My confession

I was talking to my priest friend last night about a reporter, Catholic, who was held captive and in his 7 yrs of captivity he finally took his Catholic faith seriously. He made his confession to the priest, also imprisoned and it completely changed his life. It had been over 25 years since his last confession but by the time he was done both he and the priest were in tears and those words of healing when his sins were absolved, changed his life. I commented, "Oh, the lengths God will go to reach his people!", "No, doubt" my priest friend commented.

I recall when I would approach the sacrament of confession with hesitation and a bit of fear, but now that I'm in the habit of regular confessions, I can tell when it's time for confession because I get crankier, angry, grumpy, impatient, and foul mouthed. I blame the foul mouth on football. If my team would just win, I would be way more moderate in my speech! Maybe. All too often we think that we don't need to confess our sins. I run into Catholics all the time who don't see the need or they want to write down their sins and burn them but why tell the priest? Excellent question.

I was reading the Pope's new book, Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narrative. In it our pontiff comments about the healing of the paralytic whose friends lowered him from the roof because they couldn't get him through the door. Jesus tells the sick man, "My son, your sins are forgiven" Mk2:5. Our pontiff however, I love his honesty as he comments, "This was the last thing they were concerned about. The paralytic needed to be able to walk, not to be delivered from his sins." However he goes on to say something extraordinarily succint and important, "Man is a relational being. And if his first, fundamental relationship is disturbed - his relationship with God-then nothing else can be truly in order."