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Four priests on the ‘life-changing’ beauty of reconciliation
April 1, 2019
Christina Gray
Every Tuesday evening since Ash Wednesday, confessional lights have been blinking in parishes all around the Archdiocese of San Francisco as part of “The Light is On for You” campaign.
The Lenten campaign, originated in the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., and the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, a decade ago and adopted by other dioceses since, is designed to encourage the faithful to go to confession. By offering the sacrament of reconciliation at a universal time frame in all parishes – mostly 6-8 p.m. – and a website with a step-by-step guide including prayers and preparatory tools for the examination of one’s conscience, the idea is to make confession more accessible and approachable for more people.
Catholic San Francisco talked to four parish priests about the fruits of the sacrament of reconciliation and penance. While each shared a unique perspective, all agreed that the sacrament can be spiritually transformative and encouraged more Catholics to make it a part of their lives.
‘It is like God opening up the shades of my soul and letting the light in more clearly.’
Father Cameron Faller, Parochial vicar, Church of the Epiphany, San Francisco
Father Cameron Faller, whose first assignment as a young priest in 2015 was as chaplain at Archbishop Riordan High School, credits the sacrament for a “turnaround” in how he used to see things and “how I used to live and act” as a young college student.
“I saw things slowly turn around when I started going more frequently to confession and being more honest there,” he said. “That’s why I have a desire to talk about it and pass it on to people.”
Father Faller said the “healing” aspect of confession sometimes gets lost or confused by people.
“It’s not just like I’m a wicked person and I’ve got these terrible sins that I need a dictator God to give me pardon for,” he said. “I’m a human being who struggles to do the right thing or to see things correctly or to have the right heart in certain situations. I need God’s healing mercy not just to forgive my sins but to make me a better person.”
Father Faller said going to confession, which he said is what makes for a good confessor, has been “like God opening up the shades of my soul and letting the light in more clearly.”
Sin blinds us, he said, but confession can “slowly remove the blinds so we can see ourselves and our relationships more clearly.”
Father Faller said that he didn’t have the “amazing confession moment” some people have and calls the sacrament a “slow-working process.”
“I think that one of the things that Catholics struggle with today is the desire for instant gratification in a spiritual experience,” he said.
God does sometimes give us a profound spiritual experience, Father Faller said, but it doesn’t mean the sacrament isn’t having an effect if you don’t have one.
“It’s not a one-shot experience,” he said. “I’ve seen the beauty of confession, but it’s been over time in my life.”
‘The more you ask for forgiveness, the more you become a forgiving person.’Father Mike Quinn,
Pastor, St. Mary Star of the Sea, Sausalito
What new priests fear even more than making a mistake during Mass is not being a good confessor, Father Mike Quinn said.
“It’s because there are no ‘do-overs,’” he said. “You will either be the mouthpiece of God or you will cause the person in the confessional to go away, perhaps forever.”
He said a good confessor “remains true to laws of the church” but not at the expense of a “pastoral sensibility.” He acknowledged that a “bad priest experience” with a confessor who was overly harsh and punitive, disengaged or on “auto pilot” has turned some away from the exceptional “beauty of the sacrament.”
He recalled a childhood priest who prescribed the same three Hail Marys penance for whatever sin he and his brothers confessed. “There was always a long line outside his confessional,” he laughed.
At his Marin County parish, Father Quinn normally hears confessions two days a week from 3-5 p.m. He said the clergy sex abuses crises over the last 20 years have likely only added to other factors that keep Catholics away from the confessional.
Father Quinn said Catholics who don’t make confession a regular part of their faith life are “denying themselves the spiritual refreshment” of the sacrament.
“The more you ask for forgiveness, the more you become a forgiving person,” he said. God’s forgiveness is “an awesome realization to think about,” he said, a “gift” that depends upon a person’s sincere contrition, not upon their “worthiness.”
He recalled the deathbed confession of a person who had committed a “grave mortal sin” earlier in life, had already confessed it and done penance for it but felt the need to confess it again at the end of life.
“I came to the realization that one thing we need to do a little better perhaps, is impart the knowledge that if God forgives you, let it go,” Father Quinn said. “Once you’re forgiven, you’re forgiven.”
A guilty conscience is like “carrying a big bag of rocks,” he said. “Forgiveness unbinds us from the past so that we live fully in the present and to anticipate with joy the future.”
‘Being honest in naming our sins allows us to really let them go.’Father Felix Lim,
Pastor, St. Anthony of Padua Parish, Novato
Father Felix Lim says there should be no hemming and hawing when it comes to making a good confession “Lay it all out there.”
There is nothing you can say to a priest that he probably hasn’t heard before, he said, and naming our sins allows us to really let them go.
“Leave no stone unturned,” Father Lim said. “Remember Jesus has seen this all anyway and he’s really the person that we’re telling those sins to.”
Father Lim said that a good confession is brief out of courtesy for the confessor and other penitents waiting for their confessor, but mostly because it helps us state our sins more directly.
“Sometimes we draw a really long story because we actually don’t want to say a sin or we’re even trying to justify it,” he said. “As much as the priest loves us, cares about us and wants to forgive us, they’re probably not interested in all the ins and outs of why I lied to my mom.”
He said “getting it out there” without a back story actually feels better anyway and can reduce anxiety.
Finally, said Father Lim, “Be forgiven.” When the priest says those words, “I absolve you of all your sins,” Jesus has forgiven us.
“We are washed and made new, provided we have not withheld any sins,” he said. “We are now a new creation, we are washed clean and so we’ve got to move on.”
If you find yourself tripping into some of those same sins, he said, go back to the sacrament. “Make it a habit.”
‘Confessing run-of-the-mill sins is like preventative medicine.’Father Larry Goode,
Pastor, St. Francis of Assisi Parish, East Palo Alto
In a letter to Catholic San Francisco, Father Goode wrote that “for many Catholics, there are only six sacraments.”
“They receive Communion every week without even thinking about confession – not even Easter duty once a year or even for many years,” he said. “I encourage people to confess frequently, at least once a month, because after a month you begin to forget, to get used to, and to do the same thing over and over.”
Father Goode said we tend to offend most with our sins the people that we love most, “which doesn’t make any sense.”
Father Goode relies on his own weekly confession to be a good confessor himself.
“Confession helps me to get along with the people in my life. It challenges me to love more, to be more thoughtful of others and less concerned with my own needs,” he said.
Like anyone, he prepares for a good confession by examining his conscience each night. “That way I get to know my dominant faults, things that keep coming up because it’s who I am,” he said. In the morning he resolves not to repeat the failures of the day before.
“I may have to outsmart myself in order to get the best of my dominant faults,” he said. “They don’t just go away.”
He also relies on what he calls the “Joe Morgan Method,” a method the San Francisco Giants player used to become the most valuable player two years in a row. After each game, Morgan found a quiet place in the clubhouse where he evaluated the game in his mind. He looked at the good things so he could keep doing them and the bad things so he could avoid them.
“This method helps me overcome anything or to accomplish anything with the grace of God,” Father Goode said. “I know clearly what my greatest weakness is.”
With men young and old, porn, drugs and alcohol abuse are big problem areas, he said. With married men and women, infidelity and birth control can be. All should confess failing to attend Mass.
“If the children don’t have a ride to Mass I encourage them to ‘bug’ their parents as they would if they wanted to go to a party or a movie or a sports event,” he said. For those who don’t feel they have “big” sins to confess, Father Goode said confessing “run-of-the-mill” sins can be like “preventative medicine.”
“This can help us to grow in union with Christ,” he said.