Healing And Forgiveness

[missionseeker]

yes, please repost!

[Theologian in Training]

Well, ok, since you asked so nicely

Lately, I seem to have found myself thinking a lot about confession, the sacrament of Reconciliation or Penance, as the case may be, maybe it is because Lent seems to be the season of confession, and I hear a lot of them, or maybe it was because I knew I had to give this talk, but it has been on my mind a lot lately. And, I have found myself thinking about my ordination(s) and I remember what a newly ordained priest once said to me, he said, when you lay on the floor during your ordination, ask God for something that can help you in your ministry, some special grace, and He will give it to you.

I remember during my ordination as a deacon, I was laying on the floor and I said, God, help me to be able to preach well, whether that happened or not, you will have to ask someone who had heard me preach, but the second time, right before I was ordained a priest, I made another request, I said God, let me be a good confessor, let me be an instrument of Your mercy.

And, I asked that for two reasons, I saw the benefit that I had gained from confession myself, the way my entire life changed completely after one particular confession and I wanted the grace to be able to extend that same mercy and that same benefit to others. And the other reason I asked was because I realized, out of all the sacraments, it seemed that it was the sacrament of Reconciliation that was the most neglected, and I guess, maybe in my zeal to change the world, I thought if I were a good confessor more people would seek out His mercy.

Again, I was zealous and perhaps a little too full of the Spirit which could almost seem like arrogance, but it wasn’t, it was heartfelt desire for everyone to experience the beauty of what I experienced, true conversion, repentance, forgiveness of all my sins, and washing them away in the stream of my own tears.

And, even after two years of ordination, I still maintain this zeal, I still try to be fully available so that everyone can experience this beautiful sacrament, and yet, as much as I preach, as much as I try to convince, people don’t come, and I have found that everyone has their reason, but the main reason is fear, they may not say it specifically, instead they may say things like, “well, I can confess to God, He forgives me,” or they may say “why can’t we have general absolution, it was better that way, so many people would come,” or my favorite, “I am alone, I don’t sin,” and yet each of those people are afraid in some way, they are afraid to come before God face to face and admit their sins. I know this, because I was them, I was all of them, and yet, when I went to confession, I couldn’t hold on to those excuses, because I felt something more real and more amazing than anything else in this world. In essence, I was truly healed.

Now I am sure all of you have had those questions before, and I do want answer them, but first, I want to underscore, a little bit, the beauty of this sacrament, because I think a lot of us have this image of the confessional being as scary, uncomfortable, unnecessary, or even depressing.

And, though all of those are things we may feel, if we truly allow God to enter our hearts, something truly amazing happens.

I want to share my personal experience, because I am not sure that many priests do. The sharing of one who has been blessed to be on “both sides of the grille,” as it were, as confessor and confessee, as a sinner himself, and one who has, for whatever reason, been chosen to become an instrument of reconciliation, of forgiveness, of mercy.

I will never forget, as a newly ordained, the first confession I ever heard, not because of the content or what was said, because, honestly, I don’t remember, but because it was the first time I truly felt like a priest. I know I was nervous, scared that I would not properly remember the words of absolution, and I probably even fumbled over what I was going to say, but it didn’t matter, because, at that moment, I realized I was in a unique situation, I had the ability to pour the mercy of God upon this person, as I had experienced countless times before, and they would receive it from my hands. It was overwhelming and humbling.

In fact, as I got more comfortable hearing confessions, I came to realize the true power that God had given me, but I didn’t feel “all-powerful” because of it, I was incredibly humbled by it, because people of all ages, of all walks of life would come into that confessional and they would seek forgiveness, and they would seek it from me, some ordinary guy whom God asked to become a priest, a sinner himself, and they would confide in me some of the worst that people are capable of, and I had to offer some advice, some consolation, and, if God was not in charge, I am convinced that I don’t even know what I would have said.

In fact, this is why this sacrament makes a priest feel like a priest, because, in essence, he is helpless, and, in every sense of the word, he becomes an instrument, he has to let God work through him and he has to, in so many words, get out of the way.

In my opinion, it is one of the most intimate experiences of God, because not only is He speaking to us, consoling us, He is reaching out for us, running towards us as the father did to the prodigal son, because He has been waiting for us. This is why sometimes the greatest conversions can happen at that very moment, because the love of God is so real, so palpable that we feel it within every inch and every part of our being.

This is why we cry, because it is so overwhelming and so strong and we missed that and, yet, didn’t realize how much we truly missed His love until it returned, but it is not just because we missed it, we also come to clearly see what separated us from that love in the first place, and like a child saddened because he hurt his father, we come to see the pain and the hurt that we caused by our sins.

