If you'd seen me on a Sunday morning, you'd have thought I was the most Catholic guy in the parish.

I never missed Mass.

I ushered at the ten o'clock.

I worked the fryer at the Lenten fish fry every Friday for fifteen years.

Father knew me by name.

But I had a secret.

I hadn't been to confession in twenty-two years.

Every Saturday afternoon, I'd drive past the church and see the little light on above the confessional.

And every Saturday, I'd keep driving.

Seventeen Years Old

It started with one bad confession when I was seventeen.

I had done something I was really ashamed of, and I worked up all my courage to confess it.

The priest on the other side of the screen was having a bad day, or maybe he was just a hard man.

He raised his voice.

He told me I ought to be ashamed of myself.

Everyone in the line outside could hear it.

I walked out with my face burning, past a row of people staring at their shoes.

I don't think that priest meant to do lasting damage.

But I didn't go back to confession for the next twenty-two years.

The Things I Told Myself

I had every excuse in the book.

I told myself I could confess straight to God, and that I didn't need a middleman.

I told myself I was a pretty good guy.

I didn't rob banks.

I didn't cheat on my wife.

I told myself I'd go next Lent.

And then the next.

But underneath all of that, the truth was simple.

I was afraid.

Afraid of being yelled at again.

Afraid of saying the ugly things in my heart out loud.

And as the years piled up, I was afraid that twenty-two years was simply too long to come back from.

Meanwhile, the stuff I wasn't confessing didn't go away.

It just piled up in the corner like old boxes in a garage.

My short temper with my kids.

The way I talked about my brother behind his back.

Things I'd done in my twenties that I'd never told a soul.

The Homily That Got Me

One Sunday during Lent, our pastor preached on the parable of the Prodigal Son.

I'd heard it a hundred times.

The younger son takes his inheritance, wastes it all, and finally comes crawling home with a speech rehearsed.

But Father pointed out something I had never noticed.

The son never even gets to finish his speech.

The father sees him while he's still a long way off and runs to him.

He throws his arms around him before the boy can say a word.

Then Father said something that went straight through me.

He said some of us have been rehearsing our speech for years, standing at the edge of the property, too afraid to walk up the road.

And the Father has been running toward us the whole time.

I was standing in the back, holding a collection basket.

I had to set it down.

Getting Ready

Our parish was offering confessions every evening for one week of Lent.

I decided this was it.

But I didn't even remember how to do it.

So I went online and found an examination of conscience, a list of questions based on the Ten Commandments to help you remember your sins.

I sat at my workbench in the garage and went through it, line by line.

It took me two hours.

Twenty-two years is a lot of ground to cover.

I wrote things down on an index card so I wouldn't lose my nerve and skip anything.

On the back of the card, I wrote out the Act of Contrition, because I'd forgotten half of it.

The Line

On Wednesday night, I stood in line outside the confessional with the index card sweating in my hand.

There were about eight people ahead of me.

A teenage girl.

A couple of moms.

An old man with a cane.

I almost left three times.

Every time the door opened, I remembered being seventeen, walking out past that line with my face on fire.

Then the old man with the cane came out.

He was smiling.

He caught my eye, nodded toward the door, and said, He's a good one.

I went in.

Behind the Door

I chose the screen, not face to face.

I made the sign of the cross with a shaky hand and said, Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.

Then I told him it had been twenty-two years.

And I told him why.

There was a pause on the other side of the screen.

Then the priest said, quietly, that he was so sorry that had happened to me.

He said that's not who Jesus is, and that's not what this sacrament is for.

And then he said, Take your time.

I read my whole index card.

Every line.

Some of it I had never said out loud to anyone.

He didn't gasp.

He didn't lecture.

When I finished, he talked to me for a minute about the Prodigal Son, which made me laugh a little, because of course he did.

He gave me a penance.

Then he raised his hand, and I heard the words.

I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Twenty-two years of boxes in the garage, gone in one sentence.

Walking Out

When I opened that door, there were still five or six people in line.

I don't know what my face looked like.

But a young guy near the back, maybe twenty, looked as nervous as I had been.

I nodded at him and said, He's a good one.

I knelt down in a pew and did my penance.

Then I just sat there for a long time.

I hadn't felt that clean since my First Communion.

What I Know Now

I go to confession about once a month now.

It's not scary anymore.

Some months it's quick.

Some months it's hard.

It's always worth it.

I've learned that the priest is bound by the seal of confession, and can never reveal what you tell him, to anyone, for any reason.

I've learned that one bad experience isn't the whole story of the sacrament.

And I've learned that the shame I was so afraid of facing was exactly what Jesus came to take away.

If it's been years for you, maybe decades, I know the speech you've been rehearsing.

I had one too.

You won't even get to finish it.

Just start walking up the road.

He's already running toward you.

Joe is a composite character, and this story is illustrative, inspired by the real experiences of many Catholics who have found their way back to confession.

Your turn: What was it like when you went back to confession after a long time away? Share your story in the comments below.