Priest wouldnt let me confess!

[Tis_Bearself]

Priests are human and make mistakes sometimes, including not understanding or listening closely enough to what people in confession are saying. But the priest in the OP’s case has a reasonable argument that “feeling angry” is a human emotion and not a sin. The Scriptures show that Jesus himself felt angry. Jesus never sinned.

 

[Butterfly4Jesus]

They freely offered up to me a few things they said. I would never question anyone about confession. I shared my experience and they offered up theirs. Thank you.

 

[Butterfly4Jesus]

Please dont assume I would get invovled in what is between Jesus and a confessor. My kids heard my experience and simply chimed in with Me TOO!!

 

[TheLittleLady]

Cool. Sounds like a great conversation

 

[PetraG]

Not going to Mass because “something fell through” may or may not represent being unable to go, it might be best to leave the judgement as to whether or not it was a sin to the priest in Confession.

The idea is not to dump a general list of things we feel bad about and leave it to the priest to sort out. We are supposed to be able to examine our own consciences. That’s part of growing in our moral self-mastery.

I didnt really feel that I needed ‘Help’. I just get frustrated when my son makes me ask something too many times. I dont do anything but give him calm consequences. I just feel bad that it makes me mad. I think other parents feel frustrated at times. I dont think that warrants counseling suggestions. Just how I see it.

Well, if you don’t understand your own emotional life, it isn’t out of place to suggest that you have a counselor explain these things to you. He’s not saying you need to be committed. He’s saying you need some help sorting out how to go about gaining the self-mastery you don’t have. That requires skills that counsellors can actually teach you.
So–anger. Anger is the emotion you feel when what you internally feel is a right expectation has been violated. If you are feeling angry when you don’t think anger is an appropriate response, the place to start is to examine and learn to manage your expectations. Frustration is similar: it is the feeling that one is not getting the results that one ought to be able to expect. If you want to be more patient, the place to start is to
(a) recognize that your son’s sense of an appropriate number of times to ask the same question and your sense of that do not match.
(b) talk to your son and try to see these situations from the point of view of the other. (Remember, you’re not just teaching him to ask fewer questions. You’re trying to teach him to be sensitive to the effect his actions have on others.)
(c ) have a plan for what you’re going to do when your son again violates your expectations, because this is the kind of thing that is learned gradually. I’d suggest a “coaching” model, in which you are aiming at teaching him to recognize what you recognize without your (name removed by moderator)ut, so that he can treat everyone with the sensitivity you’re trying to teach him. In any event, you’ll want him to be able to predict what will happen if he’s successful and if he’s unsuccessful. You’re aiming for a feeling of accomplishment when he learns to be successful and an optimistic sense that success is possible if adjustments are made if he fails.

This is the kind of thing a counselor can help you with. It is much better than just expecting yourself to “be better” without taking the steps that could reasonably lead to a different result.

 

[PetraG]

As for the confessor, I have a feeling he is not a good match for you. Choosing a confessor is like choosing a personal physician. You have to choose someone who not only knows how to “practice medicine” but who will also make it the most likely that you will be a compliant patient. Not someone you like the best or someone who spends the most time with you or the person who knows the most medicine, but someone who is suited to get your “moral history” and treat you in such a way as to lead most directly to a more amended and devoted life. If a priest gives you advice and you don’t want to hear it, that already says you probably need a different confessor.

Having said all of that, just as we need to know as patients of medical doctors how to give a good history and be a compliant patient, just so we need to learn these same kinds of things in the spiritual realm. That doesn’t mean we ought to expect that every physician and every confessor is going to be a good match for us if we learn to “do it right.” We ought to be able to accept competent help from someone who isn’t a great match when we need that, but for the best results for everyone we ought to be willing to look for a good match between confessor and penitent or doctor and patient.

 

[Brendan_64]

The idea is not to dump a general list of things we feel bad about and leave it to the priest to sort out. We are supposed to be able to examine our own consciences. That’s part of growing in our moral self-mastery.

No, it’s not, and yes we should examine our consciences ourselves, but with regard to issues that are objectively grave matter (missing Sunday Mass without a valid reason) clarification from our confessor over whether a particular reason is valid or not, would seem a straightforward question to ask.

Moral self-mastery? Does that mean that the better we get at mastering our own judgements of morality, the less we need the sacrament of Confession? Where does that road lead to?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Moral self-mastery? Does that mean that the better we get at mastering our own judgements of morality, the less we need the sacrament of Confession?

She didn’t say anything about people not needing to go to confession. “Moral self-mastery” means that we become stronger and better at resisting temptation so we don’t fall and commit sin when tempted. This is the goal we are all supposed to be working towards, every day - “to sin no more”, the resolution that we make in the Act of Contrition.

Granted, we are imperfect humans and probably won’t reach the goal of being perfectly sinless, but we need to try, and we can certainly reduce the number, frequency, and gravity of our sins. We also need to form our consciences so we know when we are committing an actual sin and can combat those actual sins, and also so we can make good confessions that cover our actual most important sins.

With all due respect, given your response to Petra here and your responses to me on the other thread about confession, you seem to be fixated on the idea that Catholics are somehow trying to avoid confession or make excuses for not going. I would gently suggest that on a forum like this, where people are generally going to confession very frequently and posting about it, your concern is misplaced.

