Tag Archives: Confession

A Prayer against Discouragement

18 Wednesday Mar 2015

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I went to confession yesterday. The priest is a friend of mine but it is the first time I have been to confession with him so I found his penance interesting (and that is why I am posting it). As my penance he instructed me to compose a prayer against discouragement and to pray it. Below is the result of my effort, although I wish I could say it like Aquinas or Newman.

O God our times are in your hands. Ever mindful that we can do nothing without your help, we ask that you grant us the grace to not lose heart amidst the constant storms of this mortal life. You have given us your Son as our guide, and even though He stumbled and fell on the way to the Cross, He did not turn back and did not give up. It is your grace that we need to do the same. We ask this you this through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Fear of Death can lead to Life

16 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by in Eternal Life, Repentance, Sacraments

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I have had many failed attempts at making regular posts to my blog. There are many reasons for this, which amount to a pile of excuses. Recently I have been thinking that a regular post of my morning homily might be possible for the to keep up with. But I am going to try to keep it at 200 words or less so that I can actually get it done without spending a great deal of time on it. As a result, I may not explain things as well as I would like. So if you have questions about what I have written it would be an excellent opportunity to post a comment and I will answer.

Today’s Gospel reading for Mass can be found here. It is the story of the healing of the Official’s son.

The distance between Capernaum and Cana was approximately 20-25 miles. And it must be remembered that this distance had to be covered without benefit of modern conveniences such as buses, trains, planes, or cars. Therefore it would have taken a great deal of time for the Official in the Gospel to come to where Jesus was. We all know why he went to see Jesus – to ask for healing of his son. What we need to ask, though, is what motivated him to go to Jesus? His motivation, it seems to me, must have been the fear of losing his son.

Most parents would have a similar motivation for saving their children and other loved ones. That is why people spend billions and billions of dollars every year seeking cures to their various diseases. Therefore, if a doctor or miracle worker was able to guarantee healing for any disease then the line to see that person would never end.

And yet, healing for every spiritual infirmity is offered to us by Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of Penance. So why don’t the lines for Confession stretch out the door and down the street of every Catholic parish? It seems to me that one answer could be a lack of fear. That being, the fear of losing our soul for all eternity. Fear of losing his son drove the Official in today’s to Jesus. In a similar manner a fear of eternal death should drive us to Christ in the confessional. With a word He was able to heal the Official’s son and with a word – I absolve you – He is able to bring healing to whatever ails our souls. It is true that the fear of Hell is not the perfect contrition that God wants from us, but at least it is a start.

The Catholic Conception of Confession

28 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by in C.S. Lewis, Catholic Church, Catholic Obligations, Sacraments, Salvation

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My post today is yet another quote from C.S. Lewis. But, I am not posting it to show an instance of truth but one of misunderstanding. Lewis was much smarter than I can ever hope to be but his understanding of confession misses the mark.

So why point out this misunderstanding of confession? Primarily, it is to correct any misunderstandings that a Catholic may have about the Sacrament of Penance. (And hopefully to explain why confession is necessary to a non-Catholic.) But also my purpose is to give a more balanced view of Lewis. What I mean is that most of the quotes I post from him could have come from a Catholic saint – but Lewis was not Catholic and he should be treated as such. There is a danger inherent in accepting what someone says as the Truth just because you happen to like the person. And if we accept as true what Lewis has to say about confession then it would be very dangerous indeed.

I think our* official view of confession can be seen in the form for the Visitation of the Sick where it says “Then shall the sick person be moved (i.e., advised, prompted) to make a . . . Confession . . . if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter.” That is, where Rome makes Confession compulsory for all, we make it permissible for any: not “generally necessary” but profitable. We do not doubt that there can be forgiveness without it. But, as your own experience shows, many people do not feel forgiven, i.e., do not effectively “believe in the forgiveness of sins,” without it. The quite enormous advantage of coming really to believe in forgiveness is well worth the horrors (I agree, they are horrors) of a first confession.

