Monday, March 24, 2008

Confessions of a 30-year-old drama queen

I went to confession today for the first time in, like, 20 years. I was raised Catholic, but my mom didn't really make a big deal out of confession, so we never really went. In fact, I always thought that as long as you prayed for forgiveness for your sins, you were good to go. Turns out, I was sooo wrong, and that even taking communion without confessing was a MORTAL SIN. Oh crap!

I was talking to a recently converted coworker about it this morning. She showed me this little book she uses that explains the confession process. It turns out I am so bad in so many ways I didn't even realize. So I made myself a dirty laundry list and headed down to confession at lunch.

I was super -scared, but I told the priest how long it had been, and he was really nice. Told me it was okay, just happy I was there, yada yada yada. So I got out my list and confessed. All 20 years of it. It was a surprisingly powerful experience. Afterward, he said all my past sins had been forgiven and that I could now focus entirely on the future. It felt really amazing. And (since I'm all about confessing today) I have to admit, my coworker told me to go to that priest because he tended to be light on the penance. Turns out she was right. Only 7 Our Fathers and 7 Hail Marys for all of my youthful indiscretions! Sweet! I guess I'm not so bad.

So now the pressure's really on. I got a clean slate. The question is, what am I going to do with it?

2 comments:

Shannon said...

I was in the third grade last time I went to confession and saying the lords name in vain, not behaving for my parents, not keeping the sabbath holy, and cussing cost me a whole Rosary. You got a sweet penance deal.

Cladeedah said...

See, that's what you get for being such a big whore. Awe, just playing baby, take me back!