13 minute read
Viewpoints
30 CATHOLIC NEWS HERALD
Brian Pusateri
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Do you keep your car cleaner than your soul?
We have all spent time washing and waxing our car only to have it rain later that same day. No sooner do we get it clean and shiny, when inevitably we hit a big puddle in the road. A clean car doesn’t stay clean long. The same can be true with our soul. When was the last time you went to a soul wash?
How do we clean our soul? We do so by confessing our sins. The Bible is clear on the importance of confessing sin. We confess for two reasons. We confess to be forgiven and we confess to receive the grace to avoid future sins. James 5:16 states: “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful.” In Proverbs 28:13 it is written, “Those who conceal their sins do not prosper, but those who confess and forsake them obtain mercy.”
The Catholic Church believes that confession is an essential part of our faith. The Church provides an instrument for God’s mercy with the sacrament of reconciliation, through which we confess our sins to a priest who acts in the person of Jesus Christ.
I am sure we can agree it is difficult, embarrassing and sometimes painful to confess our faults and shortcomings to another person. What matters is this: When we confess to someone – be that person a priest, a minister, a psychologist or just another Christian – doing so helps our soul feel fresh, clean, forgiven and restored.
The ability to confess our flaws and brokenness to another human being requires an honest humility. It is never easy, but it is extremely beneficial. I am a big believer in the healing effects of confession. As a Catholic, I try to receive the sacrament of reconciliation on a regular basis, usually monthly. I truly feel reunited with Christ, and I really feel the weight of my sins lifted off my shoulders. For me, confession is the spiritual version of a car wash.
But, as with our cars, as soon as our soul is clean, we often manage to get it dirty again.
Many people have shared with me that they experience an extra grace immediately after confessing their sins, a grace that helps them to keep their soul clean. They have a renewed conviction to avoid sin. They tell me that if it has been a while since they confessed their sins, they find it is easier to just keep sinning. Have you found this to be true in your life?
No matter who we confess to, it is Jesus who forgives our sins. Even knowing this, we still struggle to fully accept His forgiveness and we often struggle to forgive ourselves. I believe this is why the Bible encourages us to confess our sins to someone else. Mustering the courage to admit our faults to someone else helps us to experience the love and mercy of Jesus Christ in a more fulfilling way. This helps us to be kinder toward ourselves as well.
If it has been longer than a few months since you have confessed your sins, I strongly encourage you to prayerfully consider doing so. Jesus loves a contrite heart. He will welcome you back and shower you with His grace. If you are a Catholic, seek out the sacrament of reconciliation. If you are a non-Catholic Christian, go to your minister or seek out another Christian, or if the nature of your brokenness requires professional counseling, seek out a Christian psychologist. It would be a shame if we had to admit we spend more time washing our car than cleaning our soul. Act today – schedule time on your calendar for a soul wash.
Let us pray: Heavenly Father, please give me the courage to confess my sins on a regular basis. Help me to keep my soul clean. Keep me close to your Son’s mercy. Amen!
Father Rob Johnson
catholicnewsherald.com | August 19, 2022
Go to confession – no matter where or when
While I was in seminary, one of the things our rector, Bishop Robert Barron, instilled in us with absolute clarity was this: After you are ordained a Catholic priest, when someone asks you for confession, the answer is yes. Period. I consider it to
be a foundational rule in my life as a priest, and as it turns out, it has proven practical.
A few years ago, I was starting mile five of a half marathon – just at the point where my legs and lungs were starting to feel a bit tired – when I heard, “Hey, Father, are you able to hear my confession?” I was wearing a shirt from the Newman Community of Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, where I am chaplain and my bib said “Fr. Rob,” so I was pretty visible. I was still so surprised that it took me a minute to respond.
But as the bishop taught, when someone asks you to go to confession, the answer is “yes,” so I said, “Sure, absolutely” to the runner. Then, while keeping our pace, the two of us moved away from other runners, so as not to be overheard. After listening to a heartfelt and thorough confession, I gave the runner a penance and offered the prayer of absolution, which took a bit longer than normal, because … well, we were still running a half marathon! The person said, “Thanks, Father,” and we parted ways. I still smile when I think about it, and laugh at how hard it was to pray the prayer of absolution on short breath. While I have never heard of another priest hearing a confession while panting through a half marathon, my brother priests have shared dozens of unique and amazing stories of unusual confessional circumstances (with no details about the person or what was said in the confession, of course), so my story is just one of many. Priests have heard confessions in prisons and schools, on battlefields, in college dorms and in living rooms. A good buddy of mine was once asked to hear someone’s confession while he was eating a Big Mac at an airport! My point is this: Go to confession. When urge and opportunity come together, even if the circumstances seem less than perfect, even if you feel like you’re missing the booth and the screen, follow where your soul is being led and go to confession. Be blunt and totally honest – I promise, you won’t say anything the priest hasn’t heard before. And because confession is always under what is called “the seal,” the priest would rather go to prison or even give his own life than reveal anything that you say, no matter the setting. Nothing but mercy awaits you there. Of course, it’s great if you can catch confession at the scheduled times at your parish or if your parish has a Lenten or Advent Penance Service, but never believe that asking to go to confession is a burden for a priest; it is our privilege. You are not alone in the fight for holiness; your priests are running this race with you, mile by mile, road by road. We gave our lives to God, and to offer His mercy through the sacrament of confession is an honor, never a burden, no matter the time or place.
