
CV NEWS FEED // A Catholic high school in Denver is using a unique system to attract students to confession—instead of waiting in line, students at Bishop Machebeuf High School are now using buzzers to know when it’s their turn to confess.
The new system was instituted earlier this year to make it easier for students to go to confession. In the morning before class, students who wish to go to confession pick up a buzzer and write down three times during the day that they’re available to confess. The school’s chaplain, Fr. CJ Mast, can then look at the list and invite them to confession by activating the buzzer, which silently lights up with red flashes.
Fr. Mast told Denver Catholic that he came up with the idea of confession buzzers in prayer when he was first assigned to Bishop Machebeuf earlier this year.
“One of the things that came up [in prayer] was ‘when am I going to do confessions,’” he said. “And for high schoolers, I think they’re one of the busiest people in today’s culture, and it’s really hard for them to come before school.”
To make confession easier and more appealing for students, Fr. Mast proposed using the buzzers. The buzzers also give Fr. Mast the opportunity to present confession as an invitation to be reconciled with Jesus.
“At first, it was kind of a joke—we were just laughing about it,” he said. “But then I think it was our principal, Mr. Siegel. He said, ‘well, let’s just go for it. If it’s a flop, it’s a flop. But it could be a great thing, and it could work out, so let’s just go for it.’”
Students at Bishop Machebeuf said that the buzzers actually helped them feel better about going to confession, since they used to avoid it out of fear or shame. Paola Chacon-Arredondo, a junior, told Denver Catholic that now “there’s nothing to worry about.”
“I think that’s what’s really nice about it, is that Fr. CJ doesn’t want you to be afraid to go and confess,” she said. “He’s inviting you, and that’s why he has the buzzers, and I’ve seen that it’s really helped.”
Fr. Mast said that confession is especially important for high schoolers since it counteracts the American individualistic culture that they live in.
“I think that so many of the problems of youth are because the world has stripped away meaning,” he said. “I think the culture is a perfect example of this … [it says] that you can become whatever you want to, you say what you are.”
“And so to place the students back into [where] there is a God who is Jesus Christ, and he’s come to redeem you—he has come to give you meaning and purpose in your life and offer you that eternal life—I think it’s so beautiful,” he said.
