Today was the third Sunday in Lent. The word "lent" comes from a word meaning "spring". For Catholics, and for most other Christians, it's a time of intensified prayer, reflection, repentance, charity. If someone is to make confession only once in a year, that one time is most likely to be during Lent. Often, parishes will have communal reconciliation services (think of "reconciliation" as synonymous with "confession" for this purpose), and thereon hangs today's tale.

Some years ago we went to a communal reconciliation at The Church of the Nativity in Dubuque, Iowa. We had our daughters with. A communal reconciliation starts with the community singing a hymn, with some prayer and a few remarks by a priest. Then, the priests (some will have come from other parishes to help with this) scatter to different parts of the chapel to hear individual confessions.

We went through the opening, and the time for confessions started. Our third daughter, Kim, was one of the first ones to visit one of the priests, Father Mark. A few minutes into her confession Fr. Mark looked up, and looked over at us. More confession, and again, Fr. Mark looked at us. Cindy and I started to wonder what she was saying that directed Father's attention to us like that. We got our answer when Kim was done.

She advised us that she'd confessed OUR sins. I guess she wanted to save us the trouble.

No wonder she took so long!

A story I heard from the late Father Anthony Farrell, God be good to him: A parish pastor in New York announced that, for a communal penance service, he had four priests to assist with confessions. They were all freshly arrived in this country from Vietnam, and none of them spoke a word of English.

The line outside the parish for confession circled the block.

I'm now putting together my list of things for confession. Yes, it'll be a communal service, probably the one at St. Anthony's. No, I won't take Kim with. And, I do expect that the priest will speak English.

Drat!