Confession III

This week, I have stumbled over a post on Fr. Charles's blog, A Minor Friar, that just begs to be shared. The post is on confession of priests, and is wondrously written. The title of the post is simply "Priests at Confession." So that I do not spoil the reading of it for you, I suggest that you just click on the link I have provided and read it in the original for yourself. I am certain that you will enjoy it.

Confession II

Recently, a retreat I had been attending included the opportunity for confession on Saturday evening. There were four priests, one of whom had been ordained 45 days earlier. It was into the hands of this latter priest that I fell.

The confession I brought to him is one I should have taken to my parish priest. However, both he and I had been out of town for two months. The confession I was bringing was weighty, included circumstances well beyond my control, and had serious implications for the future. This, I thought, would be a challenge for a new priest, and, as I spoke, I could see in his eyes a reflection of the overwhelming nature of what I was bringing to him. I began to feel sorry for bringing it, when suddenly his demeanor changed. So did mine. We were not alone.

I remember being frustrated at my first confession because the priest had limited English and was partially deaf. Certain that he had not understood much of what I had said, I complained to God, “He wasn’t listening.” Then, I heard so distinctly as to never again question the sacrament of confession, “I listen.”

So, here I sat with this new priest. I had presented my confession and the reality that lay behind it, and now we were not alone. We were so not alone that I felt like I was talking with God Himself. Maybe I was. If I had had any lingering doubt bout God being present through the priest in the sacrament of confession (I did not -- not after the "I listen" locution), this experience would have extirpated any root of disbelief.

The priest did not give me a penance. He gave ma task. Now, that's exactly what God would do! The task pulled me back onto the path I needed to be on. I guess deep down, no matter how I try to become a Mary, I remain a Martha. The priest did not know that, but God did.

Confession

I am certain that in a lifetime of being Catholic, many people have had one or more rather odd or disconcerting confessions. So, I suppose what happened to me with a priest I shall call Fr. Dan might be typical enough, but for me it has been a unique experience. I have been fortunate in having mostly really good confessors, even those whom I have not known and those who have laughed at me. (I suppose I would laugh at me in the same cases, as well.) This particular confession took place at a retreat I attended that was conducted by Fr. Dan, so, except for our interactions at the retreat, he was unknown to me and I to him. And confession with him took the oddest of turns.

The topic of the retreat was Franciscan spirituality, a popular topic in my part of the world, where the missions here were established by the Franciscans. Our local retreat center is run by the Franciscans, and the convents here are generally Franciscan. So, here I was, an SFO (third order Franciscan) candidate, at a Franciscan retreat center, spending a weekend immersed in learning more about Franciscan spirituality with a Franciscan priest. What could be better? Well, actually, a lot.

At the very first session, Fr. Dan presented a part of St. Francis's bio. In doing so, he interpreted it somewhat differently from what I was used to and made a pronouncement that floored me, kept me puzzled all weekend, and caused me to talk to him separately.

"St. Francis," he said, "never really heard a voice telling him to rebuild God's church. He just thought he did. Obviously, it was something he was thinking about, something that he thought should be done, and so he 'heard' in his mind the words that led to his rebuilding not only San Damiano but the more abstract 'church'."

Say what? St. Francis was confused about what he heard? Convinced that if St. Francis said he heard a voice he really did hear a voice, not a little bolstered by my own experiences and readings of the experiences of St. Theresa of Avila, I approached Fr. Dan during the break and asked him whether he thought that God ever speaks to people in a voice.

"No," he responded. "That's not the way God works."

But what about all those times in the Bible when someone heard the voice of God? Was it only in their minds, too?

"Yes," he said.

"Don't you think that God can choose to speak in a way that people hear?" I asked.

"No," he said curtly. "God is not capable of that."

I do not remember much of the rest of the retreat. In fact, I missed a portion of it because a friend who speaks only Russian had a stroke and I am the only local "family" that she has so I spent some time with her doctors and hospital staff, translating for her. Fr. Dan seemed to understand the urgency of that and forgave my absence for a few hours. While I had difficulty understanding his position on whether or not God speaks to people (ever), I found Fr. Dan to live up to his reputation as charming. Though there was not much of substance in his presentations, there was an obvious attraction between him and the participants. I felt the attraction, too, except for the nagging concern over his comment on the weakness of God and the mistakenness of St. Francis.