For, although Christ has already redeemed us of those sins, we see a bruise, a gash, a pain He suffered we had never noticed before, because we caused it and it becomes more noticeable to us now.

It may make us uncomfortable, it may scare us, it may anger us, it may depress us, but its purpose is to transform us, to heal us, because it is a sacrament of Reconciliation, and it reconciles us to the Father, it restores our relationship with others, and it does something that no other sacrament does, it brings those who are spiritually dead back to life. Indeed, this is why, along with the sacrament of Baptism, it is known as the sacrament of the dead. It is as though Jesus has wept for us the way He did for Lazarus, and we emerge from the tomb, that confessional, a new person, Resurrected and made new in Christ.

Over the weekend we had a retreat team for the confirmation kids and one of the members of the team in her talk said something that has still haunted me, she said: “Jesus did not come to make sick people better but to make dead people live.” And, He does so, in a very real way in that confessional, because, if you think about it, sin is death, in fact, St. Paul has said that: “The wages of sin is death.” I once heard a priest explain mortal sin, that is, the big ones, the ones you know you did, put it very well, he said, if you jump off a building you may live or you may die, you don’t know, that is why this sin is called mortal, and this is the chance and risk we take every time we sin, however, if we die, spiritually, that is, we have another chance, granted, we should not abuse that opportunity, nor rely on it, but know that is it there if we need it.

In other words, we are not only forgiven and healed by this sacrament, but we are literally give a new lease on life, this is why such drastic changes can occur in that confessional, and why the person we went in as we don’t leave as, because, in the words of St. Paul, we have put on the “new man.”

There is a great story that I think encapsulates this well, it is about a sermon that was preached in Notre-Dame Cathedral by an Archbishop of Paris. In the sermon he told of three young men who came into the cathedral one day. There was everything to give the impression that they just did not believe in God. Two of them bet the third that he would not have the nerve to make a false confession. He accepted the challenge, and when he went to confession it was apparent to the priest that it lacked sincerity.

When the confessor had finished the priest said, "To every confession there is a penance. You see the great Crucifix over there. Go to it, kneel down, and repeat three times as you look up into the face of the crucified, `All this you did for me, and I don't give a beaver dam."' Ignoring the priest's instruction, the young man joined his pals, told of his confession and the priest's request and asked for the money. "Oh no," they said, "first complete the penance, and then we will pay the bet." Reluctantly he went to the Crucifix, knelt down, and looked up into that face with its searching eyes of oppressed love.

Then he began, "All this you did for me, and I," he got no further, Tears flooded his eyes. His heart was torn by the pain of repentance. There his old life ended, and there the new one began. Finishing his sermon, the Archbishop said, 'I was that young man."'

If you think about it, we are all that “young man,” we have all lost our way completely, at least one time in our lives, or maybe we are still searching, and maybe tonight is the time when what you have been searching for will finally come to an end.

Earlier, I had alluded to my own transformation in the confessional, and I want to share that story with you now.

I had left the college seminary and decided to discern the priesthood outside, as it were, the problem was I looked at that opportunity as more of a type of freedom rather than and opportunity for discernment, and so everything I learned and everything I did in the seminary, I quickly abandoned, including the struggle of the living a holy life.

I recognized this but did nothing about it, and if I did go to confession it was not with the firm purpose of amendment, it was so I could feel better for a little while.

One day, after speaking with a priest, I decided to maybe look into discernment again, only this time I set my sights on a Franciscan Order, and I went to go visit them in Massachusetts. I remember how moved and amazed I was by the holiness that exuded from not just the monks but the entire place, and I decided I should probably go to confession.

So, I told one of the monks and he said he had the perfect person for me. So I followed him up a very cold and dark staircase, down a dark hallway, to a door that was across from the library. The friar knocked on the door and left. On the other side, I heard a strong voice tell me to come in. I walked in and I saw an old frail priest, hunched over his desk reading. I told him I needed to go to confession.

He told me to kneel beside him and to tell him my confession, which I did. I remember during the course of that confession how struck I was by the fact that he kept calling me “child” but even more, how the sins I confessed seemed like they hurt him as well. I don’t remember ever experiencing such deep compassion in the confessional. It was almost, in a sense, as though I was confessing to my own father, or, as was really happening my Heavenly Father.

[Theologian in Training]

And, at the end, he did something that no priest had ever done before, he recognized that I was not fully sorry for my sins, and so he refused to give me absolution. I was shocked, and even more shocked when he told me my Penance, it was to read a chapter from a book by a saint, the book was called Preparation for Death, the saint was St. Alphonsus Ligouri, and the chapter was on the Abuses of grace.

