I am in a situation right now where I am getting off work at 4pm on Saturdays, and my parish is directly across the street and Reconciliation begins at 4pm… so I feel like I have an ideal opportunity to participate in the sacrament.
I’ve heard St Padre Pio was encouraging towards weekly Confession. My question is: how does a person make best use of this sacrament on a weekly basis? For example, last week I recalled how I abruptly yelled at my mother to be quiet while she was talking and talking to me and I was watching something. Once upon a time that was a common occurrence, but these days it was uncharacteristic of me, so I thought of it to confess. But what if you go through the week and you really don’t feel like you have any particularly meaningful incidents to confess? Am I suppose to just mention things in the vague sense? “I wasn’t as patient as what I could have been at work”, "I wasn’t as charitable as I could have been’ etc.?
I know once upon a time, weekly Reconciliation was a common occurrence for many Catholics. What would these people talk about?
TK,
I highly recommend going to weekly confession and I have been doing so for now two years. For me, I always have something to confess each week. One should always pray to the Holy Spirit before going to confession and ask Him to reveal what needs to be confessed. This certainly helps to discern the ***motives ***behind our actions since each action can be sinful and not based on one’s motives.
In your example about yelling at your mother, if I were confessing it, I would say something like “when I was interrupted by another person, I lost my patience and corrected the other person somewhat harshly by raising my voice.” For me, I try always to keep the identity of the other person ***anonymous ***unless it necessarily relates to a particular commandment like “honor your father and mother” or a parenting or spousal issue.
I also do not specifically identify the word or action - like instead of saying, e.g., “I called so and so an idiot,” I would say “I acted uncharitably by calling another person a name which likely hurt the other person’s feelings.” Another example of a sinful action which I have often confessed is “I revealed the faults of another person to a third person without a serious reason to do so.” This is perhaps another way of confessing gossip.
Also, one should also include any deliberate bad thoughts in one’s confessions like, e.g., “I harbored a grudge against another person for some time and had trouble letting go of the offense” or “I allowed my imagination to run away with thoughts that opened me to temptations to lust and/or despair and/or loss of faith in God . . . .” or “I deliberated on lustful thoughts for some time but then got a grip and stopped.”
I often find that my confessions involve confessing attitudes toward God like, e.g., “because I was so focused on my wanting a certain thing that I do not have, I showed a lack of gratitude toward God for all that He has done for me.” Also, sometimes I confess, “allowed my fear to prevent me from doing the good that I would have otherwise done.” I confess this many times when I am faced with a situation where I should speak up or reach out but I fail to do so because I am afraid of what another person will think of me.
These are just examples of my confessions which I hope will help you. I know that most of these are venial sins and imperfections but we are all called to be “perfect” (Mt. 5:48). I strongly recommend that you also increase the frequency that you receive Holy Communion as our Eucharistic Lord is the remedy to our sins and imperfections.
Lastly, meditate on 1 John 4:18, “there is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love.” We are all called overcome our fears and become perfect in love. When we allow fear to motivate us, we lose the opportunity to show Christ’s love to all those who we encounter.
I hope this helps. You are in my prayers.
houston1
