Confession before Sunday Mass?

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I think all pastors should make an effort to offer Sunday confession. Even if it’s only for 10-15 minutes after mass.

Obviously, there are some priests who really can’t if they are driving from church to church, etc.

But in some parishes / dioceses, it can be done.

At our Cathedral, they have confession 7 days a week. There are 3 confession times on Sunday. One is 30 minutes before the 9AM Mass, one is 30 minutes before the noon Spanish mass, and the 3rd is an hour before the 6:30 PM mass. I know the 5:30 confession lines get long!

But again, I would ask every priest who sees this to consider offering confessions before Mass on Sundays. Even if it’s just for 15-20 minutes.
 
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I’m very thankful that the FSSP parish I attend offers confessions before all Masses during the week, including Sunday. Confession has never been more accessible to me before.
 
HopkinsReb said:
That’s a massive parish (har!)
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Our parish has 14,000 parishioners and we get an average 80% Mass attendance. That is why we have 10 Masses on Sundays.
Monday to Saturday we have 3 Masses daily and Sundays 10.
On all other days of obligation we have the same Mass schedule as Sundays.
 
You know at one of the Traditional Latin Mass churches I attend run by Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, confession is offered 30 minutes before EVERY Mass, yes even weekday Masses! And it is all done by just 1 priest! You don’t see that at an Ordinary Form parish! I was most amazed (and relieved) to see confession was regularly offered there, as it should!

(I think it’s a problem the Communion lines nowadays are longer than the confession lines, confession needs to be offered more!)
 
I agree that confession before Mass on Sundays would be more convenient. It’s difficult for many people to come on Saturday. On the other hand, I would be thankful to have the possibility on Saturdays—there’s no scheduled confession in my territorial parish on either day.

Sunday confession before Mass was available at the parish my family belonged to from 1978 to 1980 and it may also have been at our previous parish (1974-1978), but other than that I’ve not seen it until stumbling upon the ICRSS five years ago. (Thirteen parishes in total so far. I move a lot.) Oh wait—there is confession before the Sunday evening Mass at Notre-Dame in Paris, but that’s a special case.

For confession now, I go to the ICRSS on Sundays. There is always the possibility of confessing for at least a half hour prior to Mass. This isn’t “better” than parishes that have confession on Saturday but not on Sunday. It simply makes sense, given that there is no anticipated Mass on Saturday evenings and thus no scheduled time for confession either. It is possible to confess before Mass on Saturday morning, but many people can’t swing that either.
 
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My parish priest celebrates the OF Mass and hears confessions for a minimum of 7 hours every week. Starting 30 min-1 hour before Mass and if there are more people then he continues after Mass until the last one has confessed. If we can’t find him in the church building, he is in the confessional.

I think people who go to a weekday Mass are more likely to receive the Sacrament of Confession then as it is not as “busy” overall as before a Sunday Mass if they have children or if there is something else that needs their attention.

If the Sacrament of Reconciliation is offered often at a parish then people will go to Confession. If the priest is also talking about the importance of the Sacraments in homilies, bulletin etc then people will receive.
 
Yes, I agree. Many priests are plenty busy on Sundays as it is so making it mandatory to offer confession before Mass would, in some cases and for various reasons, be asking the impossible. For those priests who can do so, however, I think it would be a good idea but I imagine a priest wouldn’t need it to be an obligation in order to put such a schedule in place if he already had the time for it.
 
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I don;t see why some posters have to state the language of the Mass they attend to answer the question . 🤨
 
giuseppe96 said:
I’m very thankful that the FSSP parish I attend offers confessions before all Masses during the week, including Sunday. Confession has never been more accessible to me before.
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The FSSP parish near me does the same thing. He hears confession for approx 20-25 minutes before Mass.
 
Holy moly that’s a large parish. I couldn’t imagine being in a parish of that size.
 
So, first imagine the vastness of space…done it?
Now imagine the planet earth…done that?
Now imagine a large parish, should be easy yes?

Incidentally, just because you’re not laughing doesn’t mean I wasn’t joking.
🙂

Happy Friday!
 
Three parishes in my diocese offer confession before almost every Mass (and Mass is celebrated daily at each). Each has one priest (one recently received a priest in active retirement who helps out on Sundays). It’s a great comfort to know that if I need the sacrament is never more than a day or two away.
 
It shouldn’t be a requirement because it would be difficult or impossible in some situations. But it would be nice if priests who can hear confession before Mass would.
 
MiserereMei25 said:
Should this be a requirement?
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A requirement for whom? The priest? The faithful? Who would make this a “requirement”? And how would it work logistically for priests who have multiple masses or multiple parishes?
 
At my private Catholic college they don’t offer confession, it has to be scheduled. They did have one penance service with 5 priests there but aside from that they don’t do anything. But there is a church 10 minutes from my college with daily confession for 4 hours each day so that’s good option for me
 
Scott84 said:
(I think it’s a problem the Communion lines nowadays are longer than the confession lines, confession needs to be offered more!)
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I don’t disagree with you that there needs to be more confession. My first parish had it before every single Mass, weekend and weekday, totaling about 18 hours of confession offered every week.

That said, the fact that confession lines are shorter than communion lines, though this is a common trope, might also be a function of other things. A lot of people go to communion daily or weekly. Almost nobody goes to confession weekly, and still less do they go daily. Which is fine, most people don’t need to go that often. I’m just saying that the raw numerical data here doesn’t necessarily belie the problem a lot of people think it does. It’s simply a matter of people going to confession less often than they go to communion.

That said, in my previous parish, we had three priests offering confession for 18 hours a week. We actually heard confessions about 9-14 hours a week, depending, since there were a lot of times where I’d be in the box for half an hour and hear one or two. I once calculated that if all of our approximately 12,000 parishioners who were old enough to do so went to confession monthly, all three of us would hear confessions twelve hours a day.

-Fr ACEGC
 
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