Confession - am I too scrupulous?

[DL82]

I have noticed that most Catholic churches have a 2-3 hour slot in the week booked in for confessions.

In my experience with the Anglican church, whenever I made confession to my spiritual director (about once every 6 months) I took at least an hour, nearly 2 hours for my first confession. I do a nightly examen of conscience, and write down anything serious or recurring, or any things that I’m not sure whether they are sins that need confessing. Just reading the list is enough to move me to tears. I don’t think I’m that much worse than most people, though I am still a wretched sinner in almost every aspect of my life.

Now I don’t remember everything that’s gone on all of those lists, but even the stuff I remember would take about 2 hours to go through at my first confession when I finally get that far and am able to be received into the Church. I also have lots of other things which are sins under Catholic canon law that I wouldn’t have even considered before, which are all really weighing on my conscience right now, and other things to do with the things I have believed or doubted in the past that make me realise how far I’ve fallen short (and by definition, sinned) against God’s standards.

Am I being too scrupulous, or are Catholics just better at not sinning, I see people going into confession and coming out 10 minutes later and wonder what’s going on. Is there a knack to summarising it appropriately? Do you only confess mortal sins? Maybe I better make a private appointment for my first confession, tell the priest not to plan anything for the rest of the day!

 

[LilyM]

I have noticed that most Catholic churches have a 2-3 hour slot in the week booked in for confessions.

In my experience with the Anglican church, whenever I made confession to my spiritual director (about once every 6 months) I took at least an hour, nearly 2 hours for my first confession. I do a nightly examen of conscience, and write down anything serious or recurring, or any things that I’m not sure whether they are sins that need confessing. Just reading the list is enough to move me to tears. I don’t think I’m that much worse than most people, though I am still a wretched sinner in almost every aspect of my life.

Now I don’t remember everything that’s gone on all of those lists, but even the stuff I remember would take about 2 hours to go through at my first confession when I finally get that far and am able to be received into the Church. I also have lots of other things which are sins under Catholic canon law that I wouldn’t have even considered before, which are all really weighing on my conscience right now, and other things to do with the things I have believed or doubted in the past that make me realise how far I’ve fallen short (and by definition, sinned) against God’s standards.

Am I being too scrupulous, or are Catholics just better at not sinning, I see people going into confession and coming out 10 minutes later and wonder what’s going on. Is there a knack to summarising it appropriately? Do you only confess mortal sins? Maybe I better make a private appointment for my first confession, tell the priest not to plan anything for the rest of the day!

If your confessions are habitually that long it might indeed be a good idea to make an appointment at least for your first one!

I think it’s possible that your experience is much different to the average Catholic confession - more emphasis on the counselling and advice aspect of the visit. You’ve said you meet with your ‘spiritual director’ for confession. Now for us confession and spiritual direction are two fairly distinct things, although they can be combined they aren’t usually so.

The confessional isn’t usually the best place for really in-depth spiritual direction or questioning, at least not in my experience. You’ll get better informtion and feedback if you approach a priest at a time when he’s a little less rushed. Look for a dedicated spirtual director who you can approach in between confessions.

And there are a number of priests who will quite literally give absolutely no advice or feedback in the confessional at all - simply give a penance and absolution and that’s it! These things definitely take primacy over the giving of advice in the Catholic scheme of things in any event.

And no, we tend not to go into great detail in regard to our sins - only to mention things which might impact on the seriousness of the sin (ie stealing $5 versus stealing a million, having impure thoughts of a homosexual rather than heterosexual nature, factors like that).

Some might not mention venial sins, I find even if I do so my confessions aren’t usually long. Mind you I would probably average three confesions a month - if I went only twice a year they’d probably be a fair bit longer!

And patterns of sin or habitual sins I tend to treat as one single unit - this is where confessing sins by number comes in. And this might also be where you take more time. If I lied numerous times, for example, I wouldn’t go into detail about each and every single incident. It’s really not pertinent to do so. Instead I mightly briefly discuss the one or two worst or most typical incidents as representative of the whole ‘pattern’ of lying.

Certainly your first confession should always be by appointment, since they always tend to be lengthy. If you truly are being scrupulous you can trust your confessor to let you know so!

God bless.