 

[PetraG]

No, it’s not, and yes we should examine our consciences ourselves, but with regard to issues that are objectively grave matter (missing Sunday Mass without a valid reason) clarification from our confessor over whether a particular reason is valid or not, would seem a straightforward question to ask.

Moral self-mastery? Does that mean that the better we get at mastering our own judgements of morality, the less we need the sacrament of Confession? Where does that road lead to?

No, moral self-mastery means we have an well-formed conscience and have learned not only what is a sin and what isn’t but also have some idea how to direct ourselves in an effective manner.

For instance, if we confess “I was frustrated,” what’s the confessor supposed to do with that? Feeling frustrated is not a sin. Feeling angry is not a sin. Does the penitent really mean that he or she acted on that? If what one of us actually did was something like “I treated my children unfairly and unkindly,” that is the sin, but the OP said he/she did not act on the frustrated feelings.

The issue is that if we don’t identify what is a sin and what is poor self-regulation of our emotional life–something a counselor is trained to help us sort out–we’re not going to make a confession that is as good as it could have been and the good habit of availing ourselves of that sacrament is not going to bear the fruit it might have. The sacrament isn’t meant to “shower off” bad feelings about our emotional life. Yes, it gives serenity of conscience, but that means that we are freed of choices that were actually sinful.

Having said that, I totally feel for the OP. He/she did seem to get “short shrift,” in the sense that essentially just saying “get thee to a counselor” didn’t really explain the issue as well as was needed. When the penitent leaves the confessional confused, what are the chances that the direction will have the effect intended by the confessor? I mean that the confessor didn’t seem to have explained “this is what you need to change to make your future confessions more fruitful.” I would hope that improving future confessions and freeing the penitent from false notions or a lack of emotional skills that could hamper spiritual advancement was the confessor’s intention, not just preventing a penitent from confessing things in the future that he/she mistakenly thought were sins when they weren’t. At least, I would hope that the major goal was not “do it right next time” but rather “let’s work to make your conscience more effective for you all of the time and here is what counseling is meant to achieve towards that end.”

 

[jmgi1957]

My take on it, is that the priest, any priest, is being RUDE for cutting you off and not listening to everything you have to say first before giving any advice, etc.

 

[Brendan_64]

No, moral self-mastery means we have an well-formed conscience and have learned not only what is a sin and what isn’t but also have some idea how to direct ourselves in an effective manner.

And do you also think then that an issue such as missing Sunday Mass because something felll through is not a serious enough matter to be bothering our priests with at Confession (which is what my comment was related to)? Missing Sunday Mass is potentially a mortal sin if the reason for missing isn’t a valid one.

I believe that we approach Confession, not as self-confident individuals who have mastered our knowledge of what is sinful and what isn’t and knowing what direction we need to go, but as little children coming to our Father, unsure of ourselves, looking for advice and direction, and asking for forgiveness.

 

[PetraG]

And do you also think then that an issue such as missing Sunday Mass because something felll through is not a serious enough matter to be bothering our priests with at Confession (which is what my comment was related to)? Missing Sunday Mass is potentially a mortal sin if the reason for missing isn’t a valid one.

I believe that we approach Confession, not as self-confident individuals who have mastered our knowledge of what is sinful and what isn’t and knowing what direction we need to go, but as little children coming to our Father, unsure of ourselves, looking for advice and direction, and asking for forgiveness.

Yes, even adults will continually form our consciences and need guidance about how to pursue virtue and avoid sin. That does not mean that we should expect to be taught even the most elementary lesson over and over and over again, as if we cannot be trusted to remember these things and put them into action.

I don’t think most confessors have any problem with adults bringing them questions and asking to have their concerns discussed. We should expect ourselves to be adults about that, though. Even the OP knows that her children frustrate her when they continually re-ask a question that has been answered a reasonable number of times, right? Why should she not expect herself to make a reasonable effort to spare her confessor the exact same sort of frustration? I’m not saying she should beat herself up about this, but that she ought to feel confident that she will not be failing somehow by having some confidence in her formation!

It is not arrogance for an adult to suppose she was taught correctly how to judge whether a contemplated action is sinful or not! How is she supposed to avoid sin in the first place, if she cannot judge that in real time? “When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things.” 1 Cor 13:11.

By the time we are ready to make our first confession we know that, as an adult would put it, mortal sin “is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.” (CCC 1857) We know that missing Sunday Mass without a valid reason is a grave matter. We also know that we cannot accidentally commit a sin “with full knowledge and deliberate consent.” That is impossible. The penitent is capable of asking herself if the decisions that lead to her missing Mass were because she deliberately put a low priority on making it to Mass or if the events that prevented her from attending the Mass she intended to attend were not really foreseeable.

Do not get me wrong. If we are too insecure to examine our own consciences, that is a matter for empathy. I’m not saying a confessor would be angry about that. I am saying, however, that a confessor would encourage penitents to be willing to put confidence in the moral formation they have been given, to not walk around in fear of “accidental sin.” We can trust that God knows whether we made a good-faith examination of conscience and is satisfied with that. That is childlike trust in God.