optional room?

I read all the comments on the topic of confession. None of them surprised me because I have practiced both types of confessions. I explain how the right one brought a total difference in my spiritual life shortly.

Some misconceptions I observed:-

1. Am I protestant?

No! I am Ethiopian. A person cannot be a protestant and Ethiopian at the same time. An Ethiopian stretches his hands to God; but, I seriously doubt it is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that a protestant stretches his hands to.

2. Am I saying the Sacrament of Confession is not necessary?

No! How can a person live without confession? But, what I am saying the role of the priests is misconceived in the implementation of this particular Sacrament; and this misconception most likely originated from the Roman Catholic Church (even recently, they used to tell their bishops to institute strong practice of confession in their colonies so that surveillance becomes easy on the population… that is well documented).

3. Am I saying a person doesn’t need the help of priests because I observed some “small achievements” in my spiritual life and felt a bit arrogant, as Father Peterfarrington suspected?

No! Rather the opposite happened when I realized that I am supposed to confess without any postponing since the Holy Spirit is in the hearts and minds of me, just like every other Christian. I opened my eye to see how arrogant I was formerly by assuming that from the hundreds of sins I commit especially by thinking and speaking, I just tell my priest those that stood out for me and stuck to my memory for one reason or another and I assume that I am “good to go” and my priest comforts me and “confirms” that I can go…. How arrogant was I? In fact, that was all I could do since that was as realistic as it can get. But that seriously blocked my speed to discern and spit out every bad thought I had, and regret and ask for God’s mercy for every good thing I didn’t do (that is a sin, isn’t it?), every bad emotion I didn’t understand the cause of, and so on. No one can list all the hundreds of “seemingly little” things (perhaps by putting them under big category) everyday and tell those to the priest without forgetting some; the solution is confessing to the Lord as soon as the person realizes they are happening. In that case, we will be saved from all the paradoxical suggestions we give to other people such as “after confession and before holy communion, you can confess your sins directly to the Lord if you are in the church or on your way to the church or it is a matter of couple of hours of difference;” and “unless a person tells his sins to the abuna, he will go to hell” or “he is arrogant” and the like. Can the two go together? Aren’t we complicating things and making it hard to develop the habit of directly seeing the Lord in spirit whenever we notice our sins? Aren’t we trivializing the sacrament? Aren’t we pushing ourselves into tearless and shameless “reporting” of sins because of human inconveniences? Isn’t that self-imprisoning? Of course it is. We will only be liars if we say “it isn’t.” There is no evidence better than this very problem raised by Thanks be to God Always when she was asking for an advice on what to do about the sins she commits before communion and after confession.

4. When I say I tell those situations that I feel I need advice on, do I mean I “keep some sins to myself” and confess selectively?

No! I have nothing to keep to myself in the first place, because I confess them to the Holy Spirit whenever I notice them. It is only if I “save” them to tell to a priest that I will actually be “keeping them to myself.” But I don’t keep them. I spit them out! I ask advice on them if they are recurrent, emotionally very hearting, confusing, or not clear with what their implications would be and I feel like I need someone to talk to. That is what priests are ordained for, isn’t it? After all, my priest is concerned to my overall wellbeing, and he just cannot dismiss the discussion of spiritual life. But the heart knows the way with regard to when to ask the priest (or even others) for a piece of advice. We even ask for advice on forums, don’t we?

5. Is “abesku geberku” the same us “muttering”?

Yes-only for those who mutter it for the sake of muttering. There are billions today who mutter “God!” “Jeez,” “Holy Mother Mary!” “O Lord!” simply for the sake of exaggeration of a situation or because of some habit of “muttering.”  That doesn’t dismiss, for example, Thomas’s use of the word “My God!” “My Lord!” which was genuine and was a creed to acknowledge that Jesus is God. After all, there is no term intentionally created to be meaninglessly muttered or screamed.

6. Is what I am talking about against the bible?

No! There are various examples of repenting ON THE SPOT and DIRECTLY TO GOD without waiting to meet a priest or another person:

1. Peter- he confessed to Christ in spirit
2. The tax collector- isn’t he Jesus’ favorite example?
3. King David - He always confessed to God in Spirit;
6 I am worn out from groaning;
       all night long I flood my bed with weeping
       and drench my couch with tears.
7 My eyes grow weak with sorrow;
       they fail because of all my foes.
8 Away from me, all you who do evil,
       for the LORD has heard my weeping.
9 The LORD has heard my cry for mercy;
       the LORD accepts my prayer.
10 All my enemies will be ashamed and dismayed;
       they will turn back in sudden disgrace.
He was at the same time humble to consult prophet Natan whenever necessary.

This one is for sample (Psalm, 6). I don’t know what we make of the whole Psalms of David if we believe that a sin cannot be forgiven unless it is told to a priest. David wouldn’t have become God’s favorite if he believed so.

I also don’t know how we understand Jesus’ interference whenever the disciples or other people think of things wrongly even if they didn’t say it out loud or directly to Him (e.g., when the disciples debated who is the greatest among them; when the people at the house of Simon thought Jesus wouldn’t have accepted the woman’s perfume had He known she was a prostitute, and so on). He doesn’t keep on preaching this and that is bad and wait until they realize they were wrong and confess it to Him. He corrected them ON THE SPOT! He “pops” (as one participant on this forum correctly suggested) when He sees the necessity. He can do the same thing in us today if we allow Him to. He is in us, isn’t He? We eat His Flesh and drink His Blood; don’t we? After all, isn’t what Isaiah prophesized at 54:13 “All your sons will be taught by the LORD, and great will be your children's peace” reiterated by Jesus specifically when He taught about what His Flesh and Blood will do for Christians? (John 6:25-59). After all, isn’t this what priests should always teach their children about?

I have no intention of convincing anyone this way or that. But, we shouldn’t formularize the work of the Holy Spirit. We will only be hurting ourselves. We swill benefit alot by building a strong relationship with the Holy Spirit using the advices of preists or others who have well-developed apiritual life and experiences. I have no better example than my own father who was a passionate Marxist-socialist during the previous regime, but was always a good hearted person and used to go to church may be a couple of times a year to pray for his family and confess his sins exactly the way the tax collector did. He never waited even to go to church or to a priest to confess. He “mutters” it, if he has to; and none of that has formula! He was always genuine. He used to pray to St. Michael begging him to give him purity of spirit to forgive others (he told us that later). He grew out of his Gold-less beliefs and he now regularly goes to church; and he is spiritually very strong than before. He is more respectful to priests today than before; and he is interested in spiritual discussions. So, what do we make of such cases? Is he arrogant? Fool? No! He was genuine; he was taught by the Lord. That is all.

Sheba