Knocking on wood?

[Morning_Star15]

This is a question regarding Confession.

Sometimes, when confessing to priests at my parish, at the end of the Confession the priest will knock 3 times on the wooden screen, right before saying “Go in the peace of Christ”.

When I was being instructed in this Sacrament before receiving it for the first time as a child, I was taught that this was a standard part of the Confession, but I didn’t witness any priest doing it until a couple of years ago.

Today I mentioned this practice to another priest that I know and he told me that he had never heard of it. So I’m kind of curious now, if this is an older practice that has fallen out of use, if it’s a Polish thing (I was told about it and witnessed it in a Polish parish), or if it’s a normal practice.

Has anyone heard of or seen a priest knocking on the Confessional screen at the end of Confession, and, if yes, does anyone know what its significance is? I’ve tried googling this and found nothing.

God bless,

Karolina

 

[puzzleannie]

this is just a guess but in my childhood some churches had confessionals with a light that would turn red when you closed the door and knelt down, and green when you stood up, to show the confessional was free again. Perhaps in poorer parishes there was no such indicator, and the priest knocked to signal to those waiting that the confessional was again free.

 

[kell0618]

Please forgive me if this offends anyone, but when searching for the answer I stumbled upon this joke:

*A drunk guy staggers into a Catholic church and sits down in a confession
box and says nothing.
The bewildered priest coughs to attract his attention, but still the man
says nothing.
The priest then knocks on the wall three times in a final attempt to get
the man to speak.
Finally, the drunk replies,
"No use knocking, mate…
there’s no paper in this one either…

*Sorry, jokes aside, the number of three is found frequently in regard to confession. For example, in the Coptic Orthodox confessional, “The priest breathes into the face of the confessing person three times asking the Holy Trinity to absolve and forgive them.” As well as sins must be confessed three times. Perhaps the Holy Trinity needs to be acknowledged separately? Sounds like a small t tradition to knock three times.

 

[gvogt4]

For example, in the Coptic Orthodox confessional, “The priest breathes into the face of the confessing person three times asking the Holy Trinity to absolve and forgive them.” .

hope he has a tic tac

 

[gvogt4]

Maybe not the answer, but interesting

Knock on wood:

Often we use the phrase, “Knock on wood” - and proceed to do just that: knock on a table or a door or whatever wood is handy. Most do not know that the origin of the phrase and practice comes from the rosary. Rosaries in the old days were made of oak wood and were fingered in time of distress or trouble. Thus, holding on to or rubbing the wooden rosary or its wooden crucifix when danger was near became a common way for Christians to deal with hardships and difficulties. The practice slipped into common use as “Knock on wood.” From “A World of Stories”
by William Bausch - Shared by Father Ray H. (MI)

fredstemp.blogspot.com/

 

[gvogt4]

and from another forum - looks like a Polish connection

knock on wood
apples + oranges apples + oranges
newbie

Registered: 08/30/00
Posts: 46
Loc: Canada When I was little, growing up in Poland, it was customary to knock on wood whenever you did something bad (like swearing). That was in reference to confession where afterwards the priest tells you to go in peace and knocks on the (wooden) confessional three times.

wordsmith.org/board/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/123624/page/2