The Sacrament That Ends the Secret: Talking Confession with Ed (#438)

0:00If you ache for truth, goodness, and beauty, if you're hungry for a Christianity with substance and strength, if you long for a faith that's big and bold and biblical and all about Jesus Christ, if you're inspired by the idea of one church that is span 20 centuries, 24 time zones, and two hemispheres in folding every race, nation, and language. Then you're considering Catholicism. Okay, so confession. Yes, confession. Yes, that's maybe the thing that most of my Protestant friends and me, all my life, that was the big deal. What's the big deal about confession? There's all kinds of jokes about confession and some of them are actually pretty funny. But that's the thing that that was a mystery to me as a

1:05Protestant as a kid, and it's intriguing to me because I just have not known much about. I've never been in a confessional. Well, I mean, for one thing, it's between, if you look at the sacraments between sort of Protestant Catholic, it's the most glaringly, obviously different, right? So Protestants, we have, you know, baptism and the Lord's Supper or communion. They mean maybe there's different interpretations of them or so they're sort of executed a little bit different, but those are still there. And there's still a, you know, marriage might not be matrimony, might be a sacrament in the Protestant church, but there is marriages and Christian marriages. But the one thing that there's no equivalent to, maybe that's a good way to put it, there's like no equivalent in Protestantism to confession. So it just stands out as this like really different, unique thing. You know, as a Protestant, I've always been comfortable, maybe, maybe a little too comfortable with keeping my sins just between me and God. That's a cozy,

2:06little relationship. And it also allows me to lie to myself about what it is I'm doing or how bad it is or, you know, or whatever. And, and, you know, there's something about just saying it out loud that and hearing it through another's ears, even if it wasn't a priest, he'd be, well, okay, really, maybe I can't really explain this very well, you know? So it sounds, it sounds great to me. I mean, I see the benefits. That's, I think that's easy to see, but it's scary. I find it to be a little scary. You've talked about to me offline as we've talked about how you, by the time you got, got to that point, you were, you were eager to do it. And I understand your points, your reasons for wanting to do that. It's the feeling of, of being clean, you know, but I didn't understand until recently, when we began talking all about this stuff, that the Catholic church considers the priest God's representative. Right. I just didn't, with the actual authority to, to bind and lose. Whoa. Right. No, exactly. And so that, that's within

3:09a larger context of how all of the sacraments, so let's just say something about that real quick. So in all of the sacraments, the priest operates in persona Christi, which is just the Latin phrase for in the person of Christ. Right. So it is not the priest who, he's not baptizing you with the authority of the priest. He is in the person of Christ offering you baptism. When the priest performed a consecrates communion and serves that, he's operating in the person of Christ, right. When he performs a wedding, when he anoints somebody. So all of the, the sacraments, and I, I used to get this a lot when I was a Protestant or when I was in the process and trying to figure all this out, can hear other Protestants say, well, wait a minute. So you're, some guy, you go into some guy and talk to him. And I go, well, of course, now in the Protestant world, you would go to a Christian counselor and say, or an accountability group. So the

4:12objection that you shouldn't talk to a guy, but you guys talk to guys, your counselor, your accountability group. But the difference is it's like, well, what, what authority does he have? And I go, none. Exactly. None in and of himself. Other than that, it's no different than the Protestant going in and talking to Pastor Bob or whatever and sharing with Pastor Bob for counseling. But this is what's different here is that when the priest assumes the sacramental role, he is operating in the person of Christ with the authority of the church. And what's important here to remember is that Jesus gives the church. He says, you are Peter and upon this rock above my church. And what you bind in heaven will or bind on earth will be bound in heaven. And what you loosen, you know, earth will be loose in heaven. In other words, the church has the authority to forgive sins and to bind. And that's why by the way, whenever you see any representations of Peter,

5:15like statues or paintings or whatever, he always has the keys, those are the keys to the kingdom of heaven. So those were given to Peter. And I think that's sort of indisputable from a scriptural standpoint that he gave to Peter and to the church, the ability to sort of bind and loose. Then the church, in a sense, that comes from Christ, that authority is given apostolically to Peter and the church. And then the priest is operating in that capacity. He is the point person, the visible representative operating in the capacity with the authority that was given to Peter to bind and loose. It is not the priest's authority. No priest will tell you that he has the capacity to forgive you or he has the capacity to do anything. He's simply the representative through which you are speaking with Christ through the authority, Peter.

