Catholic Conundrum #1: Confessions

So as a newbie to the Catholic faith I frequently find myself in a few puzzling situations, hence the conundrum. : ) It's all good though because I can usually laugh about them later. You have to have a sense of humor in life. Plus, I don't think God minds. : )

So many of these situations have already happened....... A LOT actually. So I will do some back-tracking at some point. But here is the newest addition and it deals with dun dun dun.......

Confession!

More specifically confession numero dos. Before two comes first.....So my first confession actually occurred after Easter and after I was baptized. So I was one of the lucky ones that doesn't have to do first confession before becoming Catholic but even luckier still to be completely wiped clean.....for awhile at least.

It was a crazy cool experience. Perfect in fact. A few details just so you can understand my second confession. My first was face to face. And the priest was pretty much awesome. It was also at a retreat. So maybe a little out of the normal situation. I think he was able to help me more than normal.

So second go-around. I go to a church in Wichita with the intention of getting there early and going to confessions. I walk in and freak out a little bit. The reason for my mini freak out was that I couldn't really find where the confessionals were. I was all prepared to go and then I couldn't find where to go in the church. So I actually start praying.... "I am sorry and I'll go as soon as I can but I can't find the freaking thing!" Kinda like that anyway. : )

But then, I look up and I see a person by the wall.......and I am like ooohhhhhhhh. So I had already wasted a bunch of time and during the week they only hear confessions for a short amount of time before the beginning of mass. So I go to the wall even thought there is probably like 7 minutes left. My notecard, aka cheat sheet, for the order of things is in my pocket. My hand is on my notecard. Out walks a guy.

Yay, I mean crap, my turn. So I go into the confessional. It was a bigger room than I expected. I could choose the chair or the screen. I chose the screen this time. I kneel down and really didn't know when to start. He goes "You can start now." Definitely in a very mean, mean, scary voice. For sure. : )Just trust me on this. And I am like all flustered because I am thinking "I thought you start.....you know..... in the name of the Father..." But he didn't. And I didn't. blah.

So he says again "Go ahead, start now!" Once again.......mean voice. So because I thought he should have started the sign of the cross, I just start with the "Bless me Father part...."

Ugh. So I felt rushed and like I did it wrong. And I wasn't a huge fan of the priest by the end of it. Then he gave me my penance; Three Hail Marys. What? I was thinking....I do this anyway. I was expecting something more related to what I was talking to him about....like my first confession. But over all it was much less personable. But after thinking about this, I guess it's ok. Afterall, I was running out of time before mass, and had never gone to this confessor before.

Regardless of all that conundrumness.......it was good. It was good to familarize myself with getting used to this sacrament. It was good to kinda dive right in again. And since then I have learned more about the sacrament of reconciliation through the many pamphlets and books about this. Yes, I am a nerd but I do feel more comfortable about confessions now. Need some more experience though.

And yes I do expect many more confession conundrums.....in fact I just experienced another two days ago. More on that next time! : )