What Do You Think About Community Reconciliation?

[BG45]

I've only been to the type EmilyAnn describes, and I'm going to one on Thursday.

That said, I understand how they can encourage people to come, but I have a beef with how this part of my diocese suspends all normal confession times (barring appointments) during Advent and Lent. It's something I've argued with more than one priest about. If it was offered in addition to regular Confession time during the week, I'd feel less cranky.

[Nunsense]

[quote name='BG45' timestamp='1323825429' post='2350777']
I've only been to the type EmilyAnn describes, and I'm going to one on Thursday.

That said, I understand how they can encourage people to come, but I have a beef with how this part of my diocese suspends all normal confession times (barring appointments) during Advent and Lent. It's something I've argued with more than one priest about. If it was offered in addition to regular Confession time during the week, I'd feel less cranky.
[/quote]


Yeah, I hate that 'appointment only' thing as well. Fortunately we have a regular time every Saturday for Confession no matter what else happens during the week. I think during Advent and Lent, they would offer more Confessions since these are penitential times when we need to prepare for Christmas and Easter! And some people only ever go to Confession at these times!

[BG45]

sums up my thoughts on your post!

[Nunsense]

[quote name='BG45' timestamp='1323826856' post='2350805']
sums up my thoughts on your post!
[/quote]

blush!

[MissScripture]

[quote name='nunsense' timestamp='1323826023' post='2350782']


Yeah, I hate that 'appointment only' thing as well. Fortunately we have a regular time every Saturday for Confession no matter what else happens during the week. I think during Advent and Lent, they would offer more Confessions since these are penitential times when we need to prepare for Christmas and Easter! And some people only ever go to Confession at these times!
[/quote]
I really find it amusing when their is the option of the screen when it's by appointment (yes, I've been given this option). Um, Father, pretty sure you know who is back here! lol

In my old diocese they did the type of penance service that ended with the ability to go to confession. They would hold them the week before Christmas or Easter and they would have one at each parish that week, with all the priests going to the parish where it was held that night to hear confessions. The only thing I didn't like about it was that there were so many priests you didn't have much privacy. I went to one priest who was hard of hearing and kept asking me to repeat myself louder. I didn't really want to yell my sins! lol. But they also had the regular confession times in addition to this, as well. But that diocese, or at least that part of the diocese, did REALLY well with confessions. You always had options. I miss that.

When I was younger, we had just the communal penance services, that did NOT include confession. And the priest gave the distinct impression that you did not need to go to confession in addition to going to this service. The same thing is currently happening at my grandparents' parish. They insist that this takes the place of ever needing to go to confession. It wouldn't be so bad, but they kept bringing it up and asking my parents and my siblings and I if this was okay, and when we would try to explain why it was wrong, they would get upset.

[LaPetiteSoeur]

Huh. I'd never heard of a penitential service like your church's, nunsense! At the parishes I've been to, usually there is a psalm, some readings, then private confession, and then finally a closing prayer and psalm.

[faithcecelia]

[quote name='MissScripture' timestamp='1323835900' post='2350970']
I really find it amusing when their is the option of the screen when it's by appointment (yes, I've been given this option). Um, Father, pretty sure you know who is back here! lol
[/quote]


I actually tend to do this if I have to ask specifically, I find it easier to be absolutely honest if I cannot look at the priest and know he is not looking at me.

[Little Flower]

[quote name='EmilyAnn' timestamp='1323790254' post='2350371']
The only time general absolution without individual confessions is if there is a grave situation and the priest does not have time to take all individual confessions ie. in danger of death.
[/quote]
yeah that was my understanding too

[cmaD2006]

[quote name='faithcecelia' timestamp='1323847211' post='2351101']


I actually tend to do this if I have to ask specifically, I find it easier to be absolutely honest if I cannot look at the priest and know he is not looking at me.
[/quote]

I've gotten to the point that I rather be face to face. Most of the times my confessor is my spiritual director, and if I can't be absolutely honest with him then I need to find a new spiritual director/confessor .

Having said that -- I usually do NOT go to a priest who I have not gone to confession to, or at least have some sense of who he is. I've had some bad experiences. One priest (when I was a newbee in the Church) grilled me about my preparation when I froze and couldn't think of how to start. Then proceded to give me absolution when I hadn't confessed a single thing yet! God bless him ... and have mercy on his soul (he passed away a number of years ago)

With that experience, I will much rather suffer through saying something embarassing to a priest I know than to one that I don't.

