Continued from yesterday...
...Confession
After Confession
After Confession, we must thank God for the wonderful graces He has given us; we must say our penance with all our heart.
He has pardoned our sins, no matter how grave and horrible they were.
It is simply incredible how few Catholics thank God as they ought to do for the wonderful graces received in Confession.
It is the story of the ten lepers over again.
[This is the end of the booklet.]
_________________________
From An Easy Way to Become a Saint
by E. D. M. (1949)
The Catholic Printing Press
Lisbon, Portugal
With Ecclesiastical Approbation
13th June 1949
Showing posts with label Confession. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Confession. Show all posts
Monday, October 11, 2010
Sunday, October 10, 2010
An Easy Way to Become a Saint - October 10
Continued from yesterday...
...Confession
In Confession
In Confession we ask the priest's blessing and confess our sins clearly, briefly and frankly.
Then we listen carefully to any advice which the priest gives us and resolve to do exactly what he tells us.
We may ask any questions we think fit, or explain any difficulty we may have.
Lastly, when the priest is giving us absolution, we must say our act of contrition fervently, just as if we were at the feet of Jesus Christ Himself...
[Continued tomorrow]
_________________________
From An Easy Way to Become a Saint
by E. D. M. (1949)
The Catholic Printing Press
Lisbon, Portugal
With Ecclesiastical Approbation
13th June 1949
...Confession
In Confession
In Confession we ask the priest's blessing and confess our sins clearly, briefly and frankly.
Then we listen carefully to any advice which the priest gives us and resolve to do exactly what he tells us.
We may ask any questions we think fit, or explain any difficulty we may have.
Lastly, when the priest is giving us absolution, we must say our act of contrition fervently, just as if we were at the feet of Jesus Christ Himself...
[Continued tomorrow]
_________________________
From An Easy Way to Become a Saint
by E. D. M. (1949)
The Catholic Printing Press
Lisbon, Portugal
With Ecclesiastical Approbation
13th June 1949
Saturday, October 09, 2010
An Easy Way to Become a Saint - October 9
Continued from yesterday...
...Confession
How can we have this real sorrow for sin?
By clearly understanding the horrible malice of sin.
Sin is a deliberate offense against God. No man will do wrong if he sees a policeman looking at him. But we know clearly that God is looking at us, and still we deliberately offend Him; we offend Him to His very face.
The fire of Purgatory is the same terrible fire as the fire of Hell. We may be kept in this awful fire for many years for a deliberate venial sin. God could never punish us too severely. He does not send us to Purgatory because He is angry with us, but because the malice of a deliberate venial sin is simply awful - mortal sin much more so.
The saints say there is nothing so terrible on this earth as a deliberate sin. Were we to see a dead body in horrible corruption, it would be nothing in comparison with even a venial sin.
Were a soul to enter Heaven with one venial sin, it would willingly give up Heaven's happiness and plunge itself into the awful fires of Purgatory to wash out that filthy stain.
St. Paul says that by our sins we crucify again and make a mockery of God.
By absolution we are pardoned, delivered from all the filth and corruption of sin.
Therefore, we must make sure to be really sorry for our sins, for not even the Precious Blood of Jesus applied to our souls will purify us unless we are sorry and firmly resolved to sin no more....
[Continued tomorrow]
_________________________
From An Easy Way to Become a Saint
by E. D. M. (1949)
The Catholic Printing Press
Lisbon, Portugal
With Ecclesiastical Approbation
13th June 1949
...Confession
How can we have this real sorrow for sin?
By clearly understanding the horrible malice of sin.
Sin is a deliberate offense against God. No man will do wrong if he sees a policeman looking at him. But we know clearly that God is looking at us, and still we deliberately offend Him; we offend Him to His very face.
The fire of Purgatory is the same terrible fire as the fire of Hell. We may be kept in this awful fire for many years for a deliberate venial sin. God could never punish us too severely. He does not send us to Purgatory because He is angry with us, but because the malice of a deliberate venial sin is simply awful - mortal sin much more so.
The saints say there is nothing so terrible on this earth as a deliberate sin. Were we to see a dead body in horrible corruption, it would be nothing in comparison with even a venial sin.
Were a soul to enter Heaven with one venial sin, it would willingly give up Heaven's happiness and plunge itself into the awful fires of Purgatory to wash out that filthy stain.
