April 15, 2012 – Catechism 1461-1470

Two things.  First, the idea that the confessor is not the one giving forgiveness, but God acting through the human confessor.  This is an idea that is very mysteries and abstract and hard to believe unless you have experienced something that gives you a sense of it.  I was in confession once on a retreat and went to a priest who didn’t know me at all.  We went through the Sacrament and it was finished, and as I was walking away the priest said something.  I can’t remember the exact words or exactly what I was struggling with, but it was something like “see how far feeling sorry for yourself gets you”.  As I said, the priest didn’t know me, and I first I wasn’t sure if he was joking. I was a little put off by it and thought it was rude.  I went back to my pew and thought about it and immediately began to realize that those were the exact words I needed to here.  I have never had such a profound experience of knowing that it was God that I was confessing to and not the priest. 

That is why it is so vital to pray for our priest.  We need them to be completely open to God while they are in the confessional.  Only if they are open will that channel flow to the Penitent.  That does not mean that a priest who is distracted or sinful cannot fulfill the Sacrament, they can.  But we need to pray for them so that they can fulfill it in a way that the penitent can walk away knowing they have just been forgiven by God. 

I guess there were 3 things.  I once talked to a priest about sins that they heard in confession and whether it was hard to live with them.  He told me, and he couldn’t explain how, but as soon as he left the confessional, he forgot them all.  I don’t think he was lying to me, I think he was just given that gift.  I don’t think that happens to most priest, but maybe God knew that if he remembered, he wouldn’t be able to handle it and so he was given the gift to forget.  I know in all my experience, I have not had what I have said in the confessional effect my relationship with a priest outside of it.  I have been good friends with priest and gone to them for confession and it does not have any change outside the “box”.  I think this could only happen by the Grace of God and if it were just you going and talking to a priest only, there is no way a priest could stay in a community for very long.