Almost every day in this diocese, someone goes to confession.
With the exception of Easter Sunday and Christmas Day, the sacrament of reconciliation is offered daily at four parishes in Columbus thanks to the dedication of religious order priests.
Daily confessions are heard on Sundays through Saturdays at Columbus St. Patrick Church, which is staffed by the Dominican Friars; Columbus Holy Family Church, where the Mercedarian Friars took up residence earlier this year; Columbus St. Christopher Church, at which two Pallottine Fathers serve; and Columbus St. Leo the Great Oratory, which is an apostolate of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest order dedicated to the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass and sacraments.
The start of Holy Week on Palm Sunday brings more Catholics to confession at these churches and other parishes, in part to fulfill a recommendation from the Church to receive the sacrament at least once a year.
To help facilitate opportunities to find a church where a priest or priests are hearing confessions during Holy Week, the diocese in 2021 launched Reconciliation Monday, which takes place this year on April 11. Parish websites, social media and bulletins in your area will provide times and locations.
“I think it’s great the diocese has chosen Monday of Holy Week to have the reconciliation service so that people know that at least there’s one day that no matter where I live I can go,” said Father Stephen Alcott, OP, pastor at St. Patrick Church. “Another great value to confession is that for most Catholics these days, they rarely talk to a priest one on one.
“It used to be that everyone had a spiritual director, but when there’s one priest and 3,000 people, there’s just no way you can be the spiritual director for 3,000 people. So confession often ends up being the only time that someone could just ask a basic question about a struggle they’re having or a difficulty. That might be the closest they ever come to get some individual direction outside of that.”
In the not-too-distant past, Catholics sometimes struggled to find a church where confession was offered more than a half-hour on a Saturday afternoon before a weekend vigil Mass. That might have caused some Catholics to think that the Church had de-emphasized the sacrament, but in actuality the limited schedule was more a function of a shortage of priests.
In that sense, the religious order priests have filled a void by providing a wider variety of days and times.
At St. Patrick in downtown Columbus, two priests normally hear daily confessions after the 11:45 a.m. Mass. That has been the case for years, and the lines are long each day, sometimes streaming out the door into the gallery between the church and parish offices. The Dominican fathers are also available before five weekend Masses.
“Many Dominicans will say the success of our preaching (as the Order of Preachers) is often determined by whether it moves people into that conversion of heart that often is manifested in confession by going to receive the sacrament of reconciliation,” Father Alcott said. “So confession is connected with preaching and conversion.
“And with multiple priests here, we really see this as one way that we can help other parishes that are not able to offer confession as often, and people who work downtown can make it easily in the middle of the day. It’s a good thing because, as we all know, our need for mercy doesn’t happen on a regular schedule necessarily. We can fall at any time.”
At St. Christopher, the Pallottine Fathers make the sacrament available from 3 to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, while the Chaplet of Divine Mercy is prayed and the Blessed Sacrament is exposed for Adoration, and Mass follows at 4. On weekends, reconciliation starts 30 minutes before each Mass.
Pallottine Father Wojciech Stachura, the pastor at St. Christopher, stressed the importance of giving Catholics the chance to have their sins absolved. He said attendance at the weekday Holy Hour has picked up to around 20-30 people, who come from various parishes, since it was instituted in fall 2020.
“Today, we know there is definitely more evil in the world, and people don’t really realize how many bad things are going on,” he said. “So we need to belong to God 100 percent. Ninety-nine percent is not good enough, and without a clean heart and mind, people would be lost. And many times confession brings them peace in their hearts.”
The two Mercedarian priests arrived at Holy Family in January. They are currently assisting Father Stash Dailey, the parish pastor and the diocese’s vicar for religious. Reconciliation is offered before the 12:15 p.m. Mass Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. Saturday Mass and weekend Masses.
Mercedarian Father Michael Donovan, O.deM., has noticed a resurgence in young people taking advantage of the sacrament, which serves as a powerful witness to peers and even older adults.
“What I think is happening is, the people in the pews, the older people in the pews who are sitting there and seeing all these young people going to confession, I think it’s causing them to think, ‘Maybe it’s time for me to go to confession as well,’” he said. “Because when we see one another doing something, I think it inspires us to go to confession.”
The Mercedarians trace their devotion to offering confession to the purpose of the founding of their order in 1272 to liberate enslaved and captive Christians.
“We try to see ourselves in places where Catholics are in a surrounding environment where they could lose their faith or it could be compromised,” Father Donovan said. “So if you think about it, the sacrament of confession is about the forgiveness of sins, but it’s so much more. It is about liberation and freedom, spiritual liberation and freedom.
“Often when we think of the redemption of Jesus, what He wanted for us on the cross, it’s about the forgiveness of sins and the saving grace from going for help. In other words, Jesus redeemed us and merited for us the grace so that we wouldn’t have to be enslaved to our passions even though we continue to battle with ourselves with temptation and passion. We don’t have to be slave to that. And the sacrament of confession gives us that grace to live in the freedom that Christ won for us.
