Time to confess
THINGS I dared not ask the father-confessor: Is it a sin to read or watch “Fifty Shades of Grey”? Does the Lenten observance of abstinence and fasting include staying away from temptations of the flesh even when your partner is your legal spouse, even if you are thoroughly mature, old and aged and ancient by your 40-something children’s standards? Does it please God in any special way to see my friend without lipstick during the Holy Week?
Priests are only human, but if they blush when issues revolving around the sixth and ninth commandments are brought to their attention, how wise and helpful can their answers be? The question that rises to the surface every once in a while during the season of reconciliation is, why confess one’s sins at all to another human being who comes from another way of life, another generation, another understanding of the bond between God and man?
While confession is good for the soul, can it be good for the confessor, listening to all those awful or awesome, petty or grievous sins behind that screen in the confessional? The “box” is not required nowadays, so perhaps the sacrament of reconciliation, as it has been known since Vatican II, will in the future no longer be required, at least not as Catholics know it today. Martin Luther took care of that when he defected from the Roman Church to put up his own Protestant churches. Protestants confess “directly to God” instead of to a priest, a man who has taken holy orders. Holy or not, priests are “trained” to hear confessions and give advice, and they are under pain of mortal sin to chuck and never repeat what they have heard in the confessional.
When they forgive a sinner, it’s as good as God doing the forgiving. As Martin Luther might have deduced, then why not confess to God?
The Easter duty of confessing and receiving communion at least once a year remains as steadfast as ever, but whether for reasons of convenience or practicality, the box is more often empty, unused. Or it could simply mean that the observer has been going to the wrong churches at the wrong times.