This next week begins Penance Service week here in Johnson County. With that happening, I think it would be great for us to examine how to make a good confession, and best practices in the confessional.
When preparing for confession, it is important for us to examine our consciences in order to make the best confession that we can. Looking up a good examination of conscience can be a great tool to help probe our consciences on what we need to confess. If one is not in the habit of confessing regularly and you go once or twice a year, it is a great idea to set aside some time to greatly dive into our lives and examine what we have done wrong before we come to our Lord in the confessional. Anything that we think of, we must confess. The Church teaches that everything we bring to the confessional, if we are truly sorry for that action and even if we don’t remember it, it is forgiven. If we consciously decide to not confess something or if we are not contrite for a sin, then it is not forgiven. Going to confession is as easy as that. Don’t overthink it, the priest will not yell at you and there is nothing that we have not heard before. You won’t scandalize us! We just want you returned to relationship with Jesus.
Now, let's look at some best practices when coming to confession.
Prepare for the Sacrament: Examine your conscience, prepare, feel free to make a list and write it down. Sometimes as we walk through the door, nerves take over and we forget.
Enter the confessional: We will begin by making the Sign of the Cross. It is a custom to say "Bless me Father, for I have sinned. My Last confession was ________." It is incredibly helpful for the priest to know how long it has been since your last confession. It actually gives us an idea of how to best give your spiritual counsel and approach the situation. The way we work with someone that last went to confession one week ago vs. sixty years ago is incredibly different. Don’t just say “it's been awhile.” To the priest that could mean anything: 6 months or 5 years. Once again, very different situations and it actually helps you more in the long run.
Confess your sins: Now this is one that a lot of people do not know how to do well. When confessing your sins, it is best to follow Fr. Francis’ advice “be brief and brilliant.” All the priest needs to know is what you did, and if it is a mortal sin - how many times you did it. We call this number and kind as that is all we need to know. Name the sin and move to the next one. We do not need to know all the details, stories, or the things that your spouse does wrong. You don’t need to rationalize it or say “but, father, I am a very good person.” We just need to know what you did and how many times you did it. You might feel like we need more information, but I’m telling you, we don’t. If we need more details, we will ask, but assume that we don’t.
This might sound harsh, and you may think that it is important for us to know all of these things, but we don’t. Going to confession is not a counseling session, it is not a time to catch up with the priest, it is a time to reconcile ourselves with God and have our sins taken away. If you need more time for a confession and need to work through things, that is perfectly fine, but set up a meeting with us. Doing that in the confessional is not the time as there are a lot of people in line. Father only has so much mental energy and capacity: believe it or not, he is human as well! If there are 40 people in line (a common occurrence here), one priest in the confessional, and everyone wants to take 10 minutes, the priest would be there for over 6 hours. This is why it is important to be brief and brilliant or to set up an appointment if you need more time. At the end of the day, we don’t care that you did something wrong, we care that you are having it forgiven!
Receive spiritual counsel: This is the time that the priest may ask you questions (if he needs more information) and give you counsel. It may be a conversion about something or he may just remind you of how loved you are.
Receive your penance: The priest will give you a penance. The penance you receive is a matter of justice for us to make up for the things we have done wrong. It is important that you do your penance for this reason.
Make an Act of Contrition: If you come to the penance service, we will pray this together before individual confessions. If not, we will have you make it individually in the confessional. This is important as it is our moment to tell Jesus, who is present in the priest, that we are sorry for all the things that we have done wrong.
Receive Absolution: The priest will then pray the Prayer of Absolution taking all of your sins away.
After that you are free to leave the confessional, but don’t forget to pray your penance!
Go to Confession! We highly recommend that you go during Advent and Lent to prepare for the highest celebrations of the year. It is a great idea to come to one of the penance services throughout Johnson County as there will be tons of priests at them. They are as follows:
Sunday, December 1st
3:00 pm - Curé or Ars, Queen of the Holy Rosary (Overland Park), and St. Agnes
7:00 pm - St. Paul
Monday, December 2nd
7:00 pm - Good Shepherd, Holy Trinity, Holy Spirit, St. Michael the Archangel
Tuesday, December 3rd
7:00 pm - Holy Cross, Prince of Peace, Ascension
Thursday, December 5th
7:00 pm - St. Joseph, Divine Mercy, Sacred Heart, St. Pius X
Sunday, December 8th
3:00 pm - Queen of the Holy Rosary (Wea), St. Ann, St. John Paul II
7:00 pm - Nativity
In Christ,
Fr. Andrew