation/1st Eucharist, but not required. No instructions were given. So…we didn’t go (my husband was a fallen away Catholic who was never confirmed, I a convert). They also didn’t say we needed to have our marriage (outside the Church) regularized, or my previous marriage annulled…just that we should “look into it.” None of that happened until several years later, through the prompting of the Holy Spirit…and the graces that poured out upon our marriage afterwards were astounding. I have often fought bitterness at those who thought they were being “sensitive & pastoral” in keeping these basic truths (& much needed graces!) from us.
Similar attitudes also prevailed in at least 3 other parishes we have since attended, where I’ve been involved in sacramental prep. Everyone is so afraid of offending anyone, they prefer to just leave them in their sin & ignorance.