Now, I don’t know if you have ever read Ligouri, but he is not one to mince words, and so when I found myself in the library, reading this chapter, I remember looking up and saying to myself, in all seriousness: “I am going to Hell.” And, yet, that was exactly what I needed to change my life, I needed someone to give me a kick, as it were, in the same way that priest did to that insincere child.

And, I remember, it took me a few days before I went back to him, but when I did I was different and I was truly sorry for everything I had done. In fact, he had made me do a general confession, which was a confession of everything I ever did in my life and, as he put it, so that if I were to die tomorrow I could go immediately to Heaven. And, when the confession was done, he looked at me and he said: “Child, your sins are forgiven,” and then he told me I never have to confess them again. Once when I had to give a homily, I heard his words echo in my mind in that beautiful passage from Isaiah: “It is I, I, who wipe out, for my own sake, your offenses; your sins I remember no more.”

After I left him, I went into the chapel and spent hours there, in tears, in prayer, in thanksgiving and with a renewed sense of the love and mercy that God truly has for me. In fact, a few days later I had gone to their other house in Connecticut, and there, in a very real and very clear way, had come to realize my vocation, that I was being called to be a priest. And, it all began, with a good confession.

But maybe even that is not enough for some of you, which is understandable, maybe you need the answers to those questions I posed before, I mean confessing to God is confessing to Him, how come He can’t forgive us? He can, definitely, but you know what I realized, how do we know? How do we know that we are forgiven? When we are in prayer, by ourselves, asking God for forgiveness, does He ever say: “I forgive you?” I, personally, have never heard that, not by myself, but I have heard it through the priest. And they are beautiful words: “I absolve you of all of your sins.”

So, then I am sure you are asking yourself what does the priest have that we don’t, he has something that none of them asked for, power and authority. I never asked for it, but it came with the ordination, and it was the way Jesus intended it, otherwise, I can’t see Him going to such lengths after rising from the dead. He went to the disciples and said: “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, even so I send you.” He is telling them that what He did, those disciples can now do. He is making them priests. But not just that, He is giving them the power and authority, we hear this in one the most famous passages in the Gospel of John: “And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

In order to fully understand this, it is important to understand a little bit of history and theology, that when the priests of Israel were to retain or not to retain, or bind and loose meant to make a judgment on whether or not a person should remain in communion with the church or be cut off, based on their sins. In other words, the priests had the power to reconcile or to excommunicate, that is, cut them off from the community.

What Christ did was extend this, with the new priesthood, so that it not just a judgment on earth but a judgment in Heaven, because Jesus also says: “whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Therefore, in order for us priests to make this judgment we need to hear the sins confessed.

This is also why general absolution is not the norm, because it is reserved for extreme situations, when death is usually imminent, in the case of soldiers going off to war, or the threat to thousands of lives, where a priest could not hear the confessions of them all.

The last excuse though, that is my favorite, because a lot of us can fall into that one, we live good lives, we do what we need to do, we don’t mortally sin and, therefore, we really don’t need confession. Now, if that were true, I highly doubt John Paul II would have gone to confession everyday, the man, some have a canonized a saint already, found himself going to confession every single day.

I have a theory though that I have developed, it has come from hearing a lot of confessions and seeing the way sin works in our lives and the ways in which we like to rationalize it.

I think the longer we wait to go to confession, the easier it is for us to sin, because what seems to happen is that we are sinning, we are not exempt from that, but we are doing so venially, that is, what some would call the “little stuff.”

Yet, as many people have said, it is actually the little stuff that makes the big stuff seem little itself. In other words, if we are prone to the same little sins, our life is not one that seeks conversion, but to get rid of them until the next time, this is why we don’t want to confess them, because they are the same things, what we see as more weakness, yet, they are actually little doorways to bigger sins, little ways in which we make ourselves vulnerable to spiritual attacks, make ourselves vulnerable to the Enemy.

If you think about it, if you close one door, one big door, the Enemy looks for another way in, even if it is a small window, we are never free from attack. St. Paul puts it beautifully: “For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

So, what happens is, our venial sins “build up,” as it were, and we find we are becoming very impatient, sinning easier (if even venially) and getting very angry at the slightest things. The way I look at it is that that is your conscience's way of telling you that it is time to go to confession, it is, in a sense, your conscience crying out telling you that it needs to be relieved of this burden.

What happens is that the longer we wait, the less inclined we are to go, and one week, becomes 2 then 3 and before you know it, it has almost been a year since your last confession.