6:15I had an accountability, a partner guy, right. One time we were out of town at a conference and we were sharing a motel room. And while we were just chatting late at night after the thing, we're all in bed in our pajamas and everything. And he's very not, he's very casually flipping channels to the remote, right? And it was, he ran across an arborid movie. And it's like, we both immediately knew that we should just move past this, right? And he just hesitated for a second. And then he clicked and we kept moving. And I said, it strikes me that whatever we do, as accountability people, whatever we do when we're together just doesn't count. It doesn't count because we're, you know, because hey, we're together and I, you saw me do it. So I'm good. And that's what, what is different here, the purge, you know, I was reading about a priest, someone said, you know, if you keep coming back with the same sin every time, the priest is going to say, go, go away and come back when you're serious. And I thought, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, not forgive me. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm, uh, you know, I've always been told that no matter what I did,

7:19God would forgive me. And I wouldn't need to worry about offending him. And it brings to mind that quote that, um, that, uh, do not be deceived. God has not mocked whatever a man shows. That's what he reaps. Right. You know, it's interesting. You bring up the accountability partner thing. So way back a number of years ago, I used to work in Christian publishing and consulting and work with Rick Warren, a little bit of work, Warren's organization. I'll never forget Rick Warren, you know, a purpose driven life guy and all that. We're talking about this one time. I mean, we was talking about accountability groups, which was all the rage at that time, right? Like you're supposed to have your, you know, Tuesday morning accountability group that meets a denny's or whatever. And I don't ever forget Rick saying, uh, if a guy, like he's supposed to guy, Cheats on his wife, right? Or a Cheats on his taxes. He goes, if you, if you lie to your why, why wouldn't I lie to my accountability group at denny's, right? It's like, well, you know, I, I, you know, I don't have any problem pulling the wool over my wife's eyes and deceiving,

8:20but those guys at denny's on Tuesday morning, you know, I can, I can, that bears my soul. So, I mean, the thing is is that how do you protect yourself? And I just want to clear this way. Like, you know, I just want to make a quick point about this about that accountability group thing or the counseling because this was such a big thing in, in the Protestant world and evangelical world still is to this day. There's this notion that I need to go, uh, talk to somebody about all this, but, but it's sort of for a different purpose. It's to either get advice or validation or whatever. When I go to confession, I'm not going to get counseling. I don't go in there and say, Hey, I'm really struggling with this and this and the priest dispenses advice. That's what the point, the point is for me to be able to go before the Lord, penitently to lay down my sin before the Lord and hear that God forgives me because the church has the power if I penitently confess.

9:23Right. So there's sort of, you know, it's not that evangelicals don't go unburden themselves or don't spill their guts to their counselor or their accountability partners or whatever. That may be the confession side of it. But what's really important here is to remember that the sacrament, a lot of people call it confession, but it really is confession and reconciliation. Right. And in a lot of times, you know, those are terms become interchangeable. A lot of people will talk about, you call the sacrament of sacrament for reconciliation. In fact, the church actually officially calls it the sacrament of penance and reconciliation. Because this is the difference is when I, I can go to a counselor, I can go to my accountability group, I can go to whatever my AA meeting and I can spill my guts, I can confess. That's what I do. What I can't receive there is absolution. What I can't receive there is they don't have the power to forgive me. Right. Which I didn't realize that was what was going on. I, you know, I remember