Also, there is the gain in self-knowledge: most of [us] have never really faced the facts about ourselves until we uttered them aloud in plain words, calling a spade a spade. I certainly feel I have profited enormously by the practice. At the same time I think we are quite right not to make it generally obligatory, which wd. force it on some who are not ready for it and might do harm.

From a letter by C.S. Lewis

* – By “our” he means the Anglican view of confession.

So what is the dangerous part in this letter? It is the fact that Lewis thinks of the ‘Roman’ way of confession as merely obligatory, which according to canon law it is, when he should have first understood confession as necessary, which he did not as evidenced by his saying that confession is “not ‘generally necessary’ but profitable.” But, the reason that confession is obligatory for a Catholic is because it is necessary for our salvation. (At least it is necessary for those of us who have committed a mortal sin, which I think would include almost every person, if not every person, that has ever reached the age of reason.)

Here is a basic summary of why confession is in fact necessary: after baptism incorporates us into the life of God – the life of grace – (which was lost to mankind through the sin of Adam and Eve) we can, and do, still sin. Some of those sins are venial and some are mortal. And if a sin is mortal then we once again loose that life of grace – that connection with God that was given to us through baptism. In a sense, therefore, we have crucified Christ in our own hearts by sinning deliberately against Him. What is to be done to be forgiven and return to the life of grace? The Anglicans, just as Catholics, believe that baptism can only be administered once and so if you break that connection with God that was given to you through baptism then how can you get it back? The answer seems quite clear, if of course you believe what Jesus said to His Apostles, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” (John 20:23) Jesus gave His Apostles (and their successors) this authority to forgive sins because He knew that we would continue to sin while we remain on this earth.

So, like I said at the beginning, for Lewis to sound so negative about the Catholic obligation to go to confession shows that he missed the mark. The Catholic Church makes it an obligation for her members to go to confession out of love for our eternal souls – because she knows that it is necessary after we have committed post-baptismal mortal sin. If only Lewis had understood that then perhaps he would have done the one thing that I regret he never did – become Catholic.

The Holy Spirit vs. “Feelings”

29 Thursday May 2014

Posted by in C.S. Lewis, Holy Spirit, Promises of Christ, Sacraments, Thought for the Day

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It is quite right that you should feel that “something terrific” has happened to you (It has) and be “all glowy.” Accept these sensations with thankfulness as birthday cards from God, but remember that they are only greetings, not the real gift. I mean, it is not the sensations that are the real thing. The real thing is the gift of the Holy Spirit which can’t usually be—perhaps not ever—experienced as a sensation or emotion. The sensations are merely the response of your nervous system. Don’t depend on them. Otherwise when they go and you are once more emotionally flat (as you certainly will be quite soon), you might think that the real thing had gone too. But it won’t. It will be there when you can’t feel it. May even be most operative when you can feel it least.

The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume III

If we have shared in Christ’s death and Resurrection through Baptism, and especially if we have received Confirmation, then we can and should be confident that God is always with us. Of course, we can choose to turn our back on Him through serious sin. But once we repent and turn back towards Him – going to Confession if needed – then we must trust in the promises of our Lord who said He would be with us always. And this remains true even if we do not “feel” His presence. Lewis is very right here and we would do well to reflect upon his words especially when we do not “feel” God.

My Peace I Give to You

20 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by in Forgiveness, Loving our Neighbor, Peace

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Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you.

John 14:27a, RSV-CE

This is from the Gospel reading for Mass today. For me, just hearing these words brings an immediate peacefulness to my soul. But when I look at the situations in which I usually hear or read these words I must take notice of something: it is usually at Mass or at prayer that I come across these wonderful words of our Lord. But both of those are times when you are not having to do a multitude of things; instead, you only have to be still and put yourself in the presence of God. But this is not the peace of which our Lord speaks.