St. Paul says that by our sins we crucify again and make a mockery of God.
By absolution we are pardoned, delivered from all the filth and corruption of sin.
Therefore, we must make sure to be really sorry for our sins, for not even the Precious Blood of Jesus applied to our souls will purify us unless we are sorry and firmly resolved to sin no more....
[Continued tomorrow]
_________________________
From An Easy Way to Become a Saint
by E. D. M. (1949)
The Catholic Printing Press
Lisbon, Portugal
With Ecclesiastical Approbation
13th June 1949
Friday, October 08, 2010
An Easy Way to Become a Saint - October 8
Continued from yesterday...
...Confession
What must we do to get all these graces?
Confession is very easy, but it is, as we saw, very holy, very wonderful, a Divine Sacrament. Therefore, we must make a short but feroent preparation. The reason why so many confessions do so little good is that Catholics do not make this fervent preparation.
To go to Confession without a serious preparation is to tempt God and profane this most holy Sacrament. Confession is easy, but we must treat it with respect. God tells us that He does not cast His pearls before swine. These words are very strong, but very true.
We must pray fervently, by saying, for instance, the first three Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, or we may say the prayers we find in our prayerbook.
Then we make a careful examination of conscience, that we may see and be able to confess our faults clearly and briefly.
The most important part of our preparation is to excite ourselves to sorrow, real sorrow, for our sins and make a firm resolution to avoid all mortal sins, and as far as we can, venial sins, especially any notable venial sin.
If we are not sincerely sorry for our sins, and if we are not firmly resolved to avoid sins, we are insulting God when we go to Confession....
[Continued tomorrow]
_________________________
From An Easy Way to Become a Saint
by E. D. M. (1949)
The Catholic Printing Press
Lisbon, Portugal
With Ecclesiastical Approbation
13th June 1949
...Confession
What must we do to get all these graces?
Confession is very easy, but it is, as we saw, very holy, very wonderful, a Divine Sacrament. Therefore, we must make a short but feroent preparation. The reason why so many confessions do so little good is that Catholics do not make this fervent preparation.
To go to Confession without a serious preparation is to tempt God and profane this most holy Sacrament. Confession is easy, but we must treat it with respect. God tells us that He does not cast His pearls before swine. These words are very strong, but very true.
We must pray fervently, by saying, for instance, the first three Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, or we may say the prayers we find in our prayerbook.
Then we make a careful examination of conscience, that we may see and be able to confess our faults clearly and briefly.
The most important part of our preparation is to excite ourselves to sorrow, real sorrow, for our sins and make a firm resolution to avoid all mortal sins, and as far as we can, venial sins, especially any notable venial sin.
If we are not sincerely sorry for our sins, and if we are not firmly resolved to avoid sins, we are insulting God when we go to Confession....
[Continued tomorrow]
_________________________
From An Easy Way to Become a Saint
by E. D. M. (1949)
The Catholic Printing Press
Lisbon, Portugal
With Ecclesiastical Approbation
13th June 1949
Thursday, October 07, 2010
An Easy Way to Become a Saint - October 7
Continued from yesterday...
...Confession
The graces of Confession
...We are weak. It gives us a new strength and life, so that a person who falls constantly into great sins and cannot avoid them, will be certainly able to avoid them if he goes to Confession frequently.
Priests are seeing this every day.
All men long for a good friend, whose friendship and love they enjoy, to whom they can go in their troubles and difficulties and ask for advice. A good friend is one of the greatest blessings God can give us.
Confession gives us this friend, for in Confession we meet a man who is there expressly to help and console us. He has been prepared especially for this work by long years of training. He is kind and helpful.
We may open our hearts to him, sure that he will understand us and sure that he is competent to give us the best possible advice.
We are equally certain that he will keep absolutely secret all that we say to him. A priest never breaks faith with his penitents...
[Continued tomorrow]
_________________________
From An Easy Way to Become a Saint
by E. D. M. (1949)
The Catholic Printing Press
Lisbon, Portugal
With Ecclesiastical Approbation
13th June 1949
...Confession
The graces of Confession
...We are weak. It gives us a new strength and life, so that a person who falls constantly into great sins and cannot avoid them, will be certainly able to avoid them if he goes to Confession frequently.
Priests are seeing this every day.
