Went to confession today but didnt get in. What do I do now?

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anoninmidwest

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note: I also have some pretty toxic anxiety that makes me scrupulous. I cant just turn it off, it taints everything.

Hello,

I have some mortal sins that I struggle with. I tried to go to confession today and there was a very long line. They only offer confession for 20 minutes before the noon mass. I was in line and they had to stop because the Priest needed to get ready for mass. Now I dont know what to do.

I looked at the different confession times using the masstimes website and it seems that there isnt much I can make it to between now and next week. The area I live in is pretty rural and not super catholic—so you may have 30 miles between churches, plus many (most) dont offer weekday or Sunday confessions (it seems like most parishes dont really offer much in the way of confessions overall). The majority of ones around here offer Saturday confessions but I work this Saturday and its very likely I cant reasonably/responsibly get out of work to get to a saturday confession as we, by design, have a skeleton crew working on the weekends.

Added to that, with the Holiday weekend, I am worried that most of the masstime confession times listed aren’t accurate anyway. So basically I am stuck until next week, right? I could try to email parishes now to set up a time outside of their regularly scheduled times; but tomorrow I imagine they all are closed (holiday) and they won’t get to my email until Friday (if they are even back that day and dont take that day off as well).

So I feel like I have to wait a week until I know I will have time to try again to get to confession (the weekday one with the long line mentioned at the beginning). Do you think thats ok or should I try to find a place on Friday–it might be 40 minutes away and I dont even know if they will be open or have confession.

I feel like the reasonable thing is to wait until next week when I am certain there is regular confession. But at the same time I am worried that I will die before then. Then I worry that God will say that I made excuses why I didnt get and then I will be sent to hell. Then I worry that I am ebing dumb and ignoring God’s grace by saying He will send me to hell on a technicality. Then I fear I am presuming God’s forgiveness which is a sin. It just spirals basically.

I tried reading the Catechism and looking up answers from other sources online but the online ones are either from questionable sources or, with the catechism, you need an understanding of legalistic canon law sentence structure to understand it. Any advice is great appreciated.
 
people can correct me if I’m wrong, but you have the right as a Catholic to go to the Parish office and ask for a Priest if you need to make a confession outside the confession hours. You can always call ahead of time and ask if a Priest is available, which I think is reasonable.

I know what you mean, I lined up for Confession a few SUndays ago and a Sister came out and told us after we were all lined up that there would be no confession despite it being scheduled since there wasn’t enough Priests. I just waited until the following week but everyone is different. Do what you feel you need to do. If you’d prefer to make confession sooner then maybe call and see if someone can hear your confession.
 
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Say an act of perfect contrition, and resolve to go when you can.

God is not a tyrant nor does He demand the impossible. He will know your heart.

PS and listen to your confessor, and get help with your anxiety/scrupulosity.
 
What OraLabora said.

Although you can try to make an appointment with a priest, given that you don’t seem to have a lot of priests where you are and it is a holiday weekend, you may not be successful in connecting with a priest. This is an unfortunate result of the priest shortage. It is not unprecedented; during certain places and times in history, it might be months before a Catholic could find a priest to hear their confession. If you are truly contrite, then given that you made the effort to go to confession and fully intend to go next week, God is not going to play gotcha with you if you die before next week.
 
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I think this has happened to all of us. Trust me, God knows of your efforts, and I am sure he put a note in your file!😉🙂

The point is he knows you tried. It might be that a week spent in that state might serve to be helpful in the future, we cannot know for sure, but use this time to reflect on this and prayer. Tell God of your concerns, though he knows them already.

I know during times like this that my prayers for others might not be quite as effective so I usually will pray the rosary in penance and atonement. This is a good time for the Divine Mercy novena. Put an extra dollar in the collection plate at Mass. God wants to see you there even if you cant partake in communion. It pleases him that you show up.
 
Fear and anxiety are hallmarks of scrupulosity.

Sometimes these things happen, maybe you can use this situation to increase your Trust in God.

If you can’t find a priest willing to hear your confession between now and next week, then as others have said Make a Perfect Act of Contrition, abstain from Communion until you do make your confession, but you still have the obligation to attend Mass on Sunday. You could always offer up having to not receive/the selfconsciousness of it in penance for those sins too.
 
I’ve worked for parishes for over a decade, the only holidays where I have seen Confession times rescheduled is if Christmas is on Sat or Sunday OR Easter Saturday.

Call the parish office on Friday, check the parish website (Mass Times is only as accurate as the people who update it. I do all of the communications social media for my parish, I just checked and Mass Times has ours all wrong). Make an appointment for Confession. People do this all of the time.
 
It sounds like a good idea to make an appt. with a priest who can see you. Maybe at a parish near where you work.
 
Act of Perfect Contrition, and I’ll often assign myself some penance. It isn’t ideal, and it is no substitute for sacramental confession, but it’ll do you over till you’re next able to confess. Also, go earlier than you did this time! I think, unless an area is particularly blessed with a lot of priests, there will always be someone who doesn’t make the cut, time wise, for confession any particular week.

Remember, God has bound salvation to the sacraments, but He has not bound Himself to the sacraments. He can work outside of them, and while confession is necessary to achieve sacramental unity with the Church and to receive the Eucharist, God can and does forgive outside of confession.
 
Setting sin and Sacrament aside for a moment, you will NEVER be at peace as long as you suffer from anxiety/OCD/scrupulosity. It is 100% treatable and almost always without drugs.

I’ll bet that you are not completely at ease even after confession. I have no idea how you can bear that burden. FYI, well-known Catholic counselor Dr. Gregory Popcak has information regarding the treatment, called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

He and many others offer such counseling. It is the gold standard in anxiety treatment, and can even be done over the phone.

Do look into it, as God greatly desires that you live in peace. Our Lord Jesus said, “Peace I leave you. My peace I give you.”
 
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In accordance with CAF guidelines re: scrupulosity, no one here should be counseling you other than–see your priest as soon as possible. Make an appointment if necessary. God bless!
 
anoninmidwest said:
note: I also have some pretty toxic anxiety that makes me scrupulous. I cant just turn it off, it taints everything.

Hello,

I have some mortal sins that I struggle with. I tried to go to confession today and there was a very long line. They only offer confession for 20 minutes before the noon mass. I was in line and they had to stop because the Priest needed to get ready for mass. Now I dont know what to do.
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Hrm. Whenever that’s happened at the churches I’ve gone to, the priest would go back into the confession booth after the mass was finished for anyone who they hadn’t gotten to. Did the priest not offer that to those in line?
 
Aquinas11 said:
people can correct me if I’m wrong, but you have the right as a Catholic to go to the Parish office and ask for a Priest if you need to make a confession outside the confession hours. You can always call ahead of time and ask if a Priest is available, which I think is reasonable.
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A Catholic may always come to the parish to ask to speak to a priest. However, even if the priest is in the office he may not be available to hear a confession. As Catholic we don’t have the “right” for Father to drop everything to hear our confession.

Our priests will hear a confession of a walk-in IF they are available and don’t have another appointment waiting. To be honest, our priests rarely spend more than 4-5 hours a day in the office. They do so much out in the community.

The best way to see a priest in the office is to make an appointment.
 
Think of it this way - you say you struggle with a particular mortal sin and can’t wait one week to get to confession. Maybe the angst, terror, worry, etc. you are feeling can be turned into a deterrent to engage in this particular sin. Does the option of daily confession give you a false sense of freedom to sin because you know you can rush to confession? Just a thought -
 
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