10:28hearing somewhere along the way that, that the priest was saying to somebody, you know, your sins are forgiven. And I didn't realize he was in on that to the, to the, to the extent that he was. Yeah. You know, that's, that's a, yeah, no, no, this is this, I think it's an interesting point that didn't occur to me, but right. So when I was a Protestant pastor, was an evangelical minister, whatever, I could stand up and say on Sunday, or I could say people all the time, hey, God forgives you, but I wasn't, I was making a general observation. Right. I would say, hey, based on the gospel and based on scripture, you know, would God forgives you? Jesus forgives you for your sins. I wasn't actually, in any case, that wasn't a verb, it was just an observation. I was not able to actually tell you you were forgiven, or pronounce forgiveness, or offer you forgiveness. I could just say, hey, in a general way, God forgives everything. So I'm sure he forgives you. But what's different going on here,

11:31the really the sacrament of reconciliation, is it's exactly that. You're being reconciled with God, and you're being reconciled and someone say, well, why can't I just go to God on my own and do it, right? But on your own, you don't have the power of the, the keys of the kingdom that were given to Peter and to the church. You know, I can just feel forgiven. I think God ought to forgive me. The pastor can say in a sermon and a general way, everybody here is forgiven, like a group thing. But what none, no one of them, none of them have or none of those situations you have is the capacity to say someone with authority, spiritual authority is able to pronounce declarative to you to actually absolve you. And that's what happens. When you go into the confessional and you confess your sins and you make a good confession and you commit to, there's the act of confession, which you say, these are my sins. And I'm sorry for them. The priest is able to save

12:35you by the power of Christ. I absolve you. I, I standing as representative of Christ with the power of the church, given through Peter, I pronounce that you are absolved of your sins. And that is, that's what I can't hear from a counselor. I can't hear that from my accountability partners. I can't hear that from really anybody. I remember feeling that talking to a Christian counselor, the feeling that, I don't you dare let me off the hook. I'm not here to feel better. I'm here because this is bothering me. It's going to bother me until it's settled. And if there's something I need to do, then you need to hold my feet to the fire. I'm giving you $80 an hour. I could be drinking and forgetting my problems, but I'm not. I'm here. I want to, I want to get past this. But in the end, what could that counselor actually, what did that counselor have the capacity actually say to you? It could give you advice. But that counselor never had the capacity to tell you

13:42you were forgiven. The counselor could say, just like in an AA group, go and find the person that you offended. And that person could say, I forgive you from, from my part. But of course, none of them can forgive your sin. I'm going to announce you absolved from sin before God. There's only, in all the scripture, the only capacity that's ever addressed for that is when Jesus says to Peter and through the church, you have the power to bind and loosen the keys to the kingdom. And that's the unique power of the church. So I found, we've talked about Chesterton before, and I had not read much of him until the last year or so. And I found his essay Why I Am a Catholic, which I thought was a wonderful title. And I just read this the other day. He said Catholicism is the only thing that really prevents a sin from being a secret. And so this approach to me seems to be much more sober than than the approach I'm used to. Ed, this is serious. This is your soul

14:50we're talking about here. This is, this is a God. It isn't like he missed that thing that you did and didn't see one over his head. And he wasn't looking that. He wasn't looking at any, and you got away with it. Either you're going to fix this and deal with it or you're not. But it was the way I've lived my Christian life. It was pretty easy to do that. It was easy to say, well, you know, hey, I'm really sorry God. I mean, I know I should have done that. But there wasn't any bite in it, you know, didn't have any teeth. Well, I mean, right? I mean, you could be sorry. And you should be, right? And a lot of us, I think generally are. I mean, I was a Protestant. I think that I'm going to come back to this issue, the two halves to this thing. The sacrament actually is, in a sense, the sacrament of reconciliation because confession is what I do. So think of it like baptism. I come forward to the baptismal font, right? But the actual act of regenerating