‘Priests give our lives to God, and to offer His mercy through the sacrament of confession is an honor, never a burden, no matter the time or place.’ CNS | VATICAN MEDIA Pope Francis goes to confession during a Lenten penance service in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican March 25. FATHER ROB JOHNSON is a priest of the Diocese of Springfield, Ill. He serves as pastor of Mother of Perpetual Help parish in Maryville, Ill., chaplain of the Newman Community at Southern Illinois UniversityEdwardsville, associate director of the Office for Vocations and is a host of the podcast “Three Dogs North.”
Fred Gallagher
Faith leads to the easy way home
We Baby Boomers tend to think about death a whole lot more than we did a few years ago. I am reminded of that in some recent communication with one of my older brothers to whom I am very close and who is in his final days.
For a little background: I left home at 16 in not-so-great a manner. I happened to leave from Myrtle Beach, S.C., with no money or any idea where I was going or what I was going to do. I had “borrowed” my cousin’s car (I have since been forgiven) but ditched it outside of Wilmington, in fear of being found.
After a few hours of hitchhiking, I somehow wound up in Raleigh. I thought my dad might have the cops looking for me, so I figured it was time to call my brother who is 11 years older than I am. He was always there, always one to calm me down, help me see the light and try to keep me on the straight and narrow (although that didn’t work so well!). I told him what had happened, where I was, approximately where I had ditched the car, and made him promise not to tell anybody my location but to let my folks know I was OK.
By day’s end, my brother had transformed my shabbily impulsive flight from one of sheer lunacy to something else entirely. He was then teaching political science at the University of Miami. He actually prepaid for me to get on a plane and come to where he and his family lived in Miami. The rest is history. I finished high school down there and lived with my brother and his family for extended periods a couple of different times. Needless to say, he remains one of my personal heroes.
And now, a little more than 50 years later, he resides in Jensen Beach, Fla. A cancer is metastasizing, and he is preparing himself for the end. After responding to a text from me with the complimentary comeback: “It’s ‘your’ words, my dearest brother, that are so inspirational to me. I take them to heart, and they help lead me in this last journey,” he texted a couple of paragraphs to my other brothers and me.
He called it “the easy way home.”
I presume that most people who are blessed to have Christ as the integral part of their dying process would agree with me that we are taking the easy way home. All I have to do is glance at my crucifix to remember this. He actually went through pain that I’ll never have to experience, and He went through it twice. Just imagine His agony when the Father showed Him in the garden what He was to endure. What a teaching moment for us! Christ’s human nature pleaded to have this unbelievable pain removed. His love for me, however, by accepting this long and agonizing death, makes it easier for me to accept my “blessed discomforts” to show my love for Him.
I’ll never turn down prayers, and God knows I need them. Just imagine, brother, if I were facing this without my faith, without hope and without Christ’s love for me and mine for Him. So, when you pray for me, please add a prayer for those who do not know Him or even care to know Him. Pray that they will somehow learn to take “the easy way home.”
I have since visited and been by my brother’s bedside. I still can’t imagine him not being on the planet. I hope the notion of the Communion of Saints becomes even more real for me when he goes. I wrote a poem once that pictured the Communion of Saints not so much as a thick red theatre curtain separating all of us in the seats from those on stage, but rather a thin veil, perhaps of Irish lace, so that the closer I get, I can almost feel a loved one’s breath upon my face.
Engaging the Communion of Saints can make the way home easier for all of us. But I still can’t fathom consciousness in the afterlife. I just don’t know what it looks like, what it feels like, because I am so very tied to this earthly flesh. But as the end nears, I think my brother is beginning to witness bits of a different scene; he’s beginning to feel the warm waves of paradise. When we were alone together, I asked him if he was afraid, and without missing a beat, he said, “No, brother, I’m not.” And I believe him … and that may have been one of the most important statements anyone has ever made to me.
The great Victorian writer George MacDonald said, “Beauty and sadness always go together.” Although I do understand that many people at death’s door do not have the physical capacity to engage a choice, my brother is fortunate enough to be able to choose to embrace the beauty, to surrender to God’s will in a way that surpasses my feeble attempts.
I constantly choose the hard way, the way of reason. The Irish poet W.B. Yeats said, “By reason we die hourly, by imagination we live.” It seems that if my brother’s imagination can take him to the garden of Gethsemane to hover over the suffering Christ, it can take him to a thousand other meaningful and helpful places. Perhaps these sojourns of the heart and soul are the rewards of a life of faith, experienced even in the last moments.
My brother is beginning to understand things that might be revealed only on a deathbed. He is feeling something that those of us going about our daily routines in the workaday world do not feel. He is at peace. My hero approaches the end of his life by accepting and welcoming the strong but graceful arms of his God reaching down to carry him off. And as of right now, he actually finds it easy … the easy way home.
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