Tonight, we had a penance service . . . well, scratch that. Actually, not a penance service. Just confessions.
Yep. Because of the pandemic, we did not want to have a full blown penance service and gather too many people together for too long a period of time in the church. Instead, at 7:00 p.m., there were five of us — three Carmelite priests, Fr. Declan, and myself — who were ready to hear confessions. People came in, got in line, went to confession, and left again.
The five of us heard for an hour solid. That got a good number of people through but kept things moving and the penitents as safe as we could possibly keep them.
Closer to Christmas…