Abusing Confession?

[mariciaspirit]

I just cannot seem to rely upon God’s grace - and I really feel it’s to the point that the priests don’t expect to hear anything else from me.

Well, just because I think someone is abusing the sacrament I wouldn’t deny them confession unless it was impossible due to time constraint for me to hear it.

I am totally in agreement with you. Priest or not, you sound a lot like my parish priest. I think no priest should turn away a confessor but the confessor also has to take into consideration the needs of his or her parish. We all want deliverance from our trials and tribulation, salvation from Christ and to be totally cleansed of our sins so that we can enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Our priests cannot give us these things but they have been placed in a ministerial position to help us to get there or to assist in the salvation of men. So then, what is the big picture? You can go to confession twenty-four hours a day for the same sin and if you do not put Jesus first then you will continue going to confession for the same thing.

I was going through a very difficult situation and constantly angry at the injustice. So I would get upset and retaliate and then I would go to confession when contrite. Same thing just a different day. One day I went to confession I saw the priest look at his watch while I was confessing. He knew me personally and the entire circumstance and I felt like he was not really paying attention to me. When I was finished he gave me a specific day and time to visit him. So then, what is the big picture?

• I went to him just before we had midday mass. I actually hustled to get there before the mass so I could feel relieved of my sins before attending mass.
• The priest has to prepare himself before he goes to mass. In fact, there were already people in the church doing their devotions for the mass.
• He did want to be there for me but he is not only my priest and has other responsibilities
• And if the operative word is ME then where is my desire to please Jesus by truly aspiring to and making the changes to be obedient to his word by not repeating the same mistakes? “So then, as the body without the spirit is dead, also faith without actions is dead.” James 2:26

I do not agree with the person who said to go personally and ask him if those words were meant for you. Does that mean every sermon which offends you then you should go and ask if “he was throwing stones” for you? Sometimes we do things that are wrong and we are not aware of it until God speaks to us, sometimes through the Mass, to take a good look at ourselves and then focus our attentions on Him for the graces to change and not on our priests.

Honey, Jesus is the only man who you need to rely on. No other man but him. By not trusting him in your situation you are already hurting your relationship with him. By saying “you cannot rely on him ” you have already been defeated and Your Jesus Did Not Die For Your Defeat. The victory is already won for you In The Name Of Jesus.

JESUS is there for YOU every day and night in the Blessed Sacrament, at home and everywhere YOU go. No priest could give you that attention or help for the situation.

Read James 2:14-26 (the Word of God is truly amazing) and St Francis of Assisi Prayer.

May God bless and keep you all.:bowdown:

 

[livi]

I don’t think you are abusing confession. I think confession is there for precisely the reasons you state - to help us get over habitual sin.

I once heard a homily from daily mass on the radio once and the priest says confession is a lot like grocery shopping. When we grocery shop we generally buy the same thing over and over - milk, bread, cereal. Confessing our sins is the same - most people struggle with the same set of vices and have to confess them over and over.

There are three valid ways I think people abuse confession:
1. Scrupulosity - i.e. trying to go too frequently (like every day), or confessing things that aren’t really sins, or comming in with a large list of venial sins.
2. Treating the confessional as a counsueling/spiritual direction session. I think such matters should be discussed and handled outside of the confessional.
3. Willfully witholding sins in the confessional.

I understand where priests may be coming from because I’ve been told on numerous occasions a lot of what they hear is the same thing and much of it is sexual in nature. However, in my opinion, these are the easiest mortal sins to commit and a lot of them can be committed in the privacy in your own home.

I once got “yelled at” in the confessional because I went back to the same priest to confess a sin of this nature, and he was wondering if I had anything else, because he reads the paper and said there are sins that do more damage to the community. I just felt very uncomfortable because not all of us rob banks or are serial killers.

Hope this helps.

To me, scrupulosity is not in and of itself an abuse of Confession. Its a very real condition that I happen to suffer from which can involve an intense amount of anxiety. There have been situations where I have been convinced that I had committed mortal sins and went to Confession on a weekly basis. I wasn’t trying to abuse the sacrament, I was trying to be a good Catholic. Sometimes if can be difficult to tell the difference between a mortal sin and a venial sin or tell the difference between something sinful and something not sinful when you are dealing with the amount of anxiety that can go along with scrupulosity. I still struggle with Confession, and now I just wind up leaving without finishing because I take too long. I don’t know if that’s because of my scrupulosity or because I am self-conscious or both, but again, I am not trying to abuse the sacrament.

Sorry if I went a little off topic.