OSV Newsweekly 12/3/2014
“Going to confession is hard — hard when you have sins to confess and hard when you haven’t,” Dorothy Day famously wrote in her autobiography’s introduction.
Judith Babarsky, however, wasn’t intimidated by her first confession when she joined the Catholic Church in 2012, and she doesn’t dread it now.
“For me, there really isn’t that anxiety or that fear. Part of it is that I’m a therapist, and I’ve been in therapy myself,” she said. “I’m comfortable talking about my weaknesses, about faults.”
A licensed professional counselor in northern Virginia, Babarsky tries to receive the sacrament of reconciliation every two to three weeks. In September, she blogged about the sacrament in a post titled “Why I Love Confession.” “It is perhaps the greatest benefit of being Catholic,” she wrote.
Some Catholics see confession as an aspect of a “full, vibrant, Catholic life,” said Msgr.Batule
Othe r Catholics, he said, find confession difficult because they’re unsure of how to examine their conscience, erroneously viewing sin as a remote concept. Msgr Batule
However, Msgr.Batule
“There’s a need for the healing of the human spirit, which has been wounded,” he said. “Oftentimes, thewounds
A sinner’s haven
Twenty miles west of Msgr.Batule’s
Franciscan friars hear 44 hours of confessions there each week, but the parishalso offers
The church’s close proximity to Pennsylvania Station, Madison Square Garden and Macy’s puts it at the confluence of people from all walks of life, many of whom seek out St. Francis’ friars.
“We’ve gained a reputation for being good confessors, in that we’re kind and thoughtful to people,” said Father Andrew Reitz, a Franciscan friar and St. Francis’ pastor. “They know that we hear everything, so they know they probably won’t shock us with what they say.”
Penitents range from those who confess weekly to those who have been away from the sacrament for decades.
Father Reitz said people whofear confession
As he and the other friars see fit, they refer penitents to counseling, and those in counseling to the confessional. Sometimes, Father Reitz added, people need to understand that God has forgiven them, and they have to forgive themselves. “A good spirituality helps you have a good psychology, and a good psychology helps you have a good spirituality,” he said.
Facing fears
Babarsky
“It takes a certain amount of introspection to make good use of therapy, but also to make a good confession,” she said. Frequent penitents are compelled to move beyond a childlike listing of concrete sins, she said, to examining what keeps them from holiness.
“It takes a desire to be as holy as you can, a desire to be a saint,” she said. “I think the theology of confession is misunderstood by a lot of people.”
She pointed to “The Light is On For You,” a widespread Lenten initiative that began in the Archdiocese of Washington and the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, as something that draws people back to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. She also thinks it helpful for pastorsto remind
“It’s the same thing I get as a therapist,” she said. “If they think that their darkest sins are unique to them, I’m
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Catholics are obligated to confess once a year or whenever they’ve committed mortal sin. In Babarksy’s experience, converts to the Faith seem more enthusiastic about confession than cradle Catholics, in part because it’s fresh.
“It’s like, ‘Wow, this is a gift; if I had only known this sooner,’” she said. “Through the conversion, I learned the dogma, the theology behind confession, and know it’s not the priest, the man sitting there, that’s absolving me of sin. It’s Christ, and the priest standing in for that.”
Listening to Matthew Kelly’s CD, “The Seven Pillars of Catholic Spirituality,” convinced her to confess biweekly. “You may not have huge, mortal sins to confess every time, but it lined up with what Matthew Kelly was saying — How often do you wash your car? It’s like getting a fresh start,” she said. “It’s washing your soul, getting the little stains off.”
Maria Wiering writes from Maryland.
“Going to confession is hard — hard when you have sins to confess and hard when you haven’t,” Dorothy Day famously wrote in her autobiography’s introduction.
Judith Babarsky, however, wasn’t intimidated by her first confession when she joined the Catholic Church in 2012, and she doesn’t dread it now.
“For me, there really isn’t that anxiety or that fear. Part of it is that I’m a therapist, and I’ve been in therapy myself,” she said. “I’m comfortable talking about my weaknesses, about faults.”
A licensed professional counselor in northern Virginia, Babarsky tries to receive the sacrament of reconciliation every two to three weeks. In September, she blogged about the sacrament in a post titled “Why I Love Confession.” “It is perhaps the greatest benefit of being Catholic,” she wrote.
Some Catholics see confession as an aspect of a “full, vibrant, Catholic life,” said Msgr.
However, Msgr.
“There’s a need for the healing of the human spirit, which has been wounded,” he said. “Oftentimes, the
A sinner’s haven
Twenty miles west of Msgr.
Franciscan friars hear 44 hours of confessions there each week, but the parish
The church’s close proximity to Pennsylvania Station, Madison Square Garden and Macy’s puts it at the confluence of people from all walks of life, many of whom seek out St. Francis’ friars.
“We’ve gained a reputation for being good confessors, in that we’re kind and thoughtful to people,” said Father Andrew Reitz, a Franciscan friar and St. Francis’ pastor. “They know that we hear everything, so they know they probably won’t shock us with what they say.”
Penitents range from those who confess weekly to those who have been away from the sacrament for decades.
Father Reitz said people who
As he and the other friars see fit, they refer penitents to counseling, and those in counseling to the confessional. Sometimes, Father Reitz added, people need to understand that God has forgiven them, and they have to forgive themselves. “A good spirituality helps you have a good psychology, and a good psychology helps you have a good spirituality,” he said.
Facing fears
“It takes a certain amount of introspection to make good use of therapy, but also to make a good confession,” she said. Frequent penitents are compelled to move beyond a childlike listing of concrete sins, she said, to examining what keeps them from holiness.
“It takes a desire to be as holy as you can, a desire to be a saint,” she said. “I think the theology of confession is misunderstood by a lot of people.”
She pointed to “The Light is On For You,” a widespread Lenten initiative that began in the Archdiocese of Washington and the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, as something that draws people back to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. She also thinks it helpful for pastors
“It’s the same thing I get as a therapist,” she said. “If they think that their darkest sins are unique to them, I
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Catholics are obligated to confess once a year or whenever they’ve committed mortal sin. In Babarksy’s experience, converts to the Faith seem more enthusiastic about confession than cradle Catholics, in part because it’s fresh.
“It’s like, ‘Wow, this is a gift; if I had only known this sooner,’” she said. “Through the conversion, I learned the dogma, the theology behind confession, and know it’s not the priest, the man sitting there, that’s absolving me of sin. It’s Christ, and the priest standing in for that.”
Listening to Matthew Kelly’s CD, “The Seven Pillars of Catholic Spirituality,” convinced her to confess biweekly. “You may not have huge, mortal sins to confess every time, but it lined up with what Matthew Kelly was saying — How often do you wash your car? It’s like getting a fresh start,” she said. “It’s washing your soul, getting the little stains off.”
Maria Wiering writes from Maryland.