During confession, especially one’s first confession – it is much better to list the sins in front of the priest – that is in front of God – and to seek His forgiveness in order to show your repentance.
It is not good to enter in fine or minute details, especially if they are heavy sins (that is of carnal sins and the like), because if we describe in detail then our mind will be once again polluted.
Also, we must take into consideration of time for others and of the priest’s. We must not be overly detailed except if requested of us to do so. Besides that, too much details will make things much clearer and hence we and the priest will lose the big picture and one can forget what he has to confess.
Another point to mention here is that the spiritual father is a soul healer who gives us the word of God so we must be attentive on this thing: our salvation, that is our therapy. This doesn’t mean that if we have in high regard a spiritual father we should ask him about photography, computers and similar things. If he answers in such domains we will take his words only if we respect his experience in that particular domain without thinking that he will give the ultimate bounding answers from God in everything.
We must know that the gift to forgive the sins is given through ordination and hence any priest forgives the sins which are confessed.
However the gift of spiritual guidance is not given in the same way. This gift is given only to some, based on their personal struggle and God’s mercy.
So, the difference between a good and less-than-good confessor priest isn’t the possibility to forgive sins. It is the ability to give spiritual guidance, the power to deeply change our life for the better, to make us to not fall again.
That’s why the spiritual paternity isn’t confounded solely with the priesthood and not all priests are also spiritual fathers of the same magnitude even if they all can totally forgive sins.
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