I went to morning mass at 8, intending to rush home for a 9AM Zoom meeting. Before mass, however, I noticed that the priest went to the confessional room and heard a couple of confessions, including one of a friend. Then, during mass, I happened to glance toward the confessional room, and saw one man in line. Usually there were at least a half dozen, or many more. Oh well, I had no great sins to confess at this time, and I had to get home. (Why was I looking over there?)
Some noise in the church caught my attention, and I recalled suddenly how talking in church had been bothering me of late, people often talking before or after mass, totally ignoring that this was the house of God, and He was present right there in the tabernacle right before them. This IS the House of God. And I realized my anger at my neighbor is not right, I was judging him, but it was not me that He was offending. And I glanced again at the one man in the confession line. After the Our Father was said during mass, there still was that single man in line, so I walked across church in front of many there to the confession line, to be number 2 in line. And within only a minute or two there were a half dozen behind me in line. Immediately after mass, a second priest arrived and both began hearing confessions, so I went in without any wait, confessed my sins of anger, resolved to change, and arrived home right at the start of the Zoom meeting. Thoughts of what happened at church were in the back of my mind.
The meeting was a study of St. Francis de Sales’ book titled Introduction to the Devout Life. After opening announcements, the meeting leader began reading from the book where we had left off two weeks ago. She began reading from Page 106 of the book, and the first sentence she read was: “Be careful also to mention (in confession) those details which explain the nature of your fault, such as the cause which excited your anger.”
You know I don’t believe in coincidences. I didn’t focus on much of the rest of the meeting.
While I had been sitting in the church, I had thought that I had no compelling reason to go to confession --- from my point of view. No sins of any consequence came to mind. But I now realize that confession, in many ways, is not about me or for me. It is for God. He wishes a close relationship with us, and our confession makes that possible. It gets sins in their proper perspective. Sins are offenses against God, and therefore it is HE, not us, who decides what is sinful, what needs to be confessed. Confession is, to be blunt, an apology to God. If we want to maintain friendships here on earth, when we offend someone, we need to apologize. Saying to ourselves: “He’ll get over it, or it’s not that important” will not restore a friendship. So if we defer or avoid confession to do other “more important” things, even good things, we must ask ourselves the question: Is this thing more important than having a relationship with God; is it more important than making Him happy with me?
I know there are some who avoid confession because they don’t want to be telling their sins to a priest. He’s not. In the confessional, he is persona Christi, in the role of Christ. He is not hearing your sins any more than water is washing your soul in Baptism. Those are outward signs to make us poor humans aware of, and reinforce In our minds, what is actually going on. Confessing to the priest is confessing to God. It’s personal. And sometimes the response you get to your words helps make your sins more real to you, and so you try to avoid them; you try to avoid offending God. You really are sorry. Saying “God forgive me” while you’re driving to work is no more serious a confession for you, than it is for God. It’s you saying to God “it’s no big deal; get over it.” But it is God who defines sin, and its seriousness. He is the one who sin offends, not us.
And sometimes, like this morning, He reminds us that we do need to say we are sorry for offending Him. God defines what is sin, not us. And He’s waiting to say “You’re forgiven”, if we say we’re sorry in our confession.
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