15:54the end baptism is done by the priest or the pastor, whoever, right? By Christ through them, Holy Spirit, the same thing with communion, even in Protestant church. I come forward for communion. But the act of me coming forward isn't what affects a change in me. It is the through the bread and the wine. I'm, you know, I'm, you know, I have community with Christ. I've made one. So the confession part is me being sorrowful and saying it out loud. That's not the part that's efficacious. Okay. So it's just Chesterden's point about being a secret. You know, you can feel bad about this all day long. You can every more. I, things when I was a Protestant for years and years and years, I would just endlessly pray to God. I'm so sorry for this. I'm so sorry for this. I'm so sorry for this. I'm sorry for this. I'm so sorry for this. I'm so sorry for this. This is this. Right. Well, I couldn't, when I was in my process of becoming a Catholic and wait, finally, go and be finally released from that, from feeling bad, and from feeling

16:56sorry. And so by going into the confessional for the first time and being able to say, these are the things that I'm sorry for. And to hear Christ's representative through the church be able to say to me, you are absolved. It's over. It's done. Let it go. That's, I mean, that was one of the things Chesterden had another line about the confession. He said, you know, the thing is when you go in and you have a received absolution in confession and reconcile, he said, you walk out like a like a child. I was just, I was just thinking of that one. He said, I got, I mean, I don't hear when a Catholic comes from confession, he does truly, by definition, step out again into that dawn of his own beginning. Yeah. I love that. I love that line. Yeah. I love that feeling of being clean and clean slate. Yeah. I mean, I've got, because we're talking here, we had made some notes for our conversation, but I wrote that one down too. And it says that, you know, he says, you know, the, the, uh, questions says, when you come out of confession, the accumulations of time can no longer terrify.

18:00You may be gray and gaudy, but you're only five minutes old. Yeah. And I think that's the part that's missing. It's not that I can't feel sorry for my sin. It's that I never released from it. And that's the reconciliation absolution part of it. I literally could not do this without you, because this show is 100% listener supported. There are no ads, no sponsors. So if the episodes are helping you to understand the faith, to answer your questions, or draw you closer to historic Catholic Christianity, would you consider becoming a patron? For as little as $5 a month, you'll get every regular episode organized into topical playlists, plus exclusive bonus content, extra conversations, video Q&As, deep dives, live streams, behind the scenes, and more. Just head to patreon.com forward slash considering Catholicism or tap the link in the show notes.

19:02Together, we're educating equipping and exciting people about the beauty of the Catholic faith. This brings up to me, I just maybe another whole conversation, but I that my conversion is an ongoing thing and not my understanding of it always was that I pray the sinner's prayer, Jesus forgives my sins, and then as I've heard you say, my ticket is punched, and I just need to, you know, try to do my best and follow me, you know, try to become more, pray to become more Christlike and so forth. And in the Catholic Church, they talk about, I'm reading the Catechism, you suggested some passages, and they talked about, you know, grave sins and being and being disconnected from God, and that's a new thought to me that I am constantly working out my salvation, and I'm constantly being converted, talked about conversion, and I'm constantly being converted and washed clean,

20:06okay, so it's real important here for anybody who's listening, who's a Protestant, to make sure we are really precise with our language here, because this is the thing that Protestants and Catholics have been fighting about for 500 years has caused endless amounts of, you know, arguments in my life, you know, helped me back from Catholicism, and there's still Protestants, I know that we both know that are like, oh my gosh, you can't become Catholic because of blah, blah, blah. So there's all this misunderstanding swirl around this point. I want to make sure our language is super, super clear. So all Christians, Catholic Protestant, everything, and Catholic, I mean, it isn't like Catholics came up with this, they were the original church, right? Right. There is salvation, and what Protestants have charged is that Catholics think they have to keep doing things to get saved. That's not true, never has been, never will be. We are saved once and for all. The salvation that we receive

