Welcome to Catholic Stuff You Should Know, a J10 initiative.

Hey everyone, welcome to the podcast. This is Father Sean.

And Father John. Great to be with you, Father John.

Thank you, Shawnee. It's funny we live 25 minutes apart but we're

doing this by Riverside so you get to look at my new haircut or Christmas

Christmas cut I love it I did you go to the same barber yeah David and my mom

was there getting her hair done so we were chatting it it up. It was very funny. Classic. She's loving it. Yeah, it was classic. It looks like you're in need of the haircut, too, by the way. Yes. I don't know if I'll get one before Christmas, but I probably should. Yeah, I don't get a shot. Yeah, sorry, buddy. Go ahead. I was just going to say, don't get my hair cut nearly as much as I should. Yeah, I don't... Yeah, sorry, buddy. I was just going to say, I don't get my hair cut nearly as much as I should, nor do I trim my beard nearly as much as I should. You're mountain man. And you've been in the confessional nonstop for the last three weeks, so... It's true. It's great, though. You come out sometimes and you look like a zombie but I don't know it's so

beautiful especially when you get those people who just you know it's been years and years and they

just they need a they need the tender mercy of the Lord and it's so beautiful people always ask like

is is hearing sin like that must be so cool to to hear confessions and like, what they mean by that is, like, wow, that's so juicy. Like, you must hear some really strange things. And I'm like, they all just start to blend together. Like, sin is not that fascinating. It's, it's God's mercy that's fascinating. Yeah, well, said, I mean, it's, yeah, you, I tell me, I heard everything in the first month,

and nothing is new under the sun. It's, there's only so many variations on the same themes,

the seven deadly sins. It's just kind of like, yeah, the key is the gift of God's mercy

and watching him communicate and work through the sacrament. I think that's the really kind of incredible

gift that we see it. And so I know people get nervous going into confessional, but I think

most priests just we get it. We've probably done it. And we're also just really, we're attentive

that God is working and it's not something that we're doing.

This is not a conversation between two people.

This is something the Lord is present.

And he's really the main actor on the stage.

You know, one question I often get is, do you prefer face to face or behind the screen?

And usually I say, like, I really don't care as long as people are making a good and authentic confession. But I don't know, do you have a preference there? Are you kind of similar? Yeah, not really. It's kind of whatever people feel most comfortable doing. I would say I'm at a Paris where almost everybody goes behind the screen. So, yeah, that's kind of

the normal thing. Yeah, I feel like that's just the trend now, because most parishes, even when I

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