I think the important thing that you may want to focus on more than location is having a regular confessor, and going frequently and on a schedule - every other Saturday, for example. Making that commitment to regular and frequent confession, and finding a good confessor who can help give you spiritual direction in the confessional, is a very helpful spiritual practice. If it’s at your parish, so be it, if not, then that’s okay too. The idea is consistency and finding someone who can start to see your trends and weaknesses and give you the ammunition and armor you need to be able to win in your day to day spiritual combat.
I have found that going to frequent confession (once a week or so), plus going to a regular confessor, has helped my spiritual life in ways I could not imagine. When I first started going to regular confession, I was confessing mortal sins on a regular basis, as well as “cleaning house” of all of the nasty stuff I was doing when I was a more tepid Catholic and not going to church as regularly. As I kept up the practice, I found that I no longer actually needed to go to confession to be able to receive, and the nature of my sins changed from mortal and deliberate venial, to deliberate and unintentional venial, to mostly being confessions of devotions with reports on growth of virtues used with a particular examen.
Sometimes it’s hard to confess to my regular confessor, as he has become a good friend over the past year or so and we’ve had him over to our home multiple times. But I have found that building that trust in a spiritual guide who really knows me gives him some advantages in his spiritual direction in the confessional than when I go to the other priest in the parish, who gives me much more general advice and the stock “Three Hail Marys” penance every time I go. Also, going to a regular confessor, one that I have conversations with on a regular basis, is a HUGE deterrent for committing the nasty sins. More than once I’ve told my husband, “I can’t do that, because there’s no way I’m confessing that to Father!”
It’s also a very huge act of humility for me to have to go in that little booth and talk to someone that I will have to face later, and knowing that he knows how much of a stupid sinner I really am. But whenever I feel amazingly foolish and have a hard time making myself go into that booth, I listen to this homily from Audio Sancto. As this priest says, “God already knows what you’ve done, who cares if the priest knows!” Another good line that I think of often: “This is what Father became a priest to
do. Do you think he’s going to stop now, just because it’s a friend who needs help?” Please pray for this priests and all holy priests who have given their lives to God to help lead souls to Him by absolving us from our sins and making us friends with God again.
The Sacrament of Penance (Part 1)
