Yes - the confessional is humbling, but I think our sins can often be humiliating. I have never found the confessional to be a humiliating place - quite the opposite actually. But in my anticipation - I often have those feelings - and then after the fact I wonder what the big deal was to begin with!
Perhaps it was the tone. I’ve had a confessor ask me “Why do you think you did that?” (Same confessor who praised me for my honesty!). It was a great way of probing into motivation (cardinal sins). At the time I hadn’t given the question much thought; in retrospect my answer was more a rationalization than a reason, but he being the great priest that he is, accepted it on face value without pre-judgment, knowing that we are our most accurate accusers. Today I know what my answer would be and should have been.
