On line
Widner, Thomas C.
THE LAST WORD ON LIME Thomas C. Widner My New Year's resolution for 1998 was to become more attentive to my prayer life. I wanted to take greater advantage of the sacraments. In...
...While I was kneeling, more people entered the church...
...I mean really looked at one...
...I knelt down in a pew to give this novel situation some thought...
...I hadn't seen a confessional line that long since I was in grade school, more than forty years ago...
...Each one was careful to avert his or her eyes from others...
...On that first Saturday, I believed it...
...Special favors are reserved for those who go to Mass on five first Saturdays of the month...
...Who was this Godchild...
...I thought I should go to confession more often...
...There were even women Eucharistic ministers...
...But the Mass wasn't pre-Vatican II...
...Yet the church was filled with about two hundred people gathered to honor Mary...
...Even so, after twenty minutes I was still nowhere near getting to either priest...
...I hadn't really looked at a creche in many years...
...Then the second priest left his box...
...The priest's opening words explained that it was the first Saturday of the month...
...All the correct liturgical practices had been followed...
...There must have been three dozen people in line waiting for a single confessional...
...I wasn't in the mood for a face-to-face confession, and neither was anyone else...
...In his homily, the priest encouraged us to live our faith and not just to adore the baby Jesus...
...My attention was also drawn to the Christmas decorations, to the huge corpus of Christ hanging over the altar, and to the large creche that dominated the side chapel in which the confessional was located...
...I joined it...
...Of course...
...I stayed for the liturgy...
...Leaving the confessional, I knelt before the creche to say my penance...
...So off I went on the first Saturday of the new year to be shriven through and through...
...Some of my friends would find this scene bizarre, even threatening, pooh-poohing first Satuday devotion as a meaningless superstition...
...It had something to do with the appearance of the Blessed Virgin at Fatima...
...Obviously, the practice of first Saturday was meaningful for a good many Catholics that day...
...THE LAST WORD ON LIME Thomas C. Widner My New Year's resolution for 1998 was to become more attentive to my prayer life...
...It was the day before the feast of the Epiphany, and the manger scene would soon be packed away for another year...
...Commonweal 3O January 15,1999...
...After Mass, a confessional line immediately formed again...
...I decided to get in line for confession...
...No one entered the face-to-face door...
...Then I saw the line snaking from the confessional on the north wall around the east wall and extending around a corner...
...To my surprise, the church parking lot was nearly full...
...Must be something going on at the gym, I thought...
...That's all I could remember...
...I said my confession to the older priest from behind the protection of a familiar grille...
...Meanwhile, people kept streaming into the church and soon the place was half-full...
...I thought I'd drive over, pop in, and spill my guts...
...First Saturday...
...I'm told that a child is a sign of hope and of the future...
...I vaguely remembered the devotion from childhood...
...Then a second priest appeared and entered a confessional box...
...In particular (shudder...
...I'd already worked out my confession, but I had also carefully arranged the rest of my day...
...You had to see it to believe it, to look at faces and see the people hungry for God's touch...
...We often don't like to acknowledge the variety of Catholic devotional practices...
...You had to look with wonder at those reaching out to the God who lay in the manger...
...And to be honest, I didn't take up the five first Saturdays devotion myself...
...Those of us left on line—a few pilgrims stranded in a lonely island aisle—seemed like sinful stragglers in a sea of Christians praising the Lord...
...Both priests had left the confessionals so as not to confuse the sacraments by running a double-feature...
...www.commonwealmaga2ine.org older priest's confessional had a face-to-face option...
...Within seconds he was vested, and began to say Mass...
...Thomas C. Widner, S.J., does retreat ministry at Milford Spirituality Center in Mil-ford, Ohio...
...The Start the New Year off with a visit to our updated website: subscribe on-line, send a letter to the editors, sample a recent issue, and more...
...At first the whole scene had seemed like an anachronistic throwback...
...Suddenly, the altar lights snapped on, and one priest emerged from the confessional...
...A parish about five miles away offered confession for half an hour before noon on Saturdays...
...The crude manger scene touched me in some unaccountable way...
...I figured I could wait it out...
...Looking at the line, I considered putting off the sacrament until another time...
...I focused my eyes on each figure, carefully and lovingly...
...But I'm grateful to the parish that took care of my sacramental needs on that first Saturday of January 1998...
...Opening the church door, I discovered at least two score people kneeling in a well-lit church...
...A steady stream of penitents would leave the confessional and then kneel before the creche...
Vol. 126 • January 1999 • No. 1
