Childhood Confessions

[BlueRain]

As some of you may know, I have been planning to go to confession for the first time in many many years. It’s been so serious, then out of the blue I started to think about my confessions as a little child. Ah, to be a child. I was laughing at those experinces.

I went to a Catholic school. I remember once our class was in line waiting to go to the church and confess. I must have been 8. All of a sudden I heard these girls in my class talking about how many sins they had, almost seemed like one of them was bragging b/c she had nine sins.
Well, I started to worry b/c I only had three sins and I thought they were not enough, lol. So I started thinking real hard and barely came up with seven sins. They were things like “I put gum in brother’s hair”, “I Lied”,etc. And I probably mentioned sins I confessed before but I wasn’t sure if I mentioned them before and so I re-confessed them.
Then once when I was nine, we had to have face-to-face confessions. It was with these very old priests I didn’t know. I had to kneel in front of the priest and he was sitting, but he was so old and slouching so much that his face was right in front of me. He also had on the white vestments that they usually wear when giving Mass. I was hoping that the line of classmates a few feet behind me wouldn’t be able to hear my sins. I was so nervouse.
Anyways, I confess, and when I’m done, the father didn’t say anything and it looked like he was either thinking hard or asleep. So then I added “…and that’s it”…I waited and there was no answer. So then I just said “Father?..Father?” and he finally woke up. He just gave me the absolution and what to pray and that was it. I felt ripped off though and I was worried that I hadn’t been properly confessed and that it would be wrong to take communion. Now I just laugh at myself for thinking all that. I was kid, my worst sins were lying and they weren’t even big lies. It was so pitiful, lol.

 

[Br.Rich_SFO]

Many Catholic adults still approach the Sacrament of Reconciliation as though they were still children. We need to develop in the Church an adult view of “Confession”.

 

[Fizendell]

Amen Brother Rich!!

I too had only a few confessions as a child, my last somewhere around 13 during the year of my confirmation. When God brought me back to the Church this year, I discovered confession was **not ** the same as an adult!!

The biggest difference I feel as an adult is the requirement for amendment of life. When we approach confession with the understanding that we are to have firm purpose of not committing sin again - it truly changes one’s outlook of the Sacrament!

 

[Detroit_Sue]

Our priest has passed out guides for an examination of conscience which is very blunt. This is somewhat similar, and it is very helpful in making a good confession.

Link

 

[Deacon_Tony560]

We have one priest that would fall asleep in the confessional before he was discovered to have sleep apnea. Now with treatment he stays awake. EWTN Web of Faith had some good points about confession this week. They usually rerun it on the weekend. Some folks just can’t seem to accept that old sins that have been confessed are forgiven, even if we think that we did not explain them well enough to the priest.