September 28, 2007

Perspective

After I started preaching regularly when I was first ordained deacon, I never listened to a homily the same way again. Once I was a preacher myself, I would be listening not only to the homily, but examining its strategies and structures, rhetorical seams and logics.

Well, yesterday I went to confession for the first time as a priest myself, and now that has changed too! I found myself not only listening to the priest as a penitent, but also as a priest who was interested in how my confessor approached the "sacramental dialogue."

I guess it's good confirmation, as my textbook on how to hear confessions says that the best way to become a good confessor is to be a good penitent.

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