Confession at least once a year is very important. I was on a tough schedule for a while, commuting from Vermont to NYC, but I managed to get to confession while I was staying over in NYC. If you work in a city you may be able to do it during lunch hour.
Also, I believe that the rule laid down in the middle ages still applies: that everyone must confess at least once a year as an “Easter Duty,” which I believe means some time between Ash Wednesday and Pentecost—the long Lenten and Easter season, before the return to “orginary time.”
Frankly, the bishops and priests have not put enough emphasis on this, but it still applies. And it should be possible to arrange a time with a priest if the usual, brief weekly time set aside for confession is impossible to get to.
This is true. Many parish priests will allow you to set an appointment which fits your schedule. Confession doesn’t take a tremendous amount of time out of your day, but it is a wonderful experience.
One time I was traveling through Chicago Midway and I noticed the airport priest who also spends time at the information desk helping travelers. I asked him if he would hear my confession and we managed to complete it between my 1 hour layover.
Many of our sacraments are quite “portable”. :)
I'm only recently getting really serious about confession so I'm not claiming great credit here. But, I found that the once a year is very difficult because it is hard to truly examine my conscience over that length of time - for one reason. It's difficult to do much more that a blanket coverage job.
It's more useful to take a shorter period of time, be more specific. And this helps to make me more aware of each day, each choice, each occassion or near occassion. I can remember last Tuesday pretty well.
There's also the clean car effect. If your spiritual state is "cleaned" by a full and sincere attempt at examination and confession, you're more apt to keep it clean. Over a longer period one more bag of chips on the floor is less noticable, and easier to throw down.
As I get older living daily in a state of grace has so much more value, living with an unconfessed sin adds a bit of hell to each day. And makes my conscious contact of God's presence more distant, like the distance between lovers when there is something between you.
What's important and unsaid in the article, I think, is the "bare minimum" brings only the bare minimum of life and God to our years. A sacramental life is not an obligation so much as it is a great gift and tool for this life.
FWIW.