St. Ignatius puts it well: “The repetition of venial sins, he says, insensibly weakens the fear of God, hardens the conscience, forms evil attachments and habits, gives fresh strength to the temptations of the enemy of our salvation, and nourishes and develops the passions.”

As a priest, myself I can see what happens when people frequently confess, their behavior changes, and they become truly holy people, and it also happens that you see that though the Eucharist gives many graces and can even wash away those venial sins, the confessional gives other graces, especially for those venial sins that we want to hold on to, that we don’t want to give up, because the Eucharist cannot wash away something that is being held on to, only the confessional provides the means of letting go, admitting them, speaking them out loud and, in humility, asking for pardon and forgiveness.

I think the best way to think about venial sin, to make it a little more concrete, and even mortal sin is to picture Jesus sitting before you, dressed in purple robes, already mocked and whipped, sitting there with blood trickling down His face and the crown of thorns in your hand. Putting the crown on Him would be a venial sin, it would hurt Him, but not cause Him much pain, it would hurt you, but not to the point where you intended to really cause Him great pain. Mortal sin would be that point, mortal sin would be when you pushed that crown into His head and watch Him writhe in pain.

So, ok, I have answered a few common questions and shared a few stories, but maybe even that is not enough, maybe there is something else, maybe you want the forgiveness but feel as though God could never forgive you, or maybe you have already sought His forgiveness but are still unable to forgive yourself.

In both cases, there is one word, mercy. God has brought it, He freely gives it, and He wants us to bring it to others, including ourselves. It is not a simple fix, it is the most profound action in our lives, and it is referred to not as a river, or a pool, but an ocean, endless, unfathomable, and impossible to comprehend, and all of our sins are enveloped by it.

And that is what can be found, above everything else, in this sacrament. I will never forget when I went to confession and a priest pointed at the crucifix on the wall, and he said, do you see that, do you see what He did, He did that for us, because He loves us, and He asks us to do the same.

You know what mercy is? It is forgetting, God forgets. Remember Isaiah: “your sins I remember no more.” There is a great story about a woman who would not go to confession because she believed that her sins were so horrible that they were unforgivable. Her spiritual director instructed her to ask Jesus to tell her what his greatest sin was. When she met with her spiritual director again he asked her what Jesus said. She said that He had forgot.

I know the title of this talk was Healing and Forgiveness, but I don’t think we can be healed or forgiven or even know where to begin with either until we begin in the confessional. That is the doorway, as it were, to being healed, because our sins are wounds and the more we wound ourselves the more in need we are of the sacrament that can heal us.

I want to end with a little demonstration. You may have seen this before, or heard it, since it is popular, but I think it is worth repeating.

A well-known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a twenty dollar bill. In the room of 200, he asked, "Who would like this twenty dollars?"

Hands started going up. He said, "I am going to give this twenty dollars to one of you but first, let me do this."

He proceeded to crumple the dollar bill up. He then asked, "Who still wants it?"

Still the hands were up in the air. "Well," he replied, "What if I do this?" And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now all crumpled and dirty. "Now who still wants it?"

Still the hands went into the air. "My friends, you have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth twenty dollars.

And that is what happens to us every time we sin. We take our soul and start small, by first crumbling it up, as it were, then we drop it on the ground, then finally we stomp all over it and grind it into the dirt. And yet, in God’s eyes, we still have value, He still loves us, and is waiting there, ready to embrace us, to heal us, to transform us, if only we go out and seek His divine mercy.

[Theologian in Training]

Just remember, I, unfortunately, did not use the last demonstration, I took out the quote with St. Ignatius, and did not fully explain the concept of venial sin as tied to the Eucharist. I did not do that because I wanted to, but because I was going over the time. As it was, the talk was 26 minutes, a little long for some

[Deb]

Thank you!

[Theologian in Training]

[quote name='Deb' post='1474085' date='Mar 8 2008, 10:39 AM']Thank you![/quote]

You're welcome

[Theologian in Training]

I thought those of you who read this might be interested that I have gotten a lot of mileage out of this little talk. The Holy Spirit seems to be working overtime for this particular talk to get out to the "masses." A couple weeks ago someone came over here from the parish at which I gave this talk and he requested a copy of the talk, which I emailed him. Well, he sent it along to Bud Mcfarlane, known for his books and being a founder of the Mary Foundation, who emailed me personally to tell me how inspired he was. He then said he would forward it on to another priest friend of mine...I can't believe how far this has reached...

Edited March 29, 2008 by Theologian in Training