While in Rome on pilgrimage, four of us, during our visit to Santa Maria Maggiore, decided to go to confession. A little later, we compared penances, feeling a rather hard done by… a young lady had been told to say her Rosary every day for a week for a certain intention; one of our priests had been told to offer up his Breviary every day for a week for a similar cause; and Mike and I, upon learning that each of us had been told to offer up the Rosary for such and such an intention (I got "sincerity"), daily – for a month – felt uniquely put-upon.
I recall that, according to that devout book, The Secret of the Rosary, St Dominic assigned just such a lengthy penance to a pious Roman matron, who was in the habit of doing the rounds of the Seven Churches every day. Like her, I own to feeling more than a little discomfited!
Doubtless the … son of St Dominic in question (for the confessors at St Mary Major are Blackfriars) had been a-reading some such "manual of penance". I am now nearly finished fulfilling this penance – at least I have thereby got back to saying the Rosary. Perhaps that was the desired result.
Moral of the story: when on pilgrimage with no less than three priests, don't think to shop elsewhere. Or at the least, avoid the confessionals of Friars Preachers like the plague.
1 comment:
Some would rather the sterner penances you all were given; I become a little tired of penances being given in a merely perfunctory manner.
I wonder, am I alone in this?
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