An Experience of Confession

Reflections from a Penitent

"He sees, too, those that have lapsed, and have been deceived by his treacherous snares, washed in the tears of penitence and, by the Apostle's key unlocking the gates of mercy, admitted to the benefit of reconciliation."

- Pope St. Leo the Great, Sermon 49

Have you ever had a moment so epiphanic, real, and visceral that its effect on you felt tangible? This is what I felt when encountering true paternal love in the confines of sacramental confession. In order to more fully understand this, I will give some context. 

For the past several years, I have experienced terrible loneliness, and as the feeling of this isolation intensified, I developed a severe case of depression. Even after getting past this major depression, which riddled my life for four years, I still battled the loneliness. There was a hole in my heart from a lack of love that I knew I didn't have - and that I wasn't going to receive. This was two-fold: on the one hand, it was a romantic longing, and on the other hand, it was a longing for fatherly love. 

At one point, I found myself keeling over in my bed with physical pain in my chest over this loneliness. I felt as though my heart was being stabbed. In the months that followed, I found myself crying in my room for hours with a plea for a mother or father to console me in a state of child-like desperation. My only experience for most of my childhood of fatherly care was expressed in a harsh and abusive mode. Verbal and physical abuse was my outlook for "correction" and "love". That's not to say I never received gentle care, but it certainly wasn't the majority of my experience. My childhood experience shaped me into lasting and borderline irreversible changes. 

Fast forward to when I was 19. In the winter of 2023, I had become Anglican and had begun attending a parish in North Carolina. After about three weeks, I moved down to Florida and began attending St. Alban's Anglican Cathedral. Upon the advice of a friend, I immediately sought a priest to be my confessor and spiritual director. This led me to meet one Fr. Peter. As soon as I had met the man, I was confronted with the presence of someone who was holy, temperate, modest, rounded, articulate, and quite smart. Just being around him made me want to emulate his character, as he imitated Christ. From our meeting and speaking over the course of a couple of weeks, he had agreed to be my confessor and spiritual director. (Becoming Anglican allowed me to use the term "father" when speaking to a minister, something I greatly cherished and admired prior to this, and now, I could use such personal and loving language with this man I was beginning to admire more and more by the day.)

However, before my first confession and subsequent meeting for spiritual direction, fear plagued me. I was fearful that this "father", too, would offer the same harsh rebuke and disdainful character in the confines of this extremely vulnerable moment. Why? As I mentioned previously, this was all I had known before this moment; it was my accustomed experience, and I was preparing for the worst. So, I jotted my first confession in a small journal, went to the parish, and sheepishly walked into the chapel more ashamed of my sin than ever and nervous. But when I began the rite "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned", something comforted me. Then, beginning the sentence for a first confession and having gone through all the sins I could recall in my life, I expected to hear what I had been dreading. However, after verbalizing my sins, there was a stillness in the air, a moment of reprieve, and instead of hearing the stern and harsh rebuke of an angry father, I heard the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ. I sat kneeling before him astonished, soaked in his gentleness, listened to his advice and penance, and was happier than ever. This same gentleness and warmth would carry over in the advice and counsel he would give me afterward in spiritual direction. 

Despite this, there remained a problem, however: I had not yet internalized and applied the effects of his care for me in my life. I still struggled with that gaping hole of fatherly love, leading to countless nights spent in tears, crying out to God for help. This pain would climatically reach a point where, one day, I saw the infamous video of Pope Francis' comforting a young boy whose unbelieving father had died. Here, I am not going to give commentary on the theological ramifications of what Francis said; I am interested in something else. 

The boy meekly approached the microphone before a large audience to ask the Pope a question. However, being overwhelmed by the question, the boy began to cry and could not speak. The Pope gestured towards him and requested that he could whisper the question in his ear. The young boy agreed and walked towards him, crying and broken. The Pope had received him and then embraced him in his arms. Rubbing the back of the boy's head and assuring him he was all right struck a chord with me, and I began to immediately cry. This was the purest expression of paternal love I had seen in quite a while. As tears poured down my face, I could only watch with longing at what the boy had experienced. After the boy had asked his question, the Pope revealed what had been asked, but before this, he said, "If only we could cry as Emmanuel." Not only had the boy been comforted and received by this man, but his emotions were validated. What better image of a father than this to a weeping boy - a boy who had just lost his unbelieving father and asked where he had gone? This image resonated with me so palpably and strongly that it has not left my mind since. However, because I was now more cognisant of this, I had an even greater longing for paternal love. 

Later the same day, I met with my priest for confession and spiritual direction. Much like the first time, he offered me that paternal love I so longed for and desired in confession. Later in spiritual direction, I confessed the state of my loneliness, how I felt a hole in my heart, and my reaction to the Pope Francis video. I asked him, "What can I do?". He paused and waited momentarily, and then began to answer. He admitted that I was past the point of receiving the kind of care that I longed for in my childhood, but I was not exempt from experiencing paternal love now. He offered a twofold solution: be exposed to figures who would offer me this kind of love, and give this love to those younger than myself. An example of this could be loving any young boy, but marrying and having children were the circumstances Fr. Peter emphasized. We concluded our meeting, and I walked out of his office, crying and saying aloud, "I wish Fr. Peter could adopt me. I wish I could be his son." 

It would take time, but after reflecting on my relationship with him, the advice he had given over several months, the guidance given before my confirmation, and his assistance with me while I was at my lowest clicked. The hole I had was filled, the pain had passed, and I now knew true paternal love and was able to apply its effects to my life. I began to speak to my brother, friends, and strangers with a renewed sense of love and gentleness. 

It would be in the confines of confession and spiritual direction where I would experience the epiphanic, real, and visceral words of a loving father. The Lord Jesus Christ was ever present in this man, and without this priest, I doubt I would be able to handle these issues as I do now. Very few things in life have so tangibly affected me; thus, being so moved by this, I felt compelled to write about it for the sake of the Church - both to share how God has helped me and to laud the benefits of confession and a personal relationship with a priest. 

I pray that the words I was able to string together might help any who read it - and direct you to Christ.