I seldom cry at confession. Actually I don’t ever recall from recent memory that I cried at all during confession. That heavy contrite feeling? Sure, but cry? No never. And yet today is the first time I cried. I broke down and sobbed as I confessed my sins for the first time. I felt truly sorrowful, ashamed and especially guilty for taking His mercy for granted so many times.
Maybe it was the priest, maybe it was that moment of grace. Maybe it was the spirit, whatever it was, today was a special day. The day I really wanted to come back to my Father.
There was nothing supernatural about this encounter. No internal locutions or voices in my head from God. I have this tendency to go for confession whenever I commit a mortal sin and this time around I needed to go within a span of 1 week. Sometimes it happens and usually I would find myself in line for confession pretty easily. God is merciful that way I suppose.
But not today. After finishing my morning meeting, I decided I would make my usual penitential visit to novena church just before the lunch time mass. I would need to be early, like 45 mins before mass even starts if I wanted a shot at getting absolution.
I arrived around 11:40 but to my joy, both lights at the confessional booths
was on. Yes! I would be able to go for confession and be healed. I prepared myself by listening to Gabi’s video on confession
It was the perfect video for me to listen to as I prepared my heart, this time seriously for God. I felt I needed to come home, especially after all we had gone through in our second scrutiny, it left me spiritually drained, kinda like Elijah defeating the false prophets and running away to the cave to find respite.
Time was ticking and I still felt confident I would make it – two priests on a week day confessional is a rare treat. But to my dismay, as soon as mass started, the second priest who was not celebrating mass also closed shop. I felt sad as I was just the 3rd person in line.
So close, yet so far.
I decided anyway to attend mass this time. Usually I don’t after confession as I usually leave earlier for confession so in a way I would skip mass so I could get back to work earlier. But today was different I felt. I just wanted to be in God’s presence. Just for once, surrender my time to Him and let him minister to me.
With mass over I resumed back to work and I told myself I would go confession at St Peter’s and Paul in the evening. The carmalites are great confessors and I would be able to make a good one with one of them. And so around 4:30 after working and staying focus I packed up my backpack and took the train to church. To my dismay, once again I was denied confession as I completely forgot that they don’t hear confessions on Thursday evenings.
And today was Thursday.
Sad I felt dejected – I really wanted to reconcile with my father, to just be healed. To be in a state of grace. And so I tried my last resort to visit St Joseph’s church, which is just a stones throw away from SPP.
I reached the church around 5:30 and upon checking the website, I found that they offered daily confessions 45 minutes before daily mass. But the issue was I was new to this church and had never gone for confession here. As such, I didn’t know where the confessional was. And so I decided to wait until 5:45 and ask someone where was the confessional and was promptly escorted to the location. Once again, a massive queue – at least 10-12 people infront of me. I took my seat and hoped that a priest would hear my confession.
It was at that moment I realised how precious confessions are. And how I took them for granted all this while. The grace of God is so precious, his mercy is invaluable. I felt guilty, truly guilty for this. I even weep as I type this because of this true contrite in my heart.
But God is faithful. Once again two priests were in the confsssional so the line could move quickly – both these were Opus Dei priests, which mean from past experience encountering with them, they are wonderful confessors and will take the time to hear you out, which means the confessions will be longer.
But I felt God led me here. To the Opus Dei fathers. And i wanted to make a solid heartfelt confession this time, even if it had only been a week, I wanted to just make this sincere one, and what better way than to confess to an OD priest of all priests.
And so my turn finally came, just 2 minutes before mass would start. I went in and knelt and just started my confession and began to weep. I wept because I knew what I had done all this while was wrong. I wept because for the first time, for the first time ever in recent memory, I knew I had offended God and took Him for granted. I had abused the sacraments in some ways for my own advantage and selfish reasons.
And I felt contrite and cut to the heart when I realised I couldn’t go for confession today so easily. The priest was wonderful and patient. While I can’t remember everything he said, the words he spoke was truly from God because he asked me about prayer life – which was no coincidence because as I was queueing up I felt convicted that I needed to take prayer life seriously – the norms of piety came to mind, and I found myself thinking that I needed this back in my life – a plan of life for my spiritual gameplan. And to hear the priest also talk about finding time to pray and asking me specific questions (a trademark of OD priests) I knew this was truly the Spirit working. And hence the breakdown and me crying in the confessional. We spoke abit about what I pray for usually – family, my anxieties at work – to which he asked me to continue setting time for prayer. It was a beautiful and liberating confession I must say.
I will never forget this day ever. It was just an orindary day – feast day of St Barnabas if that even matters, but just an ordinary day – no spiritual high, in fact it was spiritual desolation after that scrutiny. I felt so hollow and empty. But yet it’s in the ordinary that Dad shows up, to tell me how much he loves me, that He has not forgotten me.
I will never forget this day.
