In which I confessed and the priest laughed

My first confession didn't go how I thought it would. At the time I was angry. Now I'm so thankful I could burst.

He clutched the too-long polyester sleeves of his white alb in his knotted hands, his stately nose spotted by age and dripping audibly. Drip, drip, sniff.

In the movies, I’d always seen confession as this incense-scented sacred thing—done behind grates that dappled light from stained glass onto repentant faces, in hushed and holy silence. My first confession, though, was done in under fluorescent lights in a musty church office, face to face with an elderly Fr. Seamus who pastored St. Ann’s parish, the sounds of nearby traffic wafting in through the age-fogged windows. I sat nervously, fidgeting, wondering how I’d even begin to list my sins. There were so many, after all.

“May God, who has enlightened every heart, help you to know your sins and trust in His mercy.” Fr. Seamus’ gentle brogue brought at least a little romance to the moment, fluorescent lights notwithstanding.

I took a deep breath and delivered my opening statement.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. This is my first confession.”

I tumbled into a torrent of words, listing my (many, many) sins of the mind and of the flesh. All the thoughts of fleshly desire and the thinking about sex when I should have been thinking about the Lord, all the masturbation in highschool, the looking for porn on the channels leaking through on our big box television in our New Jersey basement when I was sixteen. I confessed all the sins of omission, when I could have helped and didn’t, when I could have told someone about God’s love and didn’t, when I could have served at a church function but I chose to sleep in. I felt a bittersweet mixture of angst and relief as I word vomited this jumble of tormented, long-mourned sinfulness of mine out into the musty and dusty air of that little church office before this man I viewed as God’s agent of absolution.

I had become a Catholic on purpose in my twenties, a decision many in my life did not understand. Oddly, perhaps, Catholicism was a sort of liberation for me—at least in part because it provided physical and routine ways of being holy as God was holy. Daily mass, confession, fasting, the rosary. Religion had lived in my head for so long—Catholicism helped it move into my body, and my body move into religion. I’d simultaneously looked forward to and feared this moment for the entire two years I’d been preparing to enter the church; in my imaginings, it was the moment that I’d finally feel forgiven by God for everything I had ever done and not done. My fixation on my failures was real, and lifelong; I’d later be diagnosed with something called scrupulosity, or religious OCD, but in my early twenties in that old office I still believed all the guilt and shame I carried was a healthy, normal way to feel, and that the only thing that could save me from it was the absolution I was seeking from the Church.

Imagine my chagrin when, instead of continuing with the rite, Fr. Seamus just laughed. Laughed, I tell you. He chuckled hard and wiped his dripping old nose and said “Well, my goodness. You’ve been really worried!”

I would have been angry if I hadn’t been so surprised.

I had wanted him to bow his head in amazement, take in just how much real and terrible guilt I was carrying, and validate how awful it all was. And then, just when I felt I’d die from shame, I wanted him to say the words I’d been waiting to hear.

“God the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins; through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

He did say it, eventually, of course. But not until after he laughed long and lovingly at my fervent, guilt-soaked list of minor infractions. I had never even kissed another person. I had stolen a few coins from a babysitter in my teens and told a few small lies to my parents, but largely I’d just kind of been compliant and careful and reeeeally worried about everything.

At the time, I didn’t understand this at all. I even told a few people how disappointed I was. I didn’t feel any better afterward, and it certainly hadn’t been the sacred and romantic scene I’d hoped for.

These days I think of Fr. Seamus’ chuckle often and with deep gratitude. I imagine he hasn’t thought of it since, and he’s probably passed on now. On the other side of so much healing, with a much quieter mind and happier heart, I can laugh at myself too.

Confession is a beautiful thing. Maybe it’s not as much about absolution from a representative of God as it is about the speaking aloud of the things we are carrying, and the power of someone witnessing it compassionately. Fr. Seamus’ laughter and love were all the absolution I needed.

XO,

Audrey