Love this!  Our parish is the second largest in our archdiocese and confession is offered once a week for the hour before Saturday evening mass.  With thousands of families registered here that 1 hour is hardly sufficient.  In fact, with just one family (dad, mom, 4 kids over the age of reason) showing up, one priest is engaged for the entire hour, that leaves one other priest available for the rest of us…and after one hour, you can bet that one of them has to fly out if the confessional to actually say mass.  I know many from our parish actually go to another parish to confess since they offer it before every single mass.

There is nothing like going to confession to get one focused on God again.  I just love the healing that flows from this sacrament.  Oh, and I am a convert to the Catholic faith so confession was totally foreign to me.  I was so nervous the first time I went I nearly fainted.  But it is so worth it for the deliverance and total freedom gained.

Oh, and Simcha, I can’t believe I was the first commenter!  Thanks to my eldest blessing having a “ploblem” at 4:14am when he woke his 3 year old self up to tell me his pants were all wet, I had already checked for your Tuesday post multiple times when it finally arrived.  Well, back to laundry duty before the rest of the Amen herd is up and at ‘em.  You are a blessing to me (and I suspect to many others as well)...so I hope you have a blessed day, pre-Advent, Advent and Christmas.

When I was living in Colorado Springs, the Capuchins had a ministry in the mall where they heard confessions 10 hours a day, 6 days a week. It was amazing. My wife and I were juggling three kids and crazy work schedules, and this was a huge blessing to us. Every city should have one of these, but failing that, it would be nice if parishes offered reconciliation more often than thirty minutes a week on Saturday afternoon.
(http://www.catholicchapelmall.org/schedule.html)

Also, if you’re an Android user and need an app to help you with reconciliation, check out the Laudate app available for free on the Google Play store. It has the NAB and Douay-Rheims Bibles, interactive rosary and chaplet, prayers, catechism, vatican documents, and a full confession section with an examination of conscience and act of contrition.
(https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aycka.apps.MassReadings&hl=en)

I have a couple of friends who are priests, and they reorganized their schedules in order to offer a weekday Mass and confession one night during the week.  They discovered a whole new group of parishioners showing up for both.  I know schedules are tight, and priests are over-worked.  But I also know many many people cannot get to the “traditional” times for daily Mass and confession (even on Saturday) due to their own work schedules.  So this is a big thanks to those priests who are working to make the sacraments more available.  I know those efforts, and the sacrifices the priests made to do it, had a huge impact on me at one point in my journey.

Thanks, Simcha, for such a wonderful pre-Advent gift!  Quite a special priest I heard at homeschooling conferences for a number of years (late ‘90’s into 2000’s) spoke of how he had increased confession times to daily and for hours (3+) on Saturdays.  He encouraged all priests to do so because it was right to make the sacrament available much more often for parishioners.  He said although there were times he may sit without a penitent—during which he prayed for each parishioner to come.  However, for the most part, he said he became quite busy daily and especially with the increased hours on Saturdays.  Give thanks to the Lord for He is Good and His Mercy endures forever!

What a great idea!  As another suggestion, even if a priest does tell people to go to confession this ends up being like - you should pray more.  Well maybe people would do both more if they had some concrete instruction on what they should be doing.  This is kind of like telling people they should be pro-life/pro-marriage without telling them why… but that’s another kettle of fish.

I read Fr.Z’s blog. Yes! That’s great!  In my parish people are lining up for confession even at the daily 12:10 mass.

The thing that helped me the most with confession was seeing a “mock confession” in RCIA. Although I’d been going on occasion for years it really helped hearing and seeing what it “should” be like. It’s one thing to be told “type and frequency” and another thing to hear someone say “I allowed my anger to cause me to say nasty things to my spouse twice in the past month.”

It also helped since the priest wrote up the list of sins and a lot of my “common” sins were on there and it helped me to know that 1) this is probably the best way to confess that with the appropriate amount of detail, and 2) you’re not a freak, he’s heard this before.

You know what - they should do a youtube video of a mock confession (making it clear that it’s not real and no, yours will not be recorded). A how-to video would be great

Our parish has only 90 minutes for confessions once a week.
With over 3000 parishioners that is hardly enough time for anyone to get in and out before 5pm Mass!
Even my husband who goes maybe twice a year thought that just wasn’t convenient for a lot of people. Many have to work on Saturdays just to feed their families. Granted you can call for an appointment but that might takes weeks since we only have the pastor and no associate. We have had some wonderful JPII priets but our 70s pastor can’t stand anyone calling a sin a sin.. he is still into social justice and forgiveness but that doesn’t make any one feel like they need to go to confession since he doesn’t add that its necessary.
He does have the twice a year general confession when people get a group absolution and optional one on one with many priests from the outlying area.. but twice a year is just not enough we need more days for confession. We need the sacramental grace and consolation only this sacrament can give us!

I love this post, and it fits so well with Cardinal Dolan’s President’s Address yesterday to the USCCB.  His theme was Confession, and he explained the focus by saying “first things first.”

Our parish is the only one in our general area that offers confession more than one hour each week (we have it two hours).  The line is always really long, with people starting in line an hour before confession starts.  Things were even worse when our new assistant pastor was having problems getting a new Visa and was stuck in his native Bolivia for a month leaving our pastor on his own.
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Sometimes we end up going to the parish 45 minutes away because they have more confession times that fit our schedule better.  But even there the lines are sometimes so long that people are standing in line through an entire Mass…and they often have three or four priests hearing confession at one time.
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I think a lot of people are too intimidated to make an appointment for confession, so they just don’t go.  I’ve heard that it’s been proposed that each diocese have one place that offers confession every day of the week “all day”.  I think that would make such a HUGE difference.

