My response will be a combination of what I have been told and come to believe. I think that both are in accordance with the teachings of the Church.
** First**
Code:
My first entry into confession (after having been prepared in Catechism classes) was into a darkened confessional where you knelt down on a hard wooden kneeler. I then picked up the Crucifix as per instructions and kissed the feet of Jesus in a taught but hopefully to become a sincere act of gratitude for His sacrifice for my sins. Now I awaited my turn for the barrier blocking my side of the confessional from the priest to be raised that I might confess to Jesus, through the priest, all my sins, numbered and listed as to whether mortal or venial, alone or with others and how often committed. I had prepared for this confession by having been sent by my mother to a quiet part of our house the day before with instructions to ask the Holy Ghost to help me remember and identify my sins or both commission and omission. I was instructed to use the provided printed examination of conscience to help me as well. Filled with the confidence of a youngster I awaited my turn confident in God's forgiveness and wondering if the priest would sound any different in the confessional with Jesus speaking through him.
After having said Bless me Father for I have sinned, this is my first confession and these are the sins I have committed for which I am truly sorry. Then followed the recital of the memorized list of my sins. I forget whether the priest made any comment on any of my transgressions or not but then I was asked to recite the Act of Contrition following which I received my penance and absolution.
All in all it was a good experience and after confession and the initial embarrassment of having to tell someone what I had done that I was not proud of, I felt relieved to be back in God’s good graces again. That I presume was due to the fact that I had been given a thorough enough preparation for an adequate juvenile participation in the Sacrament of Confession
I have heard stories of others who were not quite so well prepared. One involved a priest who opened the divider to come face to face with a pair of sneakers as the young boy was trying valiantly to keep his balance as he stood on the little ledge provided for the confessors to place their hands and upon which the Crucifix rested. When the priest spoke so as to get the boy’s attention and to instruct him on how to properly use the confessional he was asked by the young penitent, “Is that you God?”
I doubt that I was ever given the understandings at that time that I have absorbed as ‘true’ and relevant to me today.
The first symbolism of the isolation one experiences is that it helps to reinforce the recognition that salvation is performed one person at a time and that Christians are not scooped up in bunches in a vast net like a trawler catches fish.
The isolation and darkness reminds one of how sin darkens our souls, stopping the light of our Baptism from shining forth as a light unto the Feet of God and as a beacon for others as it isolates us from the protection of the Body of the Church even as it limits the help we will accept from God.
The isolation from the priest from the penitent point of view reinforces the fact that there will be no human intercessor for those who have died in unconfessed, unrepented, mortal sin for we, through sin, have hardened our hearts and rejected the help that God would wish to provide.
The light, dim as it may be when the priest opens the divider, relieves the oppression that it is natural to feel in such cramped uncomfortable quarters and, in my experience, psychologically lifts the spirit as the promise of hope through forgiveness seems suddenly nearer.
The priest’s body language as he leans closer to the barrier, which symbolically reinforces the fact that sin has created a separation in our relationship with God, to allow the penitent sinner to confess in as low a voice as possible, encourages me. It encourages me to remember that it is Jesus to whom I am confessing and that He is encouraging me to acknowledge to Him my sins, which He already knows, that I might then ask sincerely for His forgiveness which He is anxious to give me.
The darkened, isolated process which involves my acknowledging that I am not worthy of receiving salvation for the deliberate unloving acts of thought and deed omission and commission because I have been unloving to Our God who has never been unloving in any way to me, brings true dread to my soul for the loss of the light and love of Heaven that sin would bring to me. But when this darkness is combined with the light and love mentioned above from the priest’s side reinforces my hope and trust in my personal Salvation.
I agree with the fact as stated in the Latin Rite that unless it is impossible to conduct confession in this manner that this be the method of choice.
