Jim Cogley: Reflections Tues 17th Oct – Mon 23rd Oct

Confession…

Tue 17^th Oct – Confession – Yesterday and Today

It is very rare to come across a ‘thinking’ Catholic who doesn’t have a problem with Confession. The days of queues outside of confession boxes are long gone and vast numbers have voted with their feet. With the current shortage of priests the availability of confessors is also a factor, but the problem goes much deeper. I would suggest that for the vast majority it simply was not working and that is not in any way to take from the efficacy of the sacrament. Personally, I believe wholeheartedly in the value and need for confession. However, not in the manner in which it was taught and practiced, since further back than I can remember. In the vast majority of confessions there was a distinct disconnection between the content of what was spoken about and what was really happening in that person’s life. Often knowing the person, and the real issues he or she was struggling with, one would expect at least some of those to be given an airing. Again and again this failed to happen, where confessing one’s so called ‘sins’ was easier than to be honest about one’s life.

Wed 18^th Oct – Contributing to our Culture of Secrecy

Today the idea of going into a dark box is fast losing favour and especially among priests. Very few would dream of having children making their first confession in such a box. Nearly fifty years ago a predecessor in a particular church declared the confession box obsolete. He said that before his arrival a rumour had been circulating that the confession box was haunted. ‘Yet in all my time,’ he said, ‘I have never seen anyone dead or alive in it.’ My own belief is that the box contributed to a closed mentality and a closed society where important issues that needed to be exposed to the light could paradoxically be only spoken about in the darkness. This created a culture of secrecy whereby many had difficulty being real and talking about painful everyday realities. Having had the experience of working with different kinds of groups over the years I have noticed that the level of openness and honesty in mostly non-church going groups would far surpass those with a strong ‘catholic’ mentality.

Thurs 19^th Oct – The Grace of an Honest Conversation

Back in the days when regular confession was far more common than it is today a young girl made a remark that has always remained with me. She said, ‘I need to be honest and admit that I experience far more redemption in a good honest and deep conversation about my life, with someone I can trust, that I do in the confessional.’ My response was to assure her that she had just expressed the essence of what the Sacrament of Confession was all about. Unfortunately, such an understanding is something very few seem to have grasped and when one priest was asked what his experience in the confession box was he described it graphically as ‘mostly being stoned to death with popcorn’. Asked to elaborate he said that most people simply carry forward a variegation of the same shopping list of sins they had while in primary school and that it had no relevance to the reality of their adult life.

Fri 20^th Oct – Remembering with Gratitude

One Thursday not so long ago at precisely 3pm I received a phone call from a lady made out of sheer gratitude. She remembered that it was on that day, at that time, forty years earlier, she had come to my door needing to make a serious confession. It was from there that day her life had changed dramatically and she had never looked back. Her life had been a mess and it was truly an honest life review where we looked, not just at what was happening, but also why it had been that way. After tumbling out her story, she knew that it was as important to forgive herself, as it was to receive God’s forgiveness. Those few moments of grace and tears were like a key that unlocked her blocked potential, and from there she set out on a great adventure of faith. On the way out she met her closest friend and said, ‘I told him everything’. The woman was aghast and said, ‘My God, if you did, we can no longer be friends’. Three days later there was another knock on the door and this time it was the friend!

Sat 21^st Oct – Exposing our Blind Spots

Until relatively recent times the focus in Confession was on the number and kind of sins that were committed. For those with a scrupulous nature this became a big problem, wondering if everything was covered. The idea was not to satisfy the curiosity of the priest, but rather to reflect on recurring patterns of behaviour in order to identify root causes. Much earlier in the tradition this was understood to be more the norm, where if you went to a truly good confessor, he would help you to grow in understanding in relation to your behaviour. As a man of Spirit, he would also exercise his own gifts of discernment whereby he could reveal areas that were your blind spots. For example, if you were guilty of stealing something he might gently lead you into the awareness of where you had suffered a bereavement and something precious had been taken from you, or how you were still carrying the effects of some trauma. This essential relationship between unacceptable behaviour, and where it was coming from, became largely lost, and rarely formed part of the traditional confession experience.

Sun 22^nd Oct – Mission Sunday

“God Is Like a Large Baobab Tree”

The following story is told by a Fr Healey, a missionary who spent many years in Tanzania:

‘One day my pickup truck broke down on the road from Maswa to Bariadi in western Tanzania. After I had waited for a half-hour a big Coca-Cola truck came by and the driver named Musa kindly towed my vehicle to the next town, a common occurrence of friendship and mutual help on our poor dirt roads. Part of the time I sat in his big cab and we talked about, of all things, religion. Musa was a Muslim who belonged to the Nyamwezi Ethnic Group from Tabora. In commenting on the tensions between Christians and Muslims in Tanzania he told me: “There is only one God. God is like one large tree with different branches that represent the different religions of Islam, Christianity, African Religion and so forth. These branches are part of the same family of God, so we should work together.” Simply put, Musa taught me an African metaphor of world religions and interreligious dialogue.’

Mon 23^rd Oct – An Absence of Reality

In trying to understand why Confession has in the main not been working, we might be drawn to the conclusion that a big contributing factor was that moral evil became equated with the breach of petty manmade laws and regulations. These would include things like specific fast times before reception of Holy Communion, church attendance and other observances. At a time when moral evil in the form of cruelty, neglect, abuse and malnutrition were rife in many religious institutions, I doubt if any of the confessions heard in such places would ever have featured such dreadful ill-treatment. I strongly suspect that even the confessions of the very worst offenders would have been more along the lines of ‘being distracted at my prayers’, ‘being late for Mass’ or ‘failing to say part of my daily Office.’