GOING TO CONFESSION TO FATHER SEELOS

Andrew Costello, C.Ss.R.

What would it be like to go to confession to a saint? Would I be nervous, anxious, scared? Would a saint see right through me — knowing more about me than I know about myself — seeing my embarrassing behaviors and hidden prejudices? But would I also come out of confession whispering, “Phew!” — having received a sacrament, having received the gift and grace that God forgives me? And in time for some sins, can I forgive myself?

In the literature about Father Seelos, writers say lots of people wanted to go to confession to him — in Annapolis, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Cumberland, Detroit, New Orleans, and in the many places where he preached parish missions.

The Annals of the Baltimore Province of the Redemptorists from 1867 had this to say about Father Seelos when he was stationed in New Orleans:

“Here, as in all other places where he had been, he soon became a universal favorite. Germans, English, French, Creoles, Negroes, mulattoes all admired and loved F. Seelos. Though he was by no means a great proficient in English, and still less so in French, there were hundreds of highly educated Creoles and Americans who came miles, and stood for hours before his confessional, in order to have the happiness to make a general confession to him. And we all remarked that whoever went to him once, would never afterwards go to any other director. It was a common belief among the people that he could read the secrets of the heart.”

It was at St. Philomena’s Parish in Pittsburgh (1845-1854) that Seelos’ reputation as a great confessor began. Perhaps because Seelos went to confession to a future saint — John Neumann — he himself knew what it was like to go to confession to a saint.

Francis Xavier Seelos was a creative preacher, but it seems to me, he loved being in the wooden confession box more than the wooden pulpit. But he was not wooden. He was warm and compassionate. Being a Redemptorist, he knew the motto and vision statement of the CSSR: “Copiosa apud eurn Redemptio.”  With Christ there is copious or fullness of redemption.

Photo of the new window in the Confessional Chapel of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washingon DC.

Excerpt from article that first appeared in Vol. 3, Issue 1 of “The Saint Mary’s Moorings,” a newsletter of St. Mary’s Church, Annapolis MD.

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