F
friendlyperson
Guest
Hi. I just went to confession about 20 minutes ago. Everything was going well. I confessed all of the mortal/possibly mortal sins that I could remember. But then when I was done, the priest caught me off guard by asking me questions. The first one was “are you sorry for all of your sins?” That one I was fine with; I’ve had priests ask me that before, and so I answered with yes. The second question, however, I was not prepared for. The priest asked me “why are you sorry for your sins?” This question is much more open-ended. I panicked and my mind started racing. I have bad social anxiety for which I take medication, and I didn’t know how I should answer the question. My first thought was, “because I don’t want to go to hell.” I didn’t want to answer with that. There were other reasons as well that I was sorry for my sins. So I just kind of said “so that I can be in right relationship with God.” I felt that this encompasses all the reasons that I was sorry for my sins, including not wanting to go to hell, without having to actually say that. In the moment it seemed like an okay way to answer the question. But the more I thought about it after confession and on my way home and as I sit in my car in the driveway typing this, the more I feel like I might have told a lie and invalidated my whole confession. I’m miserable because I went through all of that worry leading up to the confession and then did everything right until the priest threw a surprise question at me, at which point I totally messed it up for myself. I thought I would come home from church feeling forgiven and in right relationship with God, but instead I feel even worse. I feel like I might be even more on my way to hell than I might have been before. Please help.