21:09is from Jesus Christ's death and resurrection. He dies on a cross in our place, right? And rises again to make it possible for us to that. We're united with him in our baptism, in our, right, in communion. We are united in the death and resurrection. That is salvation. And as Protestants will say over and over again, the gospel is that, you know, God, the Jesus takes you to your place. That's true. But this word conversion is an interesting word, okay? Because think about what the word means. I'm converting something from one thing to another. I am being made from one thing into another. I may be saved, okay? But I haven't been remade. So here's like a really stupid analogy. Okay. Suppose that you're like into classic cars, right? And you buy this like epic classic car. Like I used to have the 67 Camaro when I was younger, right? And I go out to the junkyard and I find the old 67 Camaro and I buy it. I pay for it.

22:14I now own it. I have the pink slip on it. I got a guy on a trailer who drops it off in my, and my garage, my barn. I know on that, but it's not been converted or remade to be all cherry, so I can go drive around, you know, to get ice cream on Saturday afternoon, right? That is a process of remaking it, tearing out of the old rotten parts, you know, excuse me, whatever, you know, sanding out all the rust, replacing the parts. That process of converting that, restoring that is a long complicated process and it takes effort. Now, if we apply it to ourselves, there is actually a Greek word. And when I was a Protestant, when I was a seminary, it was pounding, it was over and it was a word from Paul. Metanoia, Metanoia, change of mind. It's a conversion of our mind, our heart, right? Our spirit. So in salvation, Catholics, same as Protestants, don't believe this thing, I do to earn my salvation.

23:16But I have to work at converting my life. I have to work at that Metanoia, that change of mind. Sometimes it's called sanctification, salvation and becoming holy. And that is a long, hard process. And that is something that we have to work at. That is not earning our salvation, but it is working out our salvation to become saints. So I have a question along that line, occurred to me on my way here. So if I sin, and I don't confess it, am I not forgiven? And part two, part two, hang on. And if so, have I lost my salvation? Because then it seems to me like I could be sort of flickering in and out of salvation all the time, like I'd want to priest on speed dial so that if I found something in myself, I can get rid of it right away, because I don't want to, that doesn't sound right. It doesn't feel right to me, but it seems, but I get some sense of that a little bit when I read through the catechism.

24:19Right. Okay. So let's make a couple quick, quick, quick distinction. Here's what partly is going on in sin and to answer your issue. Grave sin. Okay. And sometimes called mortal sin. Is mortal sin because it is a grave matter. Right. I mean, it's a serious matter. And it is something that you do with full intention. Okay. You may not, you may hate that you're doing it, but you do it. Right. And there is an act of will involved with doing it. Right. You don't commit grave sins accidentally. There is an act of will. Again, you may feel conflicted and tortured. I wish I wouldn't do this terrible thing, but I'm going to do it anyway. So what it does is it creates a rupture in your relationship with God. It creates a rupture in your relationship with Christ. It's a wedge that drives you further away from God. The same way, just think of it with your wife or your children or whatever in your life that you say, hey,

25:22if I lie to them or I beat them or I do something like that, I'm fracturing that communion. And there has to be a restoration of if I live in this thing of sort of rebellion in that relationship, fracturing in that relationship. So when it comes to sin, it's not a matter of like keeping score. And priests will tell you that the people who come to the confessional with a score list. Right. I did this and I did this and I did this and this and now I'm not saved anymore. That's not the point. But when we sort of persist in doing things that fracture our communion on our relationship with Christ, those are things that have to be worked through in that relationship, the same way if anything else. I am intentionally and willfully doing things that gravely impact my devotion to Christ. That's something that needs to be reconciled. And I can't reconcile that with a counselor or an accountant because the person who the relationship I fractured is my

