A normal part of Advent in the life of a priest is hearing lots of confessions.  This is also true in Lent.  A popular practice in Advent for a parish and Catholic schools is to host penance services and give people a chance to cleanse themselves of their sinfulness through the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  This means that parishes and schools need extra priests to make the service a reasonable length of time.  So, priests hear a lot more confessions than normal.  Also, the regular confession lines tend to be longer because people are used to Advent and Lent being a time to confess their sins.  
 

Hearing the large amount of confessions during this season (and in Lent) is both comical and humbling.  It gets comical for a number of reasons: we (priests) hear the same sins over and over; we hear things that aren’t sinful at all; we hear many spouses tell us the sins of their spouse; we hear lots of long stories trying to justify the sin committed; and most funny of all are the children confessions that feel like being stoned to death with marshmallows.  It’s super important to find humor in every day life…priesthood is never short on humor.  

Hearing all these confessions is also super humbling because we (priests) witness the power of the Holy Spirit working in the Church and the Body of Christ.  People coming back to the Sacrament of Confession after 20, 30, 40+ years is a beautiful witness to the work of the Holy Spirit.  Teenagers coming to confession remind me of my own high school sins and how far I’ve come.  Faithful Catholics who confess regularly (at least every 3-6 months) confess things that I do; yet, I don’t confess them.  They make me re-evaluate my own conscience and bring my actions to the Lord.  It’s super humbling to sit as Jesus for these powerful moments of conversion.  

A priest a admire once said this about the Sacrament of Reconciliation, “the faithful who confess their sins feel they’re at their worst; but, we (the priest) see them at their best.”  This is so true and once of the many reasons I love being a priest.  Jesus left us this awesome and intimate Sacrament NOT so that we feel bad about ourselves or guilty that we aren’t perfect.  Jesus gave us this great gift so that we can be healed from the wounds of sin and become the best version of ourself.  You don’t clean anything by ignoring the stains…that just makes it more dirty!  You clean something by exposing the dirt to soap, water, vinegar, etc.  We clean our soul by exposing the sins of our past to the grace of almighty God.  

So, if you haven’t been to confession yet or if you haven’t been to confession in a long time…RUN don’t walk to your parish or school Reconciliation Service or their regular confession times.  Get cleaned up before Christmas.  Most importantly, remember that the priest is there to bring the healing of Jesus to your life and that moment of the Sacrament is just as efficacious for us as it is for you.