Confession is something I struggle with. I'm not entirely sure why, but I do. I'm not sure if it's coming from a Mormon upbringing, or just the embarrassment of having to admit your sins out loud. I pray for forgiveness of course, but that's between me and God. Throw a priest in there, and I'm all sorts of nervous.
I have only been to confession 3 times since I joined the Catholic church. Not very good statistics. The first time was the year I was received into the church. The second was after my husband's affair. I was so mad. Mad at my husband for having an affair, mad at God for letting it happen and even madder that I had to go to confession because I was committing some serious sin in my heart because I hated people. I have since avoided confession and mostly church. I hated when I went into my last parish feeling mad. You shouldn't feel MAD when you go to church, so I just quit going. We went occasionally, but I wasn't feeling it.
So I (and my DH) decided for Lent that we would try and be better Catholics. Go to church every Sunday, pray more, talk about church more, etc. So last Saturday, while visiting my parents, we went to confession and mass at the parish in my hometown. I have only been to mass there two or three times and don't know the priest at all, but he was wonderful!
I was talking to him about infertility and he starts explaining to me that his daughter is worried about the same thing. (He was married had 3 children and his wife died of cancer. He then joined the seminary.) We had a good talk about it. He told me to ask St. Joseph for his intercession. His thought was God trusted St. Joseph with his son, maybe St. Joseph could ask God to trust us with one of his children too. He said it a little more eloquently but it made me cry.
He also asked me if I was seeing a doctor for treatment and I told him I was seeing a NaPro doctor. He knew about NaPro. A priest in a small red-neck town new about NaPro. I almost fell out of my chair! Amazing!
After confession, mass was wonderful and I enjoyed it. I felt 20 pounds lighter and happier.
Thank you God!
I struggled with going to confession for a long time too, and I'm a cradle Catholic! Since we started our struggle with IF I have been so much better at going and I always feel so good afterwards (it also helps that I teach kids that receive the sacrament for the first time, I try to practice what I preach!).
ReplyDeleteHow cool that the priest knew about Napro! That's awesome!
I still struggle sometimes! It's just plain hard to have to face (and say out loud to someone else) everything we've done wrong. So glad that it lifted your heart!
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you had such a good experience with it this time!
ReplyDeleteSuch a beautiful post :) I love that priest!!
ReplyDeleteMissed you around here!
Oh my gosh! I had such a similar confession experience...priest who had been married and widowed and then went to seminary with a daughter who has IF and uses Napro. It was my first trip to confession in years and it was such a huge blessing to me.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you had a similar experience!