Confession: Appointment or Scheduled Time

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catholic03

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Pax Christi:

I have unfortunately not been to receive the Sacrament of Penance for a long time. I e-mailed the parish at which I wanted to make my confession 3 days ago to make an appointment. They have very regular confession (25 minutes in the morning and 1 hour in the afternoon on Saturday). However, I wanted to make an appointment because this is a general confession and may take around 20 minutes. I need to make my confession tomorrow (Saturday) so that I can go to mass with a clear conscience on Sunday, but after 2 e-mails in 3 days the parish has not replied to me.

Should I go to regular confession tomorrow, being aware it may take around 20 minutes? Or, should I do something else? Will the priest be exasperated that I have a long confession while other people are waiting?

Thank you for your advice.

God Bless.
 
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I’d go to the scheduled confession, go in the box and say “this might take a while”. The priest will surely invite you to go ahead or he’ll help schedule a confession.
 
Thank you for your message, Reverend Father. I have not been to confession at all this year. I am a teenager from a ‘lapsed’ Catholic family and so it makes my spiritual life harder, which is why I have not been to confession this year (I thought if you went once a year that was fine according to the Code of Canon Law but please correct me if I am wrong).

Regardless, I feel I need to make a confession as I want a clear conscience for mass on Sunday and I think regular confession is such a pious practice.
 
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Just making sure it wasn’t for reasons of scrupulosity. Some people fall into cycles of doubt and start compulsively making general confessions.

My next question would be as to why you think it will take 20 minutes to confess everything. If you’re speaking in fairly general terms and not going into more detail than is necessary, this can still be done rather briefly. If you feel that a long time is necessary, you really are better off making an appointment, instead of monopolizing the scheduled time and keeping others from being able to go as well.
 
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I think it may take around 5 minutes for me to confess my sins and then maybe around 5 minutes for Father to give counsel and for me to ask a couple of questions I have about my sins. I also have to make the Act of Contrition, the priest has to pray the prayer of absolution etc. Maybe around 10-15 minutes.

A silly question (out of interest!) for you Father: Like a Cardinal is addressed ‘Your Eminence’, is it correct that a priest may be addressed ‘Your Reverence’?

Thank you for your help.
 
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edward_george1 said:
Just making sure it wasn’t for reasons of scrupulosity. Some people fall into cycles of doubt and start compulsively making general confessions.

My next question would be as to why you think it will take 20 minutes to confess everything. If you’re speaking in fairly general terms and not going into more detail than is necessary, this can still be done rather briefly. If you feel that a long time is necessary, you really are better off making an appointment, instead of monopolizing the scheduled time and keeping others from being able to go as well.
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Yes, but the OP has tried to make an appointment and been unsuccessful. Isn’t he or she best off then to use a scheduled confession?

To the OP, I recommend to use the schedule confession time and be well organised enough to keep it to the essentials, so that it only extends to twenty minutes of the priest steers it there. In my experience over 40 years confessions never go beyond 10 minutes unless the priest sees a need, which is very hard to predict. The same confession can take 5 minutes (usually) or 15 (very rarely).
 
Thank you very much.

I think I will still go anyway tomorrow if I do not hear a reply. I overestimated 20 minutes. It will be more like 10 minutes.
 
I do know the e-mail address of the parish priest. Do you think I should e-mail him specifically or would that be unnecessary?
 
Just something to consider - your email to the parish may have gone into their junk folder. This for some unknown reason happens regularly to my emails - parish secretary and I are good friends so I text her to notify her I’ve sent an email. Even though I’m in the address book, 9 out of 10 times my email goes to the junk folder - who knows? Maybe yours did too.
  1. Could you not ring the parish and ask if they’d received your email?
  2. Otherwise, emailing your priest to his own email would depend on how well you know him or if it is perhaps general knowlege as in its in the newsletter for any parishoner to email.
  3. The third option would be to just go to confession and let Father know how many are waiting and that you think the confessing of your sins will take several minutes and it is then up to him to ask you to see him after Mass/set up an appt/or ok to continue.
 
Thank you for your message. The priest’s e-mail is in the parish newsletter. I was thinking about ringing the parish but there may be no point as they may not answer or check voicemail before Saturday (it is Friday, 7.00 pm where I am).
 
You may be overestimating the time required. It’s a bullet point affair and counsel - if it happens - tends to be extremely brief.

Vaya con Dios.
 
Finn said:
You may be overestimating the time required. It’s a bullet point affair and counsel - if it happens - tends to be extremely brief.

Vaya con Dios.
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I’ve found the length of counsel can vary a lot - for similar sins confessed. Usually it is brief, but sometimes there is a loquacious priest, and other times a priest who wants to provide more extensive counsel or admonition.

For myself at least, if I walk into an unknown confessional I can’t be confident it won’t go to ten minutes. It usually doesn’t but it may.
 
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Well I guess in that case you could try emailing your priest, but keep in mind he may not check his emails before then either. Still you have nothing to lose by doing so, but I think you should still go to confession whether you get a reply from him before then or not.
 
Just go to confession at scheduled time. Given that I once confessed 18 years worth of sins in 5 minutes, I can’t imagine what you did in one year that would take longer than 3 minutes to rattle off. Write yourself a list of sins and just read it.
 
I agree with Tis, I also once confessed that many years in the scheduled time…actually I didnt even think of it nor even know about appointments. I just went.
Also I think you are in all likelihood overestimating the length of time things will take… with respect, we do this when nervous about something. In reality it is likely it will all be over much quicker and you’ll come out and say gosh was that really all the time it took. I remember from school speeches, trying to get them to be 5mins… hmmm that is simply ages to talk. Also the priest may not have as much to say as you think, perhaps just a sentence or nothing at all. God bless you
 
I would just go when it´s schedualed. It´s likely that it´s overwith somewhere between 5-10 min, and that´s nothing to be stressed about regarding the other ones in line. They could potentially also, if they weren´t able to make it to Confession, ask Father in person to go to Confession before Sunday Mass or so. I´ve done that because I hesitated to go once, and the line grew.
 
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