26:24relationship with Christ. So who is it that can I can be reconciled with the only person I can because the the issue is being reconciled with Jesus. And the only way I can be reconciled with Jesus is to approach someone who in a sense speaks in his place or in that moment to operates in his place and says, yes, on behalf of Christ, you know, I say, look, Lord, I keep, I've done this terrible thing. I've turned away from you. I've turned my back on you. I don't want to do that anymore. And then the priest and persona, Christa can say, if you've turned your face back towards me, I can say that I'm reconciled with you or you're reconciled with Christ. And so that's what it is. So to your point about, you know, this list of, can I lose my, you know, am I going down the, do I have to have the priest on speed dial because every day I'm doing something, you know, wrong, you know, that's this obsession and priest will tell you this obsession with, with, with a, what they call venial sin, which is small things, you know, like I accidentally,

27:26went five miles over the speed limit today and, right, and I did this and I did that. I had all these little things. Those aren't rupturing of your communion with God. But I think we all know, and we can all think of our mind of things that we have done, right, willfully, that, that were, were returning away from God. And those are the things that are the mortal sins that we confess. And I can see that if you regularly come and talk to the priest in the confessional, right, and go through the process, that you'll just be always, you'll, you'll be far more aware of it. Yeah. Um, it would be easy. It's just, you know, it just makes the whole thing a little more serious. Yeah. I mean, in another, in the conversation, we can get into this whole thing that is off to Mr. Son of the difference, be mortal and venial sin. But let me just put it this way. There are things that we know that we do that are wrong. You know, like I, I, I, I was driving to work and I, I drove too fast over the speed limit. I was probably not a good thing to, right, it was not a good thing to do. But, but it wasn't in a willful or intentional turning away from

28:31God. And last I decided, you know, I'm just going to, you know, drive 120 miles an hour past the school to, you know, whatever, in which case, you know, it would be a rupture of my charity and concern all that. But it's not keeping this list of every little thing that I did wrong, because I'm going to go through the day and do all kinds of things that are wrong. Right. But the, this is a super important point that we've talked about is that when we do confession, before we go into the fetch, actually, we should be doing it every day is we do something called an examination of conscience. So, you know, people in different ways do it. They have a journal, they have a list, they add, there's checklists you can look at. I actually, what I do is, in my phone and one of my notes, a section of thing in my phone, I have one that's like password protected. Right. Just when I go, the day before I go to confession, I kind of think back on however many weeks or how long since my last confession, I kind of go through and I think about the things where I think I've kind of willfully turned my face away from God. And I kind of have a little note list of the funny things I can kind of copy and paste from the last time,

29:32because a lot of times it's the same things that I keep on doing. And I just, you know, and then I can win and I say those, I don't go through the whole list of every time I draw over the speed limit. But I come in and I say, hey, this thing, this thing, I know that I wish I would stop doing this or this, I willfully sort of turn away from God in this. Right. And those are the things that the priest wants to hear me confess. It occurred to me then I know we got to wrap this up, but it occurred to me that that I found this in myself and it made me laugh. I think I met a laughed out loud thinking about this that this just seems like serious buzzkill. And I thought it felt like, oh man, this is, you know, that they're just piling on all these rules. You know, I found that in myself and I thought, I think I'm mistaking the freedom of a confessed and reconciled life for change that hamper my freedom. But the more I thought about it, I thought,

30:37well, why wouldn't I wouldn't I want to be free to be reconciled with God? That seems like the greatest freedom ever. Right. I mean, you know, isn't this the thing is a misunderstood idea of freedom, right? So like modern man, we have a notion that freedom is doing whatever you want, being able to do whatever you want to do. Right. The ancient Jewish and Christian concept of freedom is freedom is not being shackled and chained to things. And the thing is attachments, attachments to sin, attachments of things are things that sort of shackle you and chain you. And this is why, you know, it's a very ancient idea that if you look at say the 10 commandments, what they really are is in the 10 command, 10 commands don't tie me down. The 10 commandments keep me from being tied down. Right. It's like if you're driving along a mountain highway and there are these signs like cliff over here, right? Right. You know, all these like warning signs.

