Last Sunday, Fr. Mark and I announced additional confession hours on Saturday morning starting August 16. However, we were not able to make this announcement last week at the Vigil Mass since the decision to add confession hours was made after the Vigil Mass. So for the benefit of those who missed the announcement last weekend, I will explain it here again.
For the past several weekends that Fr. Mark and I have heard confessions, it’s quite obvious that our one hour and ten minutes current schedule for confessions on Saturday afternoons is not enough to hear everyone who comes to the sacrament. If it is frustrating for those who line up for an hour and in the end are not able to avail the sacrament, it is also disheartening for us to leave the confessional in order to prepare for the Vigil Mass, knowing that there are 10 or 15 more penitents waiting. Most of the time, we leave the confessional 10 minutes before the Vigil Mass to maximize the time for confessions. As a response to this need (it’s actually a good problem to have), we have decided to offer additional confession times on Saturday mornings right after the morning Mass. The priest who will celebrate the Saturday morning Mass will also hear confessions from 8:40am to 10am; the priest who will celebrate the Vigil Mass on Saturday evening will hear the usual confessions from 3:30pm to 4:40pm.
Why can’t we hear confessions between 10am to 3pm on Saturdays? It is because we usually have other sacramental obligations like weddings, funerals, and baptisms that are scheduled in the church between 10:30am to 3pm on Saturdays. We thought about having the two priests hear confessions at the same time on the usual schedule (3:30pm – 4:40pm), but we do not have the right space for that. We only have one working confessional right now. And if there are emergency/anointing calls, then the other priest has to leave even in the middle of a confession. So to avoid this, we will have two separate confessions on Saturday – one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Our only plea is for you to arrive early because, even though we have an additional hour and 20 minutes on Saturday mornings, if all 50 penitents arrive at 9:30am, then we won’t be able to hear them all. I hope this will help and address our needs right now with the sacrament of reconciliation. – Fr. Cary