The retreat ended with confession and Mass. Mass was fine; Fr. Dan celebrated a lovely Mass. Confession, though, as I noted at the beginning of this post, took the oddest of turns in a way that I could not fathom and still cannot. I related a Jonah-type experience (I do encounter these unwished taskings from time to time that I sometimes try to sidestep initially), in which I had just given in (I always do; when God wants something, God gets it -- at least from me) but was still working on those sticky details, the ones that are along the lines of "Oh, God, do You really want me to do that? Please, not that!" I did not get far, however, when my tongue stopped working. Literally. I could not say another word. I just looked at Fr. Dan silently. Now, typically, one would expect the priest to take over, ask some questions, pull the details out of me, or at least say something. Fr. Dan, however, seemed to have also been struck dumb. He just looked at me. We looked, and we looked. Silently. Maybe for as much as a couple of minutes. (Time passes slowly when you are just looking and not talking, yet wanting to talk.) It was all very strange. Finally, he silently made the sign of the cross over me, and I walked away.

That was over a year ago, and the matter still puzzles me. Were we really struck dumb in some modern version of the meaning of that expression, or had I done or said something wrong? Was there something I should have done that my inexperience precluded me from doing? Why could I not talk? Fr. Dan was a charming priest in general. Disagreement on one small matter (well, maybe not that small a matter, considering that I do hear, aloud, something that seems to be a voice that gives me tasks me that I could never dream up or even want to carry out) should not have created such a barrier. Moreover, why did he not speak? I am inexperienced, but he has been a priest for many years. Certainly, he has heard more complicated things than I was relating.

I have no explanation for what happened. I do not pretend to understand it. I do, however, remain troubled about it. I suppose, though, that if God wants me to understand it, He will send along an explanation at some point in some form. Until then, I simply furrow my brow and continue down that path, you know, the one along which God pushed Jonah.

Voice III

In the early days after my conversion, I heard many things from a Voice that I assumed was God or God through the Holy Spirit, directing, teaching, and, surprisingly, tasking me. While little things, but they were often things that could be confirmed in their authenticity by subsequent events. Here are a couple:

Incident 1

After my first confession, I was frustrated and confused (which, I now freely admit that I had no right to be). The priest to whom I had been assigned – this was a large group set up for all in the parish before Easter – was partially deaf and spoke only Spanish. I probably could have managed communicating with him in Spanish, but with impaired hearing and a non-native accent, he would never have understood me. Not that he understood me in English! So, he gave me ten Our Fathers for a penance, not having understood or perhaps even heard much of what I said. Obviously, I was not in the right frame of mind for any penance to be sincere, and partway through the second iteration of Our Father, I felt myself being pulled by the elbow to the outside of the church. Once outside, I exclaimed, “He didn’t listen. I could have said that I burned down the town and murdered ten priests, and he would have given me the same penance!”

“I listen,” answered the Voice. There can be much communication in just two words!

Of course, since then, I have come to understand better the nature and role of confession, as well as the role of the priest. Having been "instructed" by the Voice, though, I came to that understanding much more quickly than I might have otherwise.

Incident 2

In the early days, I did not know that not everyone heard the Voice as I did. A good friend, in whom I had confided several of my experiences with the Voice, made the comment to me that she did not understand why she could not hear the Voice and wondered if there was something wrong with her. I did not think so, but the next time at prayer, I asked.

“She is fragile,” came the response. I had no idea how to interpret that comment!

Nonetheless, the next time I spoke to her, I told her what I had heard. In a shocked voice, she said words that then shocked me: “I understand completely. I have been diagnosed with Fragile Person Syndrome.” Oh, my! I had no idea what that was, but when she explained it to me, I understood how apt the response had been.

When I first began sharing my experiences with what I call "the Voice" with readers, I was very reluctant to mention these experiences at all, let alone in detail. The response of readers, though, gave me courage to continue sharing, and the fact that I was not alone among those in the blogosphere also gave me courage. However, somewhere along the line, quite recently, I have come to full comfort with this situation. I suppose there have been many things that have fed into that comfort, including learning that others have the same experiences, finding some historical descriptions of similar experiences, and, most important, coming to the realization that it is not my choice how God communicates with me. It is God's choice how He communicates with me or with anyone. The fact that I do not know why He chooses one means of communication for me and other means for others should not trouble me. (It could be as simple as my being too "dense" to "hear" or understand anything more subtle.) I should simply be happy that God is willing to communicate with me. I am.