How to learn from a priest?

Status
Not open for further replies.
N

Nelka

New member
If a priest hears confession face to face, whatever the layperson says, afterwards the priest acts as if he never heard anything due to the seal of confession.

As a human being how does he delete this information from his mind and act towards the layperson as if nothing was said?

I would like to be able to do this, whenever someone says, acts or does something bad to me I would like to be the same as the priest but how?

I don’t know if I’ve explained it very well but I need to stop dwelling on stuff even years later that only hurt me for dwelling on it.

Thanks.
 
First of all, a priest hears 1000 times more negativity than you ever will. If he thought about it at all he couldn’t lift his head from the pillow in the morning.
God grants His priests strength and abilities through ordination. We don’t exactly understand how, He just does.

For ourselves, however, we have to work at forgiveness. That’s what it boils down to. Forgive, shrug it off, and put your mind on your blessings, like your wife your kids, the roof over your head, all of that.
What’s that saying? Mind over matter, if you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter?

There’s some truth to that. Some of the most miserable and disagreeable, difficult people I know are the sort that never forgets a slight, a misspoken word, a misstep by others.
They never look within, they just want to point fingers, Blech.
 
I think for the most part the priest just gets used to it. Sort of like an EMT may get used to the sight of blood.

I am, being the primary caregiver to my kids, am uphased by things most people would gag from… vomit, poop, rotten pee around a toilet, rashes in weird places, etc…
 
@1Lord1Faith is on to something.

When we do something frequently we stop seeing it as a big deal. I have to change my little one’s diaper several times a day, but when I look at her, I don’t see the load of turds she’s packing, I see my child.
 
Nelka said:
I would like to be able to do this, whenever someone says, acts or does something bad to me I would like to be the same as the priest but how?
Click to expand...
Prayer and effort. Like anything it won’t come easy. You simply have to work on it. Learn to not ruminate on things. Learn to counter negative responses to past acts. Learn to think charitably of others. Give up the sin of rash judgment.

I have a long way to go but I was a pretty unforgiving person. I’ve improved but only through repeated effort and of course prayer, fasting etc.
 
I was read an article by a priest that addressed this very question. He said he once asked a garbage man what the worst trash was he ever took out. He said I see so much of it I don’t think twice about it. The priest said he felt that way about hearing confessions. He hears so many sins that the thinks not of them once he leaves the confessional.

He said on occasion a very grievous sin he might remember and pray for that person but that doesn’t stay in his mind long.

Interesting I thought.
 
it be good if God granted everyone that same strength and ability as he does his priests, though we don’t know what sort of conversions priests have between each other, they may well have a good old rant to get rid of thoughts that make them dwell on things, since they are only as human as everybody else.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top