Confession & the Real Prescence

I often get the impression that priests run out of things to say in confession, and so resort to formulaic responses. I sympathize with them; imagine having to listen to anonymous people talk about themselves for hours on end! (I guess it'd be like being forced to read random blogs.) So, I would guess most priests develop a few usable responses that apply to various situations. A sampling of ones I've heard are:

"Praise God for an excellent confession."

"God is speaking to you in special ways."

"Meditate on and pray for help to better."

Nothing wrong with these, but after you've heard them a few times, you might wonder what you're getting out of it. After all, this sacrament really is about you, isn't it? But what if, you had actually gone to Jesus Christ Himself, and he gave you the same response? Wouldn't you meditate on it, analyse it word-for-word, and try to remember the the slightest inflection in his voice? Wouldn't it become really meaningful?

It really is about you, you see, because it depends on you whether you actually hear the Lord, or just a wearied priest.

Perhaps in a later post I'll reveal the striking way this became clear to me, but this post is for you.