“So I guess that’s why we feel that as Mercedarians a desire to want to make the sacrament available as much as we can so it just continues on from that original ministry of not necessarily physical slavery but the slavery of sin.”
At St. Leo in the Merion Village area of Columbus, Canon David Silvey hears confessions before noon Mass on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; 7 p.m. Mass on Tuesdays and Thursdays; 9 a.m. Saturday Mass; and on Sundays.
Why do we shun confession?
What causes people to shy away from frequenting the confessional? For one, there’s a rather common misconception that the sacrament of penance, as it is also called, should be reserved for serious or mortal sins. Others argue that they don’t need to confess failings to a priest but simply apologize to God on their own.
The Church teaches, however, that the priest acts in persona Christi, or as Christ’s human representative on earth, to hear confessions and offer counsel and absolution.
“It doesn’t matter, venial sins or mortal sins. They must be confessed,” Father Stachura said. “Even if you don’t feel you’re a sinner, you still need advice. And with a spiritual director, you can discuss your spiritual life and how you are doing going forward and deepen your relationship with Christ.”
Father Alcott has often felt the power of Christ working through him in the confessional.
“I tell people, it’s one of the most important things I do as a priest,” he said. “You’re meeting a person who actually tells you where they are, where their soul is, and as a priest you’re trying to reach people with deep needs for God or conversion of life.”
In interviews with priests at three of the parishes that offer daily confessions, the fathers all agreed that absolving sins through the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is one of the most powerful parts of their ministry.
“It’s very humbling, and it’s hard to overestimate the importance that can have for people,” Father Alcott said. “Many priests will tell you they feel like the bystander when something wonderful is happening. I’m saying the words of absolution, but it’s Christ who’s really speaking through you.
“And many priests will say after we give someone some advice or counsel, ‘Wait, where did that come from?’ You know if that was the Holy Spirit at work.”
How often should you go?
Father Stachura pointed out that Pope St. John Paul II made a weekly confession while serving as pontiff, and it makes sense to try to seek out the graces gained from absolution. “If he went to confession every week,” Father Stachura said, “then why are we supposed to stay away from confession?
“Some people come every two weeks, and some people need it every week. Most of them come on first Friday or first Saturday.”
“I would say that frequent confession is something very necessary for all of us because all of us, no matter what our vocation is, we’re called to ongoing conversion,” Father Donovan said. “And the sacrament of penance is one of the greatest supports we have to that ongoing conversion.
“We know when we go to the sacrament of penance, what it does is, it gives us a sensitive conscience. Not a scrupulous conscience, but a sensitive conscience. It helps us to examine our lives more deeply. Like those big lights that are in a theater that are put on the actors, it’s like what the Holy Spirit does – holds the light of Christ into an area of our life, and holds it there until we get it all cleaned up. Then I’ll move it on to another area.”
“A good rule of thumb is once a month,” Father Alcott offered. “But that can really change depending on the person and what they need. I think it should be often enough that you can make an examination of your conscience and remember what you need to bring. There is a sense of accountability and that you’re receiving that grace you need for your conversion of life.”
Benefits of regular confession
“It’s true that we can have our venial sins forgiven in other ways than by confession,” Father Alcott said. “Just making a very good Act of Contrition can forgive your sins. But even for venial sins, it’s a time-honored tradition of the church to have a regular time of confession. For one thing, there are graces that come through the sacrament to give us that strength to keep going. And having accountability is important.
“Another way to look at it is that if we commit lesser sins and we become habituated to them, then we can kind of lose our conscience, and it can become easier to move on to bigger sins. As one priest put it, none of our souls is ever pure, and we want to have the opportunity to make them as pure as we can. If we have that regular cleaning, it really helps us see things in truth.”
Make a good confession
Father Donovan suggested asking the Holy Spirit for help before going to confession.
“There are so many ways to examine our conscience,” he said. “We can examine our conscience against the 10 Commandments or the Beatitudes or the seven capital sins, the precepts of the Church. Those are good guidelines to help us.
“But after we’ve done that, what we need to do before even going to approach the priest is to take the time to check in with our heart to make sure we’re sincerely sorry, and that we also have a sincere purpose of amendment.
“That is not like a promise like, ‘God, I promise you I’m never going to sin again.’ Yes, we can make that promise. But it’s a sincere admission, a sincere statement that I’m going to try my best with the help of Your graces to sin no more and to work toward that.”
“One of the simplest examinations is the two great commandments: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and all your strength, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” Father Alcott said.
“A good thing about regular confession is, you tend to learn pretty quickly the areas where you struggle.”
Graces from reconciliation
In addition to removing the stains of sin that could one day endanger a soul from reaching the eternal reward of heaven, “I always say a good thing about frequent confession is that frequent confession causes our reception of communion to be even more fruitful because the confession removes any blockage that might be there,” Father Donovan explained.
“Even if we’re not talking about serious or mortal sins, confession removes those venial sins so that the fruit of communion could be more abundant.”
