I saw this on the facebook feed of a priest friend.
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Preach about the Four Last Things!
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Yeah, isn’t that odd…
My pastor preached about confession at every pre-sanctified liturgy during Lent. This was very successful.
I think this is one of my most cherished things. I feel really bad for people who don’t have confession. Being the screw up that I am, it’s comforting to know that I’m just one confession away from regaining spiritual peace and trying again.
During lent our priests gave four 45 minute talks on the Four Last Things, but I don’t recall hearing confession preached about for several months now. I think it was last August.
I’ve been fighting this problem for the last 4 years. My immediate predecessor, and likely several of his predecessors, preached the “feel-good gospel” and almost completely neglected the Sacrament of Confession. Now, many Catholics here don’t believe that Confession is necessary or even worth doing. I’ve been preaching the necessity of Confession, and had some success in convincing a small number, but it’s hard to overcome 20+ years of basically being told (as the comic shows) that you’re all good and Confession isn’t necessary.
Last time I went to confession, I was told that what I had confessed was not a sin, and not for the first time. I don’t suffer from scrupulosity, but the older I get, the more I sense the sin in the small things of my life. I find it disheartening to have a priest laugh when something troubles me so deeply. With the greatest respect to these priests, it seems that they focus on sins in full bloom and are not so helpful with when we are trying to pull up bits of the roots. I still go, for the Sacramental grace and because I know that Jesus knows my heart, but it can be so difficult when you almost feel like apologising to the priest that you don’t have something more “significant” to confess. Any advice from priests on how to approach this would be appreciated here!
We need to pray and fast for our priests!
@Martlet
Remember, mortal sin consists of grave matter, full knowledge, and full consent of the will. I have been guilty of confessing non-sins as well. In any case, I agree, the Priest should never laugh at you for something confessed. I actually find laughter to be a very odd response. If ever there was a time to be pastoral, it is during confession, and I hope this Priest was just having a bad day. Don’t let it deter you from frequent confession.
@Martlet, I agree with you in the wish for more discussion of confession of “insignificant” sin. Early on in my life as a Catholic I worried about being chided in the confessional for taking up the priest’s time with minor matters. That has never happened to me, fortunately, and I’ve learned that there are others at our parish who make such “confessions of devotion.” All seem to be welcome.
There is a book called Frequent Confession on this subject (first English edition published in 1959), which cites Pope Pius XII as refuting the idea that “little importance should be given to the frequent confession of venial sins.”
Yes, “Fr. Happy Face” is what we’d had in our parish for the last 10 years before this most recent Pastor arrived. He preaches more about how he’s worried about himself and hasn’t really preached Confession, BUT he has made himself available for Confession for an hour on Saturday afternoon (we hadn’t seen regularly scheduled Confession for the previous 6 years) and is available for about 30 minutes before each Mass.
We had one previous Pastor cancel the regularly scheduled Confession “because nobody comes and I’m not wasting my time sitting in an empty Reconciliation Room, I’ve got better things to do.” I really wanted to ask, “Are you surprised when you preach each week that Jesus loves us no matter what horrible things we do and that he forgives us everything? Never once have you said we have to regret our sins and confess them to be absolved.”