Ask a Priest Anything...about Confession!

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It depends on who you are and where you’re at in your life of faith, as well as other factors (like scrupulosity or laxity).

For the average person, the default answer is about every 4-6 weeks.

For the scrupulous, not more than twice a month, and really only about monthly.

For the lax, at least monthly and maybe twice a month, to help them get some “momentum” so to speak in terms of going.

For those who are in discernment or in the priesthood or religious life, just as a matter of helping to keep up one’s introspection and discernment of himself, going to confession every week or every other week is usually recommended.

As in all things, consult your priest if you’d like some guidance on that. This is actually one area where if someone asked me in the confessional, I’d be happy to answer, since I’d have their confession as a “sample” to gauge where they’re at and what my advice should be.
 
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Thank you for you’re help. The people in my class says I need to speak to a priest but I havent yet… but this helps… so God bless you… Thanks.
edward_george1 said:
Are you speaking hypothetically, or of your actual situation?
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If I say hypothetically will you still answer? Cause if a priest refuses to forgive me what happens… he controls The Eucharist… can refuse to give it to me?
edward_george1 said:
When we don’t know what our feelings mean, the safest assumption is to see whether they lead us toward God or away from him, toward truth or away from it.
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I try to do that but people who are advising me don’t seem to think God is leading me corrctly because Im not being lead to where they think I should be lead based on their understanding of the truth.
edward_george1 said:
…but anyone who deliberately refuses to accept his mercy by repenting, rejects the forgiveness of his sins and the salvation offered by the Holy Spirit.
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Is this from The Catechism or biblical?

I dont think I’m doing that, I think I’m more like if I’m really sorry for what I’m doing I wouldn’t continue to do it… this has nothing to do with the first part of this post… 2 different situations.
 
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annad347 said:
If I say hypothetically will you still answer? Cause if a priest refuses to forgive me what happens… he controls The Eucharist… can refuse to give it to me?
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I can’t really answer hypothetical questions up to a point. Morality and sacramental praxis are concrete realities, and so if this is a real situation, I’d rather comment on that. You may PM me if you’d prefer. It certainly doesn’t sound hypothetical. As for whether the priest could refuse you communion, if it’s a matter strictly for the confessional, it would be up to you not to present yourself for communion. If it’s a more public matter, then he might be able to. It all depends. That phrase right there is the reason I won’t answer hypothetical questions–“it all depends” on any number of variables that aren’t available in the abstract.

As for the rest of your post, I quoted the Catechism, which quotes Scripture, and then summarized it myself off the top of my head.

It sounds like you have a situation that could do with some one-on-one, not-in-public attention, and so you’re more than welcome to PM me.
 
edward_george1 said:
It sounds like you have a situation that could do with some one-on-one, not-in-public attention, and so you’re more than welcome to PM me.
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It was hypothetically, I promise. I was trying to give you a situation that seems simple to change but in reality it isnt like a marriage… Im sorry if I worried you.

Its just that I hear sometimes how priest can refuse a person absolution or to give them the Eucharist and I didnt think it was fair for a person to have that much power over you when they can never understand or know you like God can.

Why Jesus would give that much power to a human is beyond my understnding. That can mentally destroy you…I mean, simply by someone being so afraid of being refused forgivness they wont even ask for it… and now I know that’s the one unforgivable sin. I will never understand why God would do that…it doesn’t seem fair.

Anyway like I said, I promise the situation I posted was hypothetically and I’m sorry if I worried you. You did help me with my original question which was my problem…Thank you for your help.

God Bless
 
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annad347 said:
Its just that I hear sometimes how priest can refuse a person absolution or to give them the Eucharist and I didnt think it was fair for a person to have that much power over you when they can never understand or know you like God can.
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It’s not really the priest having power over them at all. If you go to confession and you don’t get absolved because there was some reason not to absolve you, it wasn’t the priest’s fault. Priests don’t just capriciously withhold absolution. I don’t know exactly how many times it’s been, but it’s been less than a dozen times in three and a half years that I have actually withheld absolution because someone was impenitent–out of somewhere in the neighborhood of 9,000 confessions. That’s less than 0.1% of the time.

It isn’t about the priest having power over a person. If someone wants to receive the sacraments, he shouldn’t let his sin stand between him and God. It’s even more remarkable that God gives us the power to separate ourselves from him, by giving us free will. We can use our free will for what is good, and go toward God, or we can use it contrary to its purpose and turn away from him. This has nothing to do with the “power” a priest might have.
annad347 said:
Why Jesus would give that much power to a human is beyond my understnding. That can mentally destroy you…I mean, simply by someone being so afraid of being refused forgivness they wont even ask for it… and now I know that’s the one unforgivable sin. I will never understand why God would do that…it doesn’t seem fair.
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I don’t think this is quite what I said. It’s one thing to be too afraid to ask for forgiveness. It’s another to let that fear turn into hardness of heart that says one cannot be forgiven. As long as we still have hope that we can be forgiven, we have nothing to worry about. It will only destroy you mentally if you let it. If you have hope that your sins can be forgiven, they can. And honestly, the Lord makes it very, very easy for us to find forgiveness. As I say very often, the words of absolution are the same whether you stole a pack of gum or murdered a hundred people. The Lord makes it very easy to come by his mercy, and yet it is impossible for us to receive what we do not want.

