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! : )

The start of an idea.....

Today I got kicked out of church. I traveled all of 55 minutes to the good ol' town of Wichita, Kansas and got kicked out of church. : ) Can't say that has ever happened before.

Well you see, I got this idea into my head that I needed to go to daily mass this summer. And this week I have been.....oh well maybe twice. And both times in Wichita. Dang 8 o'clock mass times at Holy Name and me just haven't mixed well this week. But anyway, I can see the tangents a coming!

First tangent, confessions......well I suppose I have sort of a phobia. First of all, I just converted to Catholicism this Easter. So if you count them up; all of almost 9 weeks I have been Catholic. Might I add, that I love it! For too many reasons to even mention and for so many reasons that might seem weird. But I am cool with that, even if I do have a confessions phobia.

I have a confession....hahaha...I have only been to confessions- twice. Both completely different experiences. Nothing in this world will ever compare to my first confession. Honestly, it was so amazing. I will probably blog (if only a bit) about it at some point. Just know....awesomeness.

So one might think, at least from the people I have talked to about converting, that people have these huge hurdles to get over when converting to Catholicism. For example people always ask me what about this, or what about that? You name it, I have been asked about it. Yes, it is usually something about confessions, Mama Mary, or inevitably sex. For the most part, I feel comfortable answering their questions intelligently and thoroughly. And for me, I never had a huge red flag about anything with Catholicism. To me, it always felt right and true. Maybe a little hard to believe for the skeptics out there but it truly was like finding what I had been looking for years and years and years. So the whole point of this paragraph was to say.....I have no problem with the idea of going to Confessions. It never has bothered me. But I do sort of have this unfamiliarity that makes me nervous before going. Mostly, this fear that I am going to screw it up majorly. (Even tho I am pretty sure I can't) Irrational, I know. : ) Plus, I have this other thing about not being able to go to my priest, Fr. Mike.

Anyway, so this week I really wanted to go to confessions again. Mostly, because for the first time since January 9th, I had missed mass because of traveling with students. Ugh. It felt so weird. It definitely wasn't like I could have went to mass because of schedule conflicts we had with this conference. However, I still felt bad missing and wanted to cover all my bases. And because of my phobia, I couldn't possibly go to my church. : ) Although after this week, I am starting to reconsider this decision. haha I am thinking Fr. Mike might be just the guy to go to. Regardless, my want for a good confession started an inkling of an idea and lead me to Wichita twice this week.

So Tuesday. I went to All Saints Catholic Church in Wichita. That's another blog too. : ) I am trying not to make this one too terribly long. So long story short- went to confessions, mass, sister, adoration, goodness. : ) And they all lived happily ever after.

Was a complete slacker on Wednesday but got kicked in the butt with my novena I am doing........lead me daily mass again. But even if the novena hadn't have made me feel bad, I =ask ed myself seriously, why should I not go to daily mass? It's summer and I am a teacher. So on Thursday, I did my masstimes.org magicalness and found me some options.

And St. Anthony's 12:05 mass was looking pretty dang good. Although, I did notice it was sometimes in Vietnamese....Aww what the heck, I will take my chances. I am so very glad I went to St. Anthony's. First off, it was in English. And it was an old church! Like actually the oldest Catholic Church in Wichita. It said so on the front of the church. : ) Coolness. Then onto the inside....pews really creaky. I had to sit very, very still. hahaha But it was very ornately done-up. Every imaginable statue and a plethora of colors. Beautiful in it's own way. It most certaintly did not leave me at a want for something to look upon.

Tangent 2: Holy Name is very beautiful too. But in a completely different way. I think Holy Name has a max of three colors: white, blue, and gold. However, it's simplicity and brightness make it very beautiful to me.

So I did mention earlier that I got kicked out of this church.....well that comes later. Because before we can get to that we have got to talk about the nuances of this church. Yes there was the obvious decor, which I have alrady mentioned. Next, comes the little old lady at the front of the church, who sang at odd times. Shoot, it prolly is completely normal but not for me. : ) Then I experienced the world's shortest homily. I believe it was a total of 4 sentences. And we stood for the whole thing.

I understand that for any cradle Catholics reading this, you are prolly like....oh yeah, no biggee. However, I find these subtle differences in churches, masses, and just Catholics pretty stinking interesting. I love finding out new things and of course learning something new.

Go in peace, the mass has ended. Feeling pretty good at this point, I decided I wanted to stay longer. But I left my novena in my car, and I wanted to do today's portion at St. Anthony's. So I hurried back out, grabbed my lil book and came back in. The priest was up by the altar talking to some people and then the lights go out. I slide into the very back pew. I am thinking all I need is like 10, 15 minutes max!! They are still talking but then they start walking my way. I am reading and trying to avoid eye contact. Because dang it, I just want to do my novena. But before I know it, Fr. Hung is beside me and asks "Do you need to stay here?" I am thinking, "Yes!" but feel bad, so say, "I can leave if you need me to." So I get barely into my novena and have to leave so he can lock the doors. He kicked me out. : ) lol But I really did think that all Catholic churches stayed open all the time. Well at least morning-evening. Guess not....at least in Wichita. But overall, I enjoyed the oldness of St. Anthony's and just the fact of sharing a mass with strangers but brothers and sisters in Christ. It gets me everytime. : )

And so continues this inkling of an idea.....lets go to all the different masses of the Wichita and Wichita area churches this summer. Why, what a grand idea!

I'll let you know what I thought about All Saints next time and I think for next week....I am gonna hit up St. Judes. It's fairly close to my sisters. : )