All men long for a good friend, whose friendship and love they enjoy, to whom they can go in their troubles and difficulties and ask for advice. A good friend is one of the greatest blessings God can give us.
Confession gives us this friend, for in Confession we meet a man who is there expressly to help and console us. He has been prepared especially for this work by long years of training. He is kind and helpful.
We may open our hearts to him, sure that he will understand us and sure that he is competent to give us the best possible advice.
We are equally certain that he will keep absolutely secret all that we say to him. A priest never breaks faith with his penitents...
[Continued tomorrow]
_________________________
From An Easy Way to Become a Saint
by E. D. M. (1949)
The Catholic Printing Press
Lisbon, Portugal
With Ecclesiastical Approbation
13th June 1949
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
An Easy Way to Become a Saint - October 6
Continued from yesterday...
...Confession
The graces of Confession
Confession, like the other Sacraments, is a river of Divine grace, which flows from the heart of God into the heart of the sinner.
What is Grace? Few understand and appreciate this Divine gift, and yet it is the most wonderful reality in our lives. St. Peter tells us that it is a real participation in the Divine nature, raising us up, ennobling us, strengthening, purifying and beautifying our souls, making us like the Angels, likening us to God Himself. It gives us a completely new life, a new vigor, a new power. It gives a Divine light to our understanding, by which we grasp the Divine truths which God has revealed to us, which otherwise we could never understand.
It gives a new and mighty energy to our wills so that we can perform all our duties well and easily.
But confession has its own special graces. Dear Reader, weigh them well:
First of all, it pardons our sins.
Secondly, it gives us light to see the enormity of sin.
Thirdly, it gives us strength to avoid sin.
Fourthly, it is the easiest and best penance we can perform because it washes our souls in the Precious Blood of Jesus. It thus lessens our time in Purgatory, or possibly delivers us altogether from Purgatory.
Fifthly, it comforts and consoles us, most effectively.
Sixthly, it makes us love God and hate sin.
Seventhly, it helps us potently to correct our defects, which make us so disagreeable to others, make us so unhappy ourselves and make us offend God...
[Continued tomorrow]
_________________________
From An Easy Way to Become a Saint
by E. D. M. (1949)
The Catholic Printing Press
Lisbon, Portugal
With Ecclesiastical Approbation
13th June 1949
...Confession
The graces of Confession
Confession, like the other Sacraments, is a river of Divine grace, which flows from the heart of God into the heart of the sinner.
What is Grace? Few understand and appreciate this Divine gift, and yet it is the most wonderful reality in our lives. St. Peter tells us that it is a real participation in the Divine nature, raising us up, ennobling us, strengthening, purifying and beautifying our souls, making us like the Angels, likening us to God Himself. It gives us a completely new life, a new vigor, a new power. It gives a Divine light to our understanding, by which we grasp the Divine truths which God has revealed to us, which otherwise we could never understand.
It gives a new and mighty energy to our wills so that we can perform all our duties well and easily.
But confession has its own special graces. Dear Reader, weigh them well:
First of all, it pardons our sins.
Secondly, it gives us light to see the enormity of sin.
Thirdly, it gives us strength to avoid sin.
Fourthly, it is the easiest and best penance we can perform because it washes our souls in the Precious Blood of Jesus. It thus lessens our time in Purgatory, or possibly delivers us altogether from Purgatory.
Fifthly, it comforts and consoles us, most effectively.
Sixthly, it makes us love God and hate sin.
Seventhly, it helps us potently to correct our defects, which make us so disagreeable to others, make us so unhappy ourselves and make us offend God...
[Continued tomorrow]
_________________________
From An Easy Way to Become a Saint
by E. D. M. (1949)
The Catholic Printing Press
Lisbon, Portugal
With Ecclesiastical Approbation
13th June 1949
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
An Easy Way to Become a Saint - October 5
Continued from yesterday...
...Confession
The power of forgiving sins
No one but God can pardon sin. Even the highest Angel in Heaven cannot absolve from a single sin. God, by an act of infinite power and mercy, has given priests this Divine power.
St. Alphonsus says that if Our Lord Jesus Christ were to sit in one confessional and a simple priest in another, the sinners who went to the priest would be as fully pardoned as those who had confessed to Christ.
St. Augustine declares that when a priest absolves from sin he uses a power greater than the power used by God in creating the world! In proportion to this Divine Power are the benefits we receive in Confession...