[faithcecelia]

[quote name='cmariadiaz' timestamp='1324016545' post='2352088']

One priest (when I was a newbee in the Church) grilled me about my preparation when I froze and couldn't think of how to start. Then proceded to give me absolution when I hadn't confessed a single thing yet! God bless him ... and have mercy on his soul (he passed away a number of years ago)

With that experience, I will much rather suffer through saying something embarassing to a priest I know than to one that I don't.
[/quote]

I actually had one time when I just cried and cried and cried - like you, I didn't actually say anything - and was given absolution. I came out quite stressed as I didn't know of it was valid or not. I asked a couple of people ( another priest and my novice mistress) and was told it was absolutely valid - the priest stands in place of God,God knows that the tears or frozen silence is not intentional witholding of the sins and knows what you are actually confessing when that happens.

[Nunsense]

I have had such different experiences in Confession, priests are all so different. At one charismatic community, in a face-to-face Confession, the priest actually stood up and placed his hands on top of my head and prayed. I felt such energy pour through me and I cried. Then he stopped and we finished off with Confession and Absolution and I left feeling so cleansed.

At another Confession, I went to this elderly priest, who was always so gentle with me. I wasn't feeling particularly sinful or repentant, but he became almost stern and gave me such a dressing down so I realised that I must have allowed myself to become complacent about my sins, as if they weren't important because they were just small ones. I felt as if God Himself were speaking to me through this priest and I started crying (I cry a lot). As soon as I felt repentant, the priest's demeanor changed and he became kinder again. That was amazing for me.

It has been wonderful to go all over the world and experience so many different priests, knowing all the time that I am really confessing to God and He is the one forgiving my sins.

[BG45]

I went to one the other day where one priest was a Vladimir Putin lookalike. I actually said "Please God, don't let me get Putin. I don't think I'd be able to confess my sins without cracking up."

I ended up with the priest for that specific parish, right after he had like 9 kiddos. Before we started it was like, "oh good a big person". I guess my gaze subconsciously slid to my belly because the next words out of his mouth were, "OH! OH NO! I MEANT AS IN AN ADULT PERSON! I WASN'T INSULTING YOU! No, I save the offensive stuff for people who don't want to properly face their sins. So...shall we begin?"

[Byzantine]

My school does a penance service during Advent and Lent. It basically goes like this:

Enter priests.
Group examination of conscience.
Group Act of Contrition.
Individual Confessions.

They say it puts positive peer pressure on people to go to Confession. I don't think they've even implied that your sins are all forgiven without the individual Confession.
The Byzantine Small Compline includes a Service of Mutual Forgiveness for after the final blessing. I've only been at two that weren't celebrated by a young priest (one of the times in question was pretty awful, the other was so-so. Compline is really a service of the youth in my Church). It's a really moving thing to see one of my friends in their twenties or thirties bow before the entire community and ask their forgiveness. And it's even more moving to bow with other teenagers and ask for his forgiveness. So wonderful!

[fides' Jack]

Well, my personal opinion is that I would never want to be included in such a service.

In this diocese, when they have a "community reconciliation service," they pick a parish, and a dozen or so priests are there in different corners, and lines form going to each of them, for people to have individual confessions. That's about as liberal with the sacrament that I'd ever like to see.

As far as general absolution goes, yes, it's only allowed in life-or-death cases. Otherwise, it's illicit. I believe it would still be valid, but I also believe (could be wrong) that the priest himself would be guilty of a mortal sin of sacrilege. So that would apply to any priest who gives the idea that a "community reconciliation service" is enough, or to any priest who says during such a ceremony that the people there are absolved (as he cannot know without an individual confession whether somebody has sinned mortally).

On the other hand, I kind of like the idea of confessing sins publicly. After all, that's how they did it in the early Church, and in the end, everyone will know everyone else's sins anyway.

I will pray for the priest who gave absolution this way, and for the people he (perhaps unintentionally) led astray...

[cmotherofpirl]

I have only seen a general absolution once, during the Three Mile Island incident here in PA. I wasn't scared about radiation until then.