November 30, 2005

Forgive me, Father.

My daughter has her first confession next week. I think she's nervous. It's going to be a family reconciliation mass, so we all get to go to confession. Sweet. That's sarcasm, by the way. However, because we will all be saying the Act of Contrition before going into confession, I won't have to worry about remembering/ forgetting it in front of the priest, which is basically where all my anxiety lies in going to confession. I don't go to confession often. In fact, I can't tell you the last time I went to confession. It doesn't really bother me to bare my soul to the priest, but I feel like a fraud in some ways. I feel sorry for my sins because I'm supposed to but not because I really, really, personally feel sorry for my sins. I know when I'm doing something that's not nice or good before I do it. I've already had the opportunity to change my behavior before the fact and I've chosen to do the "wrong" thing, regardless. So to go in after the fact and confess seems two-faced to me. Plus God knows what the real deal is. The priest doesn't. Am I really forgiven? I don't know. However, I am going to go to a priest that's not assigned to our church. The priests I see every week don't need to know my business.

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