Weird Experience With Homily

[WhiteLily]

Does anyone have their confessor as their pastor? I have known my parish priest for a long time (before he was a priest) and he has been my confessor for a couple of years. 

During the homily tonight he kept looking in my general direction and he used language that I have used recently in the confessional and as he was talking he just kept staring at me almost as if he sensed something about me. He was talking about sins that stain our baptismal garment. But the imperfections he mentioned are things I have struggled with for a while. 

Sorry, maybe I'm paranoid, but I just found it weird. Maybe since "Jerkface" (what I call the devil) knows that's my weak spot, he is trying to cause division between me and my confessor which began since the beginning. 

Thanks for letting me vent.

 

[Nihil Obstat]

If that indeed happened as you perceived it, that is incredibly inappropriate. I would think actually a violation of the Seal.

[Gabriela]

I just interviewed 43 priests about preaching. Quite a few brought up things like this. They always say they try very hard to "mask" any personal circumstances that might reveal the identity of an individual, and most will not even talk about a person when they're still in the parish that person is in, especially if it's a small parish. That being said, many do draw homily content from the confessional—in anonymized form, of course.

So my thinking is: (1) It's very possible your own guilt about these sins has made you a bit paranoid and so you're seeing "talking straight to me" where the person didn't intend or even objectively do that. Given most priests would not do that, this seems even more likely to me. But (2) it could also be that your priest was trying really hard to mask the fact that he was speaking to you (and people like you), but he just failed miserably, and so what you perceived really was him speaking straight to you. Or, in the worst case, (3) your priest is so young/foolish that he actually thought the homily was a good place to send you a message, and he did this intentionally. I rather doubt this, given I spoke to priests who were 2 months old and even they knew that's a big no-no.

So, probably, 1 or 2.

You know what you can do? Go tell your priest that that thing he said in his homily felt like he was speaking directly to you. Priests hear that all the time. Most of the time their reaction is, "Uhhh... that's great. And it was totally the Holy Spirit, not me, cuz I didn't actually say that/I can't remember saying that at all." See what his reaction is. Then you'll know.

 

[beatitude]

I agree with Nihil and Gabriela. I would also add that it depends on what sins he was talking about - if the things you struggle with are very common things, the sort of things most of the parish is likely to be dealing with, then it's unlikely he was speaking directly at you. If he referenced something more unusual, then I'd be concerned. In that circumstance it doesn't matter if it's potentially identifying or not - even if no one else knows about the matter, it's still humiliating for you to have your confessor using a public homily as a vehicle to talk about your past sins. I would mention your worries to him and ask for clarification.

[Gabriela]

@WhiteLily: How old is your priest, and how long has he been ordained?

[WhiteLily]

He is in his early 40's and has been a priest for 5 years. 

13 minutes ago, WhiteLily said:

He is in his early 40's and has been a priest for 5 years. 

Sorry, no 6 years

[Gabriela]

1 hour ago, WhiteLily said:

He is in his early 40's and has been a priest for 5 years. 

Sorry, no 6 years

Okay, so he's still relatively young as a priest, but a "late" vocation, so he has more life experience (and thus, hopefully, more common sense) than the average fresh-out-of-seminary baby priest. Provided he isn't ridiculously cocky or outrageously difficult personality-wise, I think you could and should have a conversation with him about how his homily affected you. Trust me: If he's a reasonable, humble, basically good guy, he's going to be really happy to talk about a homily with you. Most priests get zero feedback about their homilies and they (mostly) aren't happy about that. Whether he intended to single you out or not, he's going to want to know that what he said was right on that line of making someone feel singled out. He needs that feedback to avoid doing this in the future, either intentionally or by accident.

[Norseman82]

Another reason to go behind the screen at a different parish...

[WhiteLily]

I like to have a regular confessor and I go face-to-face. To be honest, he and I are very similar in our thinking and how we speak, so I'm not surprised if we are dealing with similar issues and just decided to use terms that I used. I have known him for a long time, over 20 years, it's a spiritual friendship that goes very deep. We get mad at each other one day and fight like brother and sister, then the next day we move on and we understand each other a little better. We have our ups and downs as in an spiritual friendships. But, I know Jesus brought us together to help work out our issues, which are very similar. I think I over reacted, but I may ask him about it when I have the next opportunity.