[Continued tomorrow]
_________________________
From An Easy Way to Become a Saint
by E. D. M. (1949)
The Catholic Printing Press
Lisbon, Portugal
With Ecclesiastical Approbation
13th June 1949
...Confession
The power of forgiving sins
No one but God can pardon sin. Even the highest Angel in Heaven cannot absolve from a single sin. God, by an act of infinite power and mercy, has given priests this Divine power.
St. Alphonsus says that if Our Lord Jesus Christ were to sit in one confessional and a simple priest in another, the sinners who went to the priest would be as fully pardoned as those who had confessed to Christ.
St. Augustine declares that when a priest absolves from sin he uses a power greater than the power used by God in creating the world! In proportion to this Divine Power are the benefits we receive in Confession...
[Continued tomorrow]
_________________________
From An Easy Way to Become a Saint
by E. D. M. (1949)
The Catholic Printing Press
Lisbon, Portugal
With Ecclesiastical Approbation
13th June 1949
Monday, October 04, 2010
An Easy Way to Become a Saint - October 4
Continued from yesterday...
...Confession
Every day we see the wonders of confession
A poor boy who is tempted to steal confesses his fault, and the priest at once shows him not only the meanness and malice of stealing, but shows him how dangerous it is to him. If he is discovered, his character is ruined for life. He is branded as a thief. That boy never steals again.
A young girl is tempted to go astray, attracted by some foolish young man. A word from the priest opens her eyes and her honor is saved.
A husband or a wife begins to be unfaithful; they confess it, and once more the confessor, with a timely warning, saves the poor family from ruin.
A servant confesses that he or she has taken the master's money. Again, a few kind words make them honest and loyal forever after.
Doctors, lawyers, judges confess negligence in their duties; the wise counsel of the priest makes them serious and upright.
How many Protestants have been surprised on receiving money from a priest - sometimes large sums - which had been stolen from them and which the priest was asked to restore.
Many Protestant families choose Catholic servants, but servants who go to Confession!
For any right-minded man, Confession represents not only a personal benefit, but a safeguard for society.
In the last Great Wars, the power of Confession was shown in a wonderful way on the battlefields. One of the great English Protestant newspapers used these words: "The Catholic soldiers, when they have their chaplains, fear neither man nor the devil."
The number of Catholic chaplains in the English army in the beginning of the First World War was 36. It was increased to 600, and this by a Protestant government!...
[Continued tomorrow]
_________________________
From An Easy Way to Become a Saint
by E. D. M. (1949)
The Catholic Printing Press
Lisbon, Portugal
With Ecclesiastical Approbation
13th June 1949
...Confession
Every day we see the wonders of confession
A poor boy who is tempted to steal confesses his fault, and the priest at once shows him not only the meanness and malice of stealing, but shows him how dangerous it is to him. If he is discovered, his character is ruined for life. He is branded as a thief. That boy never steals again.
A young girl is tempted to go astray, attracted by some foolish young man. A word from the priest opens her eyes and her honor is saved.
A husband or a wife begins to be unfaithful; they confess it, and once more the confessor, with a timely warning, saves the poor family from ruin.
A servant confesses that he or she has taken the master's money. Again, a few kind words make them honest and loyal forever after.
Doctors, lawyers, judges confess negligence in their duties; the wise counsel of the priest makes them serious and upright.
How many Protestants have been surprised on receiving money from a priest - sometimes large sums - which had been stolen from them and which the priest was asked to restore.
Many Protestant families choose Catholic servants, but servants who go to Confession!
For any right-minded man, Confession represents not only a personal benefit, but a safeguard for society.
In the last Great Wars, the power of Confession was shown in a wonderful way on the battlefields. One of the great English Protestant newspapers used these words: "The Catholic soldiers, when they have their chaplains, fear neither man nor the devil."
The number of Catholic chaplains in the English army in the beginning of the First World War was 36. It was increased to 600, and this by a Protestant government!...
[Continued tomorrow]
_________________________
From An Easy Way to Become a Saint
by E. D. M. (1949)
The Catholic Printing Press
Lisbon, Portugal
With Ecclesiastical Approbation
13th June 1949
Sunday, October 03, 2010
An Easy Way to Become a Saint - October 3
Continued from yesterday...
Confession
...We see that very many Protestants in late years go to confession to their Protestant divines!
