GOING TO CONFESSION 

TO FATHER 

FRANCIS XAVIER SEELOS

What would it be like to go to confession to a Saint? Would I be nervous, anxious, scared? Would a Saint see right through me – knowing more about me than I know about myself – seeing my embarrassing behaviors and hidden prejudices? But would I also come out confession whispering, “Phew!” – having received a sacrament – having received a breath of fresh air –  having received the gift and grace that God forgives me? And in time for some sins, can I forgive myself?

What would it be like if there was a holy priest here at St. Mary’s, Annapolis, who had a great reputation as a saint – the “go to” priest for confession? What would people walking or driving down Duke of Gloucester Street think, if they saw a single line of people all the way up from the bridge over Spa Creek heading into church?

Such a priest was stationed here at St. Mary’s way back in the 1860’s. His name was Father Francis Xavier Seelos. In the literature about Father Seelos, writers keep saying lots of people wanted to go to confession to him – here at St. Mary’s, as well as in Pittsburgh, in Baltimore, Cumberland, Detroit, New Orleans, and in the many places where he preached parish missions.

As to long confession lines at St. Mary’s to get to Father Seelos, I was disappointed because I didn’t find any writer saying exactly that - especially  because I did read about  long lines of people wanting to go to confession to him in several other places where he was stationed.

Listen to what the Annals of the Baltimore Province of the Redemptorists from 1867 say about Father Seelos when he was stationed in New Orleans, his last assignment. “Here, as in all other places where he had been, he soon became a universal favorite. Germans, English, French, Creoles, negroes, mulattoes, all admired and loved F. Seelos. Though he was by no means a great proficient in English, and still less so in French, there were hundreds of highly educated Creoles and Americans who came miles, and stood for hours before his confessional, in order to have the happiness to make a general confession to him. And we all remarked that whoever went to him once, would never afterwards go to any other director. It was a common belief among the people that he could read the secrets of the heart.” (p. 317, Vol. 5)

It was at St. Philomena’s Parish in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1845-1854), that Seelos’ reputation as a great confessor began. It was his second assignment as a Redemptorist. Perhaps it was because he was stationed with a future Saint – John Neumann – whom he went to confession to – that he knew what it was like to go to confession to a saint.

Francis Xavier Seelos was a creative preacher, but it seems to me, he loved being in the wooden confession box more than the wooden pulpit. But he was not wooden. He was warm and compassionate. Being a Redemptorist, he knew our motto and vision statement, “Copiosa Apud Eum Redemptio.” With Christ there is copious or fullness of redemption.

In Father Carl Hoegerl and Alicia Von Stamwitz’s book, A Life of Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos, they mention a sermon by Father Seelos where he says: “I here publicly give you permission to bring it up to me in the confessional and to call me a liar, if you come to confession and don’t find me receiving you in all mildness.” In other words, you might be filled with fear and trembling, but I promise peace (p. 49) – and if you don’t experience that, yell, “Liar!”

It was great to read that, because being good confessors is supposed to be a key trait of Redemptorists. Our founder, St. Alphonsus de Liguori, not only has the honorary titles of Doctor of Prayer and Patron Saint of Moral Theologians, he also has the title of Patron Saint of Confessors. He wrote a whole book for priests on how to be a good confessor. He wanted Redemptorists to bring Christ’s redeeming love to folks – and one key way was to experience God’s forgiveness in the sacrament of reconciliation – still usually called “confession”.

So when people went to confession to Father Francis Xavier Seelos here at St. Mary’s, they were going to confession to a wonderful and warm saint.

Whenever I sit in a confessional at St. Mary’s, I think about all the Redemptorist priests who heard confessions here in Annapolis for the past 150 years. I say to myself: Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos heard confessions in this very church – well not in these boxes – but in this church. I read in Robert L. Worden’s book which just came out, “St. Mary’s Church in Annapolis, Maryland: A Sesquicentennial History, 1853-2003” (pp. 125-126) that the present confessionals were constructed in 1914. Henry Robert, our sacristan, took me outside the church and pointed out how the outside walls of our church on the prayer garden side or the street side protrude where the present confessionals are.

Sometimes when I see people lined up to go to confession, I reflect about how going to confession has helped me all through my life. I begin by thinking about going to confession as a kid in the Redemptorist Parish of OLPH, Brooklyn.  I’d tell the usual kid stuff – “distobeying”, lying, stealing, fighting with my brother – and at times probably made up some stuff to make it sound good. In time, I didn’t have to make things up – graduating to sins of pride and laziness, etc.

I also remember what happened one Saturday afternoon when I was a kid. It was back in the 1950’s, when Catholics went to confession a lot more than today. Every Saturday eight confession boxes were in operation in our big parish. That afternoon every priest had a line except for one confession box. The light was on – meaning there was a priest in there - but nobody was going to him. I didn’t know why, but I guess I had a kid’s intuition: don’t go near the lion’s den. Then a man came into church – stood in the back for a moment – measured the lines – and perhaps because he was in a rush – headed for the confession box that had no line. Wrong move. Suddenly, everyone in the church smiled as well as being shocked, because they heard quite clearly the priest in the “forbidden box” yelling at the guy who thought he was making a great move.

“Woo! Uh oh! O no!” And I must have said to myself, “If I ever become a priest, I’ll never do that.” It was the same thing I said about a grouch on our block. We’d be playing stickball on the street. There weren’t that many cars back then – hey it was just after World War II and New York City had great public transportation – so our street was not that busy. The black macadam street was our “Field of Dreams”. Sewer covers in the center of the street were home plate and second base; two trees were first and third base. It was great, until a ball went into the grouch’s front yard. That was a “No! No!” The rule was: don’t get caught by the grouch trying to retrieve a Spalding – that wonderful red bouncy ball every kid loved in the 1950’s. And when the grouch grouched, I’m sure everyone said, “When I grow up, I won’t yell at kids who hit a ball into my yard.”

Was Francis Xavier Seelos yelled at – or did he hear the stories every priest hears about someone leaving the Catholic Church because some priest yelled at them? I don’t know, but I do know, he loved hearing confessions.

In fact, when he was semi-conscious, dying of yellow fever in New Orleans at the age of 48, he thought the Redemptorist priests and brothers around his bed were there to go to confession, and he would start with the confession prayers.

Confession is good for the soul. The sacrament or reconciliation is a great gift. It’s a chance to name our sins, to confess them, and hopefully in time to get beyond them.

Fritz Kunkel once described the purpose of confession as: “To bring to light the unknown, the unconscious darkness, and the underdeveloped creativity of our deeper layers.” Certainly people who receive the sacrament of reconciliation down through the years have had this experience. It begins with the call and need for confession – the call to sit and pray in a church for a while, and then to stand on line with other sinners – to articulate one’s sins – the roots of which are deep – and often need a lifetime of weeding from the garden of our soul.

Jesus was off on helping people discover forgiveness and healing. And he tells us to forgive seventy times seven times. He also said, “Let him without sin cast the first stone.”

Hopefully, all of us have had wonderful experiences in the sacrament of confession – experiencing Christ and his forgiveness seventy times seven times – and if any of us have experienced some rock throwing from a priest, that we can forgive him and get beyond that horror.

Everyone knows the priests here at St. Mary’s are not saints. Hopefully everyone who goes to confession here will taste a bit of the joy and “Good News” people who went confession to Father Francis Xavier Seelos experienced. He’s has not been canonized a Saint yet, but he is half-way there, being beatified on April 9, 2000. Hopefully the priests here, keep moving forward one step at a time – as a result of the example the long line of great Redemptorists who have gone before them. 

[From Moorings, Father Andy Costello]