Thank God For Confession

[arfink]

Confession. I would have utterly lost my faith after seminary without it. Any hope of change in my life would have been crushed without it. Without it I would be a mere shell. I shudder to think what would have happened to me if I couldn't go and get my soul restarted every time. Dead.

I have been to Confession once a week for years now. And for years I find myself doing the same stupid stuff over and over and over. What keeps me hopeful is this: God knows all. He knows I'll probably sin again. I certainly have a pretty bad track record. And yet He'll forgive me. He'll accept my act of contrition, my pitiful discarded paper wrapper of a promise to "Go and sin no more." Anyone else wouldn't believe me. Anyone else would just say "You have failed me far too many times. Get lost." Can you imagine the crushing depths of despair such words can bring? I thank God he doesn't say that to me in this life, and even in my darkest hours I still desperately pray he won't say it to me on the last day.

I know I'm not worthy to receive that grace. But what choice to I have but to accept His gift? To say "I am not worthy to be forgiven," is to say "Please, leave me for dead. You can't possibly love me." That God will give this gift to a soul like mine again and again is perhaps the most striking reminder of God's love a soul can have.