Leaving Your Sins at the Supermarket

Reference:
Executive Newsletter 9:2 (1994), 6

Keywords: sin, confess, confession, ministry

A Catholic priest, who had become very deaf in his advancing years, had formed the habit of asking those erring members of his flock who came to his enclosed stall to write their penitences on a slip of paper, instead of speaking them to him. The practice worked fairly well until one day when the father heard a heavily-breathing man enter the visitor's side of the confessional and fumble for a few moments as a small, crumpled piece of paper was passed through the curtain into the old cleric's hand.

The confession read: Two cans of beans. Quarter pound ham. Cans of Coke. Four fish filets. Bread rolls. Toilet paper. Large coffee. Soap. Butter.

The priest studied the note for a puzzled minute or two and then silently passed the slip back.
Suddenly, there came an agonized voice from the stall beside him: Mother of God, I've left my sins at the supermarket.

--As told by British journalist Godfrey Talbut,