But why confess to a priest, to a man like ourselves?
Because God in His infinite sweetness saw how much our human hearts seek comfort, and therefore, by an act of infinite power and wisdom, He has given men this Divine, omnipotent power of pardoning sin and comforting, consoling and helping sinners to become good.
He not only gives them His own Divine Power to forgive sin, but He also gives them the light and wisdom necessary to console and counsel poor sinners...
[Continued tomorrow]
_________________________
From An Easy Way to Become a Saint
by E. D. M. (1949)
The Catholic Printing Press
Lisbon, Portugal
With Ecclesiastical Approbation
13th June 1949
Confession
...We see that very many Protestants in late years go to confession to their Protestant divines!
But why confess to a priest, to a man like ourselves?
Because God in His infinite sweetness saw how much our human hearts seek comfort, and therefore, by an act of infinite power and wisdom, He has given men this Divine, omnipotent power of pardoning sin and comforting, consoling and helping sinners to become good.
He not only gives them His own Divine Power to forgive sin, but He also gives them the light and wisdom necessary to console and counsel poor sinners...
[Continued tomorrow]
_________________________
From An Easy Way to Become a Saint
by E. D. M. (1949)
The Catholic Printing Press
Lisbon, Portugal
With Ecclesiastical Approbation
13th June 1949
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Principles and Practices - February 15
The Great Cure
Work and prayer are the infallible aids to self-education: pray and work, that is the golden precept that must be used as a warcry against all evil spirits. Work strengthens body and soul and keeps them youthful. But it must be regulated and directed to God by prayer; it must not fetter the immortal soul with the chains of slavery, but must be offered to God as a free sacrifice, that will find its reward not here below, but in heaven and in all eternity.
-Von Oer Bothmer.
_________________
From Principles and Practices
Compiled by Rev. J. Hogan of The Catholic Missionary Society
Published by Burns Oates & Washbourne Ltd., Publishers To The Holy See
Nihil Obstat; Eduardus J. Mahoney, S.T.D. Censor deputatus.
Imprimatur; Edm. Can. Surmont, Vicarius generalis.
First printed in 1930
Work and prayer are the infallible aids to self-education: pray and work, that is the golden precept that must be used as a warcry against all evil spirits. Work strengthens body and soul and keeps them youthful. But it must be regulated and directed to God by prayer; it must not fetter the immortal soul with the chains of slavery, but must be offered to God as a free sacrifice, that will find its reward not here below, but in heaven and in all eternity.
-Von Oer Bothmer.
_________________
From Principles and Practices
Compiled by Rev. J. Hogan of The Catholic Missionary Society
Published by Burns Oates & Washbourne Ltd., Publishers To The Holy See
Nihil Obstat; Eduardus J. Mahoney, S.T.D. Censor deputatus.
Imprimatur; Edm. Can. Surmont, Vicarius generalis.
First printed in 1930
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
New McCain Statement on Stem Cell Research Shows More Pro-Life Movement
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The campaign of presidential candidate John McCain has released a new statement on his position on stem cell research funding that has some observers saying it shows the senator continues to move in a pro-life direction on key bioethics issues.
The campaign sent comments on Monday to the ScienceDebate2008 web site on the issue of stem cell research and federal funding....
Deal Hudson a leading pro-life Catholic writer, writes approvingly of the McCain statement.
"There has been some evidence during the campaign that McCain's position on embryonic stem cell research was softening. I was skeptical of drawing any conclusions having discussed it with McCain several times. But now the more optimistic prediction has come to pass,' he explained.
Hudson interprets the McCain statement as saying he will continue the current policy of President Bush, which limits any federal funds for new embryonic stem cell research involving the destruction of human life....
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost, The Death Of The Soul
By The Rev. H. G. Hughes
____________________
"He that was dead sat up, and began to speak." Luke vii, 15.
In the country of Galilee, not far from our Blessed Lord's own town of Nazareth, there stood, and still stands, upon the slope of a lofty hill, the little town of Naim, where Christ worked the great miracle of which we read in today's Gospel. In our Lord's own time it was a flourishing place; its name meant “Beautiful"; today it is but a squalid village. Yet it is a spot of the highest interest to the Christian traveller; for he can ascend the very pathway, rocky and steep, leading to the gate of Naim, up which the Saviour of Men was going when He met the sad funeral procession descending from the town to the place of' burial without. That was a great day for Naim and its people. Little did they think, as they set forth that day to lay the widow's son in his last resting-place that they were to meet the Lord arid Master of life and death; the Giver of life, the Conqueror of death. Yet so it was to be.