What a gift!
I am so grateful that you included the Confessions from the Confession Line link. I had not seen that one before, brilliant!

I love confession.  I dread confession.  I never regret confession.  Unfortunately I kind of want to have my cake and eat it.  I try to go to the good confessors who are conscientious, but everyone in the whole town goes there.  They don’t want to face the priests from their own parishes so it has become the “drive by” parish. Unfortunately I have had to leave the long line many a day with a heavy heart, because I had no hope of getting in.  There is inadequate time to squeeze so many into so short a time period, after the inevitable Saturday wedding.  Oh, and the worst part of those days?  Battling a couple of uncharitable thoughts for the long winded 75 year old ladies that are lonely and spend a half hour in there.  I can’t even imagine those confessions from women who go to mass everyday…“Fr. I prayed my rosary too quickly..I didn’t feed my cat on time…I had uncharitable thoughts for that awful reality TV star…”
Most of the time I want to do a rapid fire, Get in.  Get out. kind of confession; only the *priest* (God bless him)has no sense of urgency.  The best of them all was Fr. Jerry, the former lawyer with the steel trap mind, who would address my list, point by point.  My cheeks burn when I have to face a long line outside when I exit.  I think I’ll go to the snooty parish on Saturday where Fr. (who missed his other calling as a Broadway star) doesn’t get any business between the confession HALF-HOUR between 3 and 3:30, and I can get the job done. I’ll have to do it face-to-face, and might be assured that none of my sins were actually sins.
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I WILL be confessing impatience, which is a hidden form of pride.
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I’m complaining,(gotta remember to confess that) but in all reality, confession is simply one of the most awesome sacraments in the world.  It makes me squirm, but I wouldn’t trade it for any psychiatrist with an earth-bound outlook, who can’t give me absolution and doesn’t act as a servant of God; a priest who freely gives his time for others, acting in “persona Christi”. As for the *sacrament* itself?  Ahhhh.  Thanks be to God.  It is water in the desert, a suit of armor for the battle…a good scrubbing of the stains.

Ah confession—It makes me squirm, but I can’t live without it.

Mea culpa in advance.
Do you ever wonder what that little old lady who goes to daily mass could possibly be confessing for twenty five minutes, when the line is 15 people deep?
Yes, I know (sigh) impatience is a hidden form of pride.

I love this! Last year (I don’t remember if it was advent or lent) the priest at my church invited everyone to confession, offering a “special deal” - “no matter how long it’s been since your last confession or what you’ve done, your penance will only be 3 Hail Marys!” Everyone laughed, but it was such a great way to bring people in and make them feel comfortable. When you’ve been away from confession for far too long and feel that pull to come back, it’s easy to let the fear overtake you. What will the priest think of you? Will you be scolded? What could possibly be enough penance? This put everyone at ease (well, eas-ier) and the lines grew long. I would encourage priests to use a similar approach when trying to encourage this sacrament.

On how often confession is offered, I agree with those unhappy when it’s only offered an hour a week. How can a parish honestly say that confession is a priority when it’s so rarely offered?

true confession- I hadn’t been to confession since Easter (cobbler’s wife that I am)- the parishes around here all have confession at the same time- right before their Saturday vigil and I am busy with our Saturday vigil- so I finally swallowed my pride and went to the one priest who will hear confessions at any reasonable time- but he is a close friend…not fun but necessary

wonderful post – confession is very important during the season of Advent and prior to it. When I travel I carry my purple stole with me just in case someone in the airport sees me and wants to go to confession and you would not believe how many actually do – it makes my layovers go quickly.
I saw the dollar store deco too – it may be early but at least it is positive and spreads cheer.

What a great idea for a gift…I will ask my children that, that is what I want for Christmas?!!!  Won’t happen…one is non-denomination christian…well, three out of four is not too bad!!!

Wow—what a great idea this priest had. And Colleen, I love the “special deal” idea—maybe I’ll suggest to my pastor that he publish a “Black Friday” special for confessions :). I’ll be passing this column along to a few pastors here in town.

“I should confess writing this” ,
At our parish, one priest is quite advanced in age & so are many of the parishoners at the Saturday vigil Mass. When the two meet in the confessional before Mass, both parishoners & the older priest have to shout to compensate for hearing loss.Last time I stood in line I could hear every word from one of those 75 year old ladies, even though I was mortified & tried not to.
The hardest thing was for me to go in to confession afterwards & wonder who was still in line outside in hearing distance.
I haven’t been back to confession there again & am waiting for an Advent Penance service where I can pick a priest who’s not hard of hearing.
:)

Thank you, Simcha, dear!!!!

Oh, Kathleen, your comment made me laugh. 
My son, now a high school senior, really made my day when he came out of church after his First Penance and announced “My soul is CLEAN!” He captured the wonderful feeling of a good confession and he was only about 7.  He’s very good about regular confession because he serves Mass every Sunday.
Regarding the people who take a very long time in the confessional, I was waiting at our small parish with numerous others on Holy Saturday one year, and a woman was in the confessional for about 35 minutes.  Naturally some of us were getting more distracted as time went on, watching volunteers clean and decorate the altar, etc.  After the woman came out and while the next person was in, the lady behind me (who was close to my mother’s age) whispered to me “You didn’t murder your mother, did you? I hope you won’t be in there too awfully long!”  I don’t think I’ve ever gone into confession trying to stifle a laugh before or since.

Waiting until the day after Thanksgiving to bombard us with Christmas cheer is DEFINITELY a noble thing, I applaud Nordstorm with every fiber of my being!

Is there a “right” way or wrong wat to doa reconciliation? I ma a new convert, was baptised etc last easter,  Have no idea what to expect or how to go about this.  Is there a list of sins as one person mentioned in a previous post? Where do I find this list?  I want a clean soul.  How do I do this?