The peace that our Lord wants for us is not simply the absence of those distractions and happenings in our life that can take away the calm demeanor we might have when things happen to be going our way. (Like when we can leave all our cares behind for a while when at Mass or at prayer. Or even at other times: when on vacation, a day off from work, etc.) Instead, the peace He wants for us can be ours at all times – even when it feels like we are caught in the middle of a violent storm.

To understand the peace that Christ wants to give us we must first understand what the world understands peace to be. Peace for the world is simply the lack of violence. For instance, think of the Middle East: when people call for peace amongst those countries what they mean is for the people in those countries to stop killing each other. But this is not peace – it is only a lack of violence. Even if they are not killing each other the people in those countries still hate one another and in times of ‘peace’ the least thing can set them off and they will be killing each other once again.

So we find that it is hatred that is at the root of the world's lack of peace. And the virtue needed to correct this lack of peace is love; but love is only possible if there is forgiveness. But, due to the fallen nature of mankind, there can be no true forgiveness amongst the various peoples of the world without the forgiveness that comes first from God. It is true that people can forgive one another and live in relative peace for a while. But, because of our tendency to sin, if we lose or have never known the forgiveness that comes to us only from God then we will inevitably come back into conflict with the people with which we formerly had peace.

So, how do we obtain this peace that Jesus promises us? It comes to us through the forgiveness we receive from Him through His one and only perfect Sacrifice on the Cross. When we are born into this world we are born into Original Sin and therefore, we are alienated from God because sinfulness can have no place with God Who is all good. Therefore, because we were created by God and for God, we can never be at peace, whether with God, within ourselves or with others, while we are alienated from Him. God, though, has rescued us from this alienation through the perfect Sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross. And it is through Baptism that we participate in Christ's Sacrifice: we are buried with Him and rise again to a new life – a life of Grace.

Through this Grace, which is God's very life that He puts within us, we are put into a right relationship with God. We are therefore no longer alienated from Him. Having been created to be with Him our lives are necessarily disordered, which means there can be no true peace, until we are brought out of that alienation. Once we are made right with Him then peace within our souls is restored because we are at peace with the One who created us. But, of course, this state of Grace we have received through Baptism can be lost if we mortally sin – meaning that through some serious sin we deliberately and with full knowledge of the wrong done turn our back on God. When that happens then the peace we had is lost – until we turn back to God for forgiveness through the Sacrament of Penance.

But in connection with the forgiveness we receive from Christ we must remember His own words of warning, “if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew 6:15, RSV-CE) The logical conclusion then seems to be this: if we want peace with God, with others and within ourselves – that being true peace and not just the absence of conflict or strife in our lives – then we must forgive others just as God has forgiven us.

Thy Will Be Done

07 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by in Repentance, Salvation, Sermons

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Sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Lent – April 6, 2014

Have you ever wondered why Jesus performed the miracles that He did? Certainly, it wouldn't be just to astound the crowds of people around Him. To say it was because He had compassion on those who were sick and suffering would be closer to the Truth, but even that falls short of explaining the true reason for His miracles. Fortunately, we don't have to guess because He tells us the reason plainly in today's Gospel reading, “that they may believe that You have sent Me.” What this means is that His miracles were done to prove to us that He is who He said He is – the Son of God. But the miracle from today's Gospel gives proof to more than just His Divinity. The raising of Lazarus from the dead goes one step further than most of the other miracles because it reveals to us not only Jesus' full divinity but also His full humanity. St. John reveals this to us so subtly that if we are not careful we could miss it.

When Jesus saw (Mary) weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled; and he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.”

And then, in the shortest verse in the whole Bible, we are told simply, “Jesus wept.” Two simple words, which could easily be overlooked; and yet, they are very important for our understanding of who Jesus is. To put this into perspective let us recap what happened. First, Jesus is told that His friend is sick. After hearing the news Jesus stays where He is for two more days at which point His friend is dead. Then, He tells His disciples they are going to Bethany in order to restore Lazarus to life. And, even though He knew that He was going to bring Lazarus back to life, when He arrived on the scene and saw everyone weeping, He too was overcome with grief and wept. Continue reading →