I used to be a very devout Catholic; I now do not believe in God.
When I was very focused on my faith, I had a number of experiences over the years that I could interpret only as supernatural. On one occasion, when I was going through a spiritual crisis and was deep in prayer, I suddenly smelled roses where there were no roses or other people wearing perfume. (The scent of roses is traditionally associated with the presence of angels.) On other occasions, while in prayer, I had experiences I interpreted as the presence of demons.
This is the most significant event that I experienced. I apologize for the long backstory, but I think it’s necessary to understand why this had such an effect on me. I was in my mid-20s at the time. For about a year, I had been in the practice of going to confession at least once a month, if not more often. I loved going. When you confess, you are supposed to unburden your conscience as though you are speaking to Jesus himself, hiding nothing and trusting the advice of the priest as though it were coming from Jesus’s lips. Beforehand, I would always say a prayer that Jesus would inspire me to say in confession everything He wanted me to say, and that the priest would say to me everything He wanted to say to me, so that this would be a spiritually fruitful experience.
The week before Easter, a friend invited me to go with her to a charismatic Catholic mass. I hadn’t been to confession in a couple of months, because I had been making a concerted effort to better myself during that time and honestly felt that I hadn’t committed any sins deserving of confession. Oh, I had noticed within myself that I was angry at my mother for leaving my father in such a carelessly cruel way, but I hadn’t let that anger affect our relationship at all, so there was no sin attached to that as far as I could tell. You’re encouraged to go to confession during Lent, and this was the last week of Lent, and I knew there would be confession before Mass, so I decided to go.
The priest saying this mass (and hearing confessions) was believed by this congregation to have the charism of being able to read hearts. This is the ability to tell what sins are on a person’s conscience (Padre Pio reportedly had this ability to a high level of detail). I had been to this church before, but the priest did not know me at all. As I was standing in line for the confessional, I said my usual prayer to be inspired to say what Jesus wants me to say, etc., and I thought about what I should confess. I couldn’t really think of anything major – maybe the time I had cut someone off in traffic – and oh, there is that issue with my mother…but that’s not really a sin, so forget that…
When it was my turn in the confessional, I took my seat next to the priest, he took my hand, and I confessed to the best of my ability, talking about the little things that had come to mind, like cutting someone off in traffic.
The very first words out of the priest’s mouth were, “What about your mother?”
I was staggered. I said, “Father, I had just been thinking about that but didn’t think it was worth confessing!” and then explained my issue. For the life of me, I can’t remember what he said about it, but that’s not even why this experience was so significant to me.
For years, I had been struggling with the notion that God/Jesus loves each of us as individuals, that he knows us personally, down to the “counting every hair of your head” level like it says in the bible. I had a very hard time believing this – sure, he loves humanity in sort of a blanket way, but me? Me personally? How could it be?
So it wasn’t the apparent telepathy of the priest that was momentous – it was the idea that God/Jesus knew me well enough to know I was having issues with my mother, and was speaking through the priest in order to prompt me to confess that issue. That was the only way I could explain how that had happened. There was no other way the priest could have guessed I was angry with my mother – nothing I had said earlier related to that in any way, and he absolutely positively did not know me or know my family. This church was about an hour away from my home, with no connection to my parish.
After the confession, I went back to my pew and thought to myself, “If I ever have any doubts again, if I ever doubt that God exists, if I ever doubt that God knows me and loves me as an individual, remember this moment.”
The sad/funny thing is, several years later, I lost my faith completely and that experience doesn’t have any import to me now. I don’t know how to explain it, but…well, I don’t know what to think of it.