While we were serving breakfast outside our parish’s rummage sale, we saw our pastor hobbling towards our booth from the church. He had just finished hearing Confessions. As he neared, we noted that he looked exhausted and visibly distraught. He wearily asked for some food, something with protein in it. We gave him a plate of scrambled eggs, which he ate up quickly.
“Father,” we asked him, “does hearing Confessions take a lot out of you?” Implying the spiritual, emotional, and even physical aspects of it.
He managed a smile between bites. “Yes it does.” He wiped his mouth and continued with an analogy. “A priest friend of mine, who had already passed, explained it like this: ‘It’s like getting stoned to death with marshmallows.’”
His friend was most likely referencing Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s quip about how hearing a nun’s Confession is like being stoned to death with popcorn. (Or, perhaps, it was his friend who gave it to the late great Archbishop and now Servant of God–or, his friend WAS Archbishop Sheen, which would be way cooler. Or, it’s just one of those industry inside-jokes…?)
I both do and don’t get this analogy. I suppose it means our priests are expressing their immunity towards the sins we hurl at them. No matter how gnarly the things we let fly, it bounces right off them and they forgive us because God forgives us. Then again, it is getting stoned to death, the end result imminent despite the harmless, fluffy means used to attain it. Like death by a thousand papercuts.
We are taught that it is the Lord whom we are speaking to when we confess our sins. The conduit, however, is a human being. He is a man who sacrifices and struggles so much to walk a path of holiness for Him, for you. To assail him with the vile things we do, one after another after another, and for him to forgive each and every one with love–I can see why Father came out of the Confessional so famished, so haggard, the way he did.
Which brings us to today’s Gospel: in John 16:29, Jesus’ disciples go phew! when the Lord finally stopped using figurative language and spoke very plainly. I love how the Lord tells us stories that make us really think deeper. But when we are too dense to get it, he just tells us straight out, in plain and simple talk. Or, He shows us.
After bringing all our sins to the cross, before surrendering His spirit to the Father, Jesus said He was thirsty (John 19:28). I do not think this is to be taken figuratively, but a literal, deliberate request for something to drink–some alleviation from the intense suffering He was enduring for our salvation.
It is the same suffering He burdens on those He called to forgive us today.