31:40You know, don't swirl over here. Here are the guard rails. And if you, if you don't pay attention to like the curved signs and all this kind of stuff, you're going to go off the guard rails. And in a sense, the 10 commandments or God's commandments are things that actually give us freedom because freedom is being able to go down the road without driving off the cliff or getting stuck in the snow. And so what we are trying to do is avoid those things that tie us down. And that's what sin is. It pulls us away from God. And freedom is being able to enjoy fully who God made us to be and the life he offers us. So yeah, I mean, the confessional is a thing that is often misunderstood, but it really is profound. And like I said, when I was in my process of becoming Catholic, it was the sacrament I couldn't wait to do because in a sense it was the one thing I mean that I'd never been able to do in my life up to that point. And I always kind of, there's a moment in which I,

32:44you know, you feel this reluctance because you have to go in there. But every, like Justin said, I walk out and I go, why didn't I do this sooner? I think another thing too is I can't speak for other people, but I can speak for myself that knowing that I'm going to have to confess it in this way, right? It did puts a check on my behavior. Yeah, because I like, I do this thing. I know I shouldn't do, but oh my gosh, in a couple weeks, I'm going to have to go in and confess it. Oh, no, no, that's going to be just like, I don't want to do that. Right. Like, that's some, not the prescript, but it's kind of embarrassing. And I'm sort of ashamed of myself. And like, I don't want to do that anymore. And that, but that's that process of converting my life. Right. That's that process of conversion of metanoia, of change of life, of sanctification. What? Yeah. What freedom is there other than the freedom to be in relationship with God? I mean, there isn't any other freedom. I think that has any meaningful definition at all.

33:48Well, look at people we know, right? Look at people in our lives. When you look at people who sort of live, I want to do whatever I want to do. It's so often what happens is they end up becoming slaves to something and becoming slaves to whatever it is. You know, money, drugs, this, that, whatever. I mean, you pick your thing, right? Narcissism, whatever. But, you know, it strikes me that even counseling or their psychotherapy is going in their 24-hour to liberate myself from all the junk and all the messes I've made my life. And how much better is it if I can avoid making those messes and being freedom? But again, that's still a therapeutic model. And the confessional isn't therapy. I remember one time I, I had met a Catholic for very long and I went into, I was actually in another town, I was traveling and so I went into the, went into confession because I had it on Wednesday night. It was up to me in town. And so I find this church and I go in and I go on the confession, I start, I have my whole phone notes and I started going on the stuff and I kind of guess what I must have gone off on a tangent,

34:49but things that I was really struggling with. And the priest, you know, singing the other side of the little curtain there, says to me, this is now we're getting into like counseling and spiritual direction and that's like, I've got like 27 people in a line outside. So can you just get to the, yeah, the things that you want to bring before the Lord and confess and if you want to make a go get counseling, then that's a different thing, you know, and and that's why when we do with it when the confession, confessional, it's, you know, number and kind of number, kinder number. I mean, the priest doesn't want to hear you necessarily, you know, rattle off everything, like a counseling session, but it's, it's these are the ways that I have turned away from God. Yep. Since my last, since the last time I was absorbed, I was made, I was absorbed in my sin and then since then, these are the ways I've turned my face away from Christ. And I want to be reconciled with Jesus. So this is, so by the way, this conversation we're having, it's coming up to length here

35:53and Ash Wednesday. Right. So this is a great opportunity because that's the season 40 days in which the church celebrates, but practices, penance and confession. We'll be back with another episode very soon and this show is 100% listener supported. My patrons keep the lights on and they let me spend more time researching and recording so that these episodes keep coming. If this show has helped you, would you consider becoming a patron? For as little as $5 a month, you'll get every regular episode organized into topical playlists, plus exclusive bonus content, extra video Q and A's, deep dive courses, live streams and more. Just head to patreon.com forward slash considering Catholicism or tap the link in the show notes. And would you please rate the podcast on whatever platform you're using and write a review on Apple podcasts or on considering Catholicism.com. And you can drop me a line.

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