Reconciliation

I hate confession.

Confession stinks. Confession is awful. Confession hurts. It's like having your guts ripped out. It's like having your brain squeezed out through your eyeballs. Emotional surgery with no anesthetic. It's just so hard. "Forgive me, please." It's not just "I'm sorry." It's "I'm sorry for this, and for that, and for this, and for that..."

Hell is a fiery inferno of eternal torture. Hell is other people. Or Hell is the state of existence that involves the total absence of God's presence. The last is the one that the Church has gravitated to recently. Reconciliation is what eliminates this distance, both in this life and the next.

There was a Reconciliation Mass tonight in Clarendon. I was caught a little off guard. I thought the service itself was what granted reconciliation. But apparently, the service is just an excuse to get everybody together so they can all go to confession. See my first line again, please.

I look around, and there are screens set up with priests' names and the language they can listen to confession in. But the screens are out in the open, with no walls to separate the confessor and the priest from everyone else. And people are lining up for these things! They are insane. The priest I'm going to is behind enclosed wood and glass, I don't care how long the line is.

It's interesting to watch the reactions of people as they come away having finished their confessions. Some are in there briefly, and come out looking happy and satisfied, like it's no big deal. These people are clearly deranged. Some come out wiping their eyes. Others come out looking like they've really been put through the ringer, exhausted and weak. From one woman's body language, you would have thought that she and the priest were discussing welfare reform or flat tax vs. progressive tax. Sniffling coming from behind one of the screens. I wonder what the priest thinks when someone carries tissues with them to confession.

At Mass last week, the priest encouraged everyone to go to the Reconciliation Mass, and that we should not be ashamed to confess our transgressions. I have previously heard one say that people think they are going to shock the priest with what they say, that he will be horrified and disown them when he hears what they have to confess. But priests have heard it all before, he said. However, my point would be "Yes, but he hasn't heard it from me. It's fine if other people can confess this stuff, but that doesn't make it any easier for yours truly."

Let us consider this passage from a pamphlet they have that describes step-by-step the process of confession:

"The penitent speaks to the priest in a normal, conversational fashion. The penitent tells when he or she last celebrated the sacrament and then confesses his or her sins."

That easy, right? They make it sound so nice and calm. A "normal, conversational fashion", as if you're talking about the ride to work on the metro this morning. Tell me what's normal and conversational about spilling your guts to a man of the cloth. I understand that they want to help people get rid of their anxiety (like yours truly), but this seems a bit unrealistic.

Without going into too much detail, let me just say that after a little bit, the guy was able to read me like a book. My problems seemed not so insurmountable. You know why? Because he's probably heard it all before. I am unique as God made me, but my situation has been played and replayed in the world over and over again. This is a common mistake we make when bemoaning our tragedies, that I am the only one who's ever gone through this, and no one can understand my pain. But like I said, he had me pegged dead-on, telling me the things I knew but needed to hear from someone else. For the priest and God, there is nothing new under the sun.

And now, according to the Church, all my sins are gone. Yoink! Never happened. It's like jerking the tablecloth away and leaving the feast on the table. Only lots better.

I love confession.