B
babochka
Guest
I think that my hang-up with your argument is your insistence that face-to-face confession is more like a “family chat”; that those of us who prefer face-to-face confession do not experience it as a profound mystery and encounter with the great mercy of God and that we are somehow missing out on an important element of the sacrament.
While a certain aesthetic is important in order to emphasize certain aspects of the sacrament, a different aesthetic is important to me. God has ordained that I confess to a human being, not a disembodied voice. While confession is a profound encounter with God, it is likewise an encounter with another human being. When I confess behind a screen, I feel a disconnect from that human being. God made us for connections with other humans and having a screen or physical barrier during a profound and intimate encounter with God and the priest seems odd to me. I don’t have a strong preference for posture, really. In the Byzantine Rite, I have confessed standing, sitting, walking and kneeling. In the Latin Rite, I have confessed kneeling and sitting. I guess I slightly prefer kneeling, especially, in the Latin Rite. But if I had to choose between kneeling and face-to-face, I would choose face-to-face quite easily.
As others have said, your arguments for your preferences are based on externals. And externals are absolutely important. So much of how we encounter God is based on our earliest experiences with such encounters. Since I grew up with Confession in the Byzantine Rite and it was an overwhelmingly positive experience for me, it is natural that my preferences would lie in that direction. I would imagine the same is true for you. Perhaps you grew up experiencing confession in a particular way that formed you and your understanding of the sacrament. But all easterners and two generations of Latin Catholics have been formed differently. You seem to assume that because of that different formation that our understanding and appreciation of the sacrament is deficient. What evidence do you have for this? You make reference to a family chat, but I’ve never heard anybody who prefers face-to-face confession say that it is because it feels like a family chat.
While a certain aesthetic is important in order to emphasize certain aspects of the sacrament, a different aesthetic is important to me. God has ordained that I confess to a human being, not a disembodied voice. While confession is a profound encounter with God, it is likewise an encounter with another human being. When I confess behind a screen, I feel a disconnect from that human being. God made us for connections with other humans and having a screen or physical barrier during a profound and intimate encounter with God and the priest seems odd to me. I don’t have a strong preference for posture, really. In the Byzantine Rite, I have confessed standing, sitting, walking and kneeling. In the Latin Rite, I have confessed kneeling and sitting. I guess I slightly prefer kneeling, especially, in the Latin Rite. But if I had to choose between kneeling and face-to-face, I would choose face-to-face quite easily.
As others have said, your arguments for your preferences are based on externals. And externals are absolutely important. So much of how we encounter God is based on our earliest experiences with such encounters. Since I grew up with Confession in the Byzantine Rite and it was an overwhelmingly positive experience for me, it is natural that my preferences would lie in that direction. I would imagine the same is true for you. Perhaps you grew up experiencing confession in a particular way that formed you and your understanding of the sacrament. But all easterners and two generations of Latin Catholics have been formed differently. You seem to assume that because of that different formation that our understanding and appreciation of the sacrament is deficient. What evidence do you have for this? You make reference to a family chat, but I’ve never heard anybody who prefers face-to-face confession say that it is because it feels like a family chat.
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