Confession Chinese style
One evening last week I got a call from a student who said he wanted to come and have a private chat. I explained that I already had four people visiting me so if he wanted privacy he’d have to come the following day to the foreign teachers room in the campus where I teach. He agreed but rang the following morning saying he was very depressed and could not come but would like to meet me that evening in my apartment. I agreed to see him at 7:00pm when I returned from the south campus where I had a late afternoon class.
The phone rang just before he was due to arrive and he came on the line saying the security officer would not allow him to enter the foreign teachers building as he’d forgotten his student card. I went to rescue him and I could see he was very agitated.
He said he wanted to talk in private as he knew I was a missionary priest and would not repeat his conversation - I don’t know how he found that out but I let his remark go.
He said he was upset because he had just been told by his girlfriend that she would see him no longer due to her parents’ opposition. He began to explain how the relationship began and spared no detail of how it had progressed. He told me he could not sleep and had been to the doctor who had given him tablets to help him sleep. He also said his own parents were happy to see the relationship end as they felt he’d gone in too deep too quickly. I felt I was listening to a general confession which was very sincere as he sought a way to end his ordeal. I let him talk himself out aided here and there by sips of tea as he was frequently lost for words.
Eventually he told me he now realised that it was in his own interest to end the obsessive relationship as he is studying for the postgraduate entrance examination.
He thanked me for listening to him and helping him to come to a decision about his personal life. I could not help reflecting on how strange it was that a non Christian should feel the need to unburden himself to a priest when so many Catholics have rejected confession as a futile exercise and have taken to paying large fees to therapists and counselors to obtain a listening ear. James Joyce once dismissed a friend’s interest in psychoanalysis with the comment, ‘Well, if we need it, let us keep to confession.’
I had a vivid example of this at a wedding I attended during the summer. An elderly grandmother at the table proceeded to say how out of touch she thought her parish priest was and went to say how could anybody accept that it was of any use whatever to confess to such a man. She challenged me to say that I still availed of confession and I told her I did. I also said that if she refused to believe in Sacraments that was her problem. It does however show the prevailing attitude to confession, or if you want to be current, the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
I am reminded of a priest who said a public Mass when visiting Australia for a family wedding. He was approached afterwards by an individual who took him to task for beginning the ceremony by inviting the congregation to repent. “How dare you accuse us of being sinners,” said the a la carte Catholic!
Fr Teddy Collins SSC teaches in China.
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