The real “power” in this equation has nothing to do with the priest, as he’s just the middle man. The real power here is our own power to turn away from God, something God gives us knowing the risk. But he also knows the great goodness that can come about when we turn toward him and receive his mercy, and how that’s the most powerful thing on earth.

Maybe refocus your attention a bit, away from “the priest having power,” since that’s not really what’s going on, and even away from “unforgivable sin.” Refocus your attention on how God is so good to us that he makes his mercy so readily available, if we but seek it out. That’s the antidote to being mentally destroyed–being rebuilt by his love.
 
It’s been a good day of lots of nice questions. I hope I have been of some help to you all.

For the next few days I will be taking a break to clear my head and work on a few projects around the parish, so if you ask further questions and I don’t get to them before the weekend, that is why.

Know of my prayers.
 
By the way, I assume you are doing something to allow those you suggest to pm you to allow them to do so, since as a general rule, your account is set to not receive pms.

(Sorry, that has been bothering me all along… )
 
Do you mean that once you type out your message and click send, you get a response saying Father is not accepting messages ?
 
Thank you Father for your reply! I guess I just find it interesting that a man could just confess those sins the same way, whether he drove a neighbor to get an abortion, or whether he drove his girlfriend / wife to get an abortion. It seems to me like there’s a lot of difference in those two examples, but I will believe you that you know enough to fill in the blanks there.
 
I did not say I’m having a dispute about this.

It’s a hypothetical question.

Either there can be reasons that justify a spouse to say “I dont love you” or there cannot.

I asked your opinion. You gave it.

Thanks.
 
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Hello father,
I was wondering regarding confession, exactly what it means to be scrupulous. Is it going over and over the same sins, not forgiving oneself?
 
Thank you Father for this opportunity. I’ve been away from church for over 35 years. I believe in God and have always said my prayers most evenings. Needless to say I have not gone to confession in that many years. My questions:
  1. What should I expect to hear from the priest. Should I learn cpr in case he goes down? 🙂
  2. What should I do to prepare for this stressed out situation?
  3. How soon after confession and assuming I live through it, when can I be allowed to take communion?
I went through a tough time several months ago and going back to church has helped me get through the situation. My prayers weren’t answered to solve the problem but I sure became a better person by returning to church and all the prayers. I have been going to church Monday through Friday and Saturday evening Mass.
My next obstetrical is confession. Thank you and Bless You Father!!!
 
Patri said:
Hello father,
I was wondering regarding confession, exactly what it means to be scrupulous. Is it going over and over the same sins, not forgiving oneself?
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I´m not a priest, but I´ve struggled with scrupulosity myself earlier. Praised be God, that I´m freed from it. It´s certainly a great cross to carry.

Scrupulosity is more than anything an anxiety disorder. Oftentimes you obsesses over normal things you´re doing and start thinking that several harmless actions are sinful, normally you´ll think they´re mortal sins. After that you normally dramatize it in your head and obsess so much that you won´t find peace any other place than within the frames of confession. At my worst, I remember that I was even going to confession two days on a row. Because of pride, I wasn´t able to speak to my priest about this very big spiritual issue that I had. After a while, I started realizing that all the thoughts I used to see as gravely sinful as intrusive and involuntary. I also begun to see that most of the other actions I were doing in my day to day life was not sinful at all. Of course, I sin like everyone else, but I didn´t really sin as gravely and to the extent that I thought I did.

So without sharing anything too personal, this is pretty much how scrupulosity is. At least that´s how it was for me.
 
Patri said:
I was wondering regarding confession, exactly what it means to be scrupulous. Is it going over and over the same sins, not forgiving oneself?
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Scrupulosity is thinking everything you do, don’t do, say, don’t say, think don’t think is a sin.
 
Kima said:
Scrupulosity is more than anything an anxiety disorder. Oftentimes you obsesses over normal things you´re doing and start thinking that several harmless actions are sinful, normally you´ll think they´re mortal sins. After that you normally dramatize it in your head and obsess so much that you won´t find peace any other place than within the frames of confession. At my worst, I remember that I was even going to confession two days on a row. Because of pride, I wasn´t able to speak to my priest about this very big spiritual issue that I had. After a while, I started realizing that all the thoughts I used to see as gravely sinful as intrusive and involuntary. I also begun to see that most of the other actions I were doing in my day to day life was not sinful at all. Of course, I sin like everyone else, but I didn´t really sin as gravely and to the extent that I thought I did.

So without sharing anything too personal, this is pretty much how scrupulosity is. At least that´s how it was for me.
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Thank you very much, I found your answer very helpful.
 
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