We can imagine that sad procession. In the midst, the body of the young man, cut down in the flower of his youth. The corpse is embalmed with sweet perfumes, wrapped round with linen bands, carried upon an open bier: in front are the hired minstrels or flute-players; round about the bier are the mourners, also hired, paid to express the grief of the relatives of the dead by noisy demonstrations of sorrow; while close to the lifeless body walks the grief-stricken widowed mother, silent in her sorrow, bitterly weeping for her only son, her pride, her hope, and her support. With her, as we read, was "a great multitude of the city"; some of them friends, others passers-by, who, according to the Jewish custom, had joined the funeral train as they chanced to meet it.
Outside the gate of the city, coming up the steep pathway, there approached another procession: it is the great Prophet and Teacher of their country of Galilee, Jesus of Nazareth, surrounded by disciples whom he had won to Himself, and who were full of joyful hope that He would deliver their country from its oppressors, and set up again the glorious throne of David. The two companies, so different in their thoughts and feelings, meet. The glad faces of the friends and followers of Jesus fall to a sad solemnity, changing to looks of sincere pity as they see the weeping mother and learn her sad story. But their pity is as nothing to that of one Heart there, the all-sympathizing Sacred Heart of Jesus, that can read the hearts of men, and so can fathom our griefs as we never can fathom or understand to its depths the sorrow of our fel1ow-creatures.
Jesus stops before the funeral train: He heeds not the mourners; He puts aside the multitude of friends and feIIow-citizens; He goes straight where He is needed most, straight to the heart-broken mother, true to His own promise, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted" (Luke v, 5), true to the mission ascribed to Him by the prophet Isaias, "to comfort all that mourn" (Is. lxi, 2). He stands before that sorrowful mother, and in tones of indescribable compassion He says to Her words few indeed, but laden with comfort and hope, words that cause her to look wonderingly to His sacred face and to gaze into His eyes, in which she sees the light of a pity all divine. "Whom when the Lord had seen, being moved with mercy toward her, He said to her, weep not" (Luke vii, 13). Then "He came near, and touched the bier. And they that carried it stood still. And He said : Young man, I say unto thee, arise" (ib. 14).
Words of mighty power and efficacy! Words that winged their way even into the dread mysterious realms of death, and found out the spirit in its far-off unknown abode and brought it back to its earthly tenement again; for, at those words, lo, "he that was dead sat up, and began to speak." And then Jesus "delivered him to his mother"; gave him back, whole and sound, thrilling once more with young life and energy, to the embraces of his mother's amazed and rapturous love. "And there came a great fear on them all"; for they felt that they stood in the presence of a Supreme Power, of One Whom death obeyed, of One Who gave life as He willed. "And they glorified God, saying, A great prophet is risen up among us, and God hath visited His people."
There is another death, dear brethren, than the death of the body: a death far more terrible than bodily death. It is a death that means eternal ruin of body and soul; a death hopeless, irremediable, unless the same Lord Who showed His power in this great miracle of mercy at Naim work a still greater miracle in the resurrection of souls to the life of grace. It is the awful death of sin. What is bodily death to that? He Who compassionated the widow, He Who wept at the grave of Lazarus, thought little of bodily death compared with the death of the soul. "Fear ye not," He has told us, "them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both body and soul in hell" (Matt. x, 28).
It was to restore the life of grace to poor sinners that He was born, that He lived and toiled and suffered and gave His very life. And if He pitied that mother who had lost her son by temporal death, and who might hope to be one day reunited to him, what must be His deep pity and compassion for foolish souls who, by an act of wilful self-destruction, have cut themselves off from life and love and happiness, separating themselves by sin from God Who is all these, and apart from Whom true life, true love, true happiness are not?
For in a sinful soul, dear brethren, Christ sees, not the destruction of this earthly tabernacle of flesh, the dissolution of material elements, separation from earthly joys and earthly friends, but He sees the utter ruin of that immortal spirit breathed into man by the very breath of God, the destruction of His own beauteous image and likeness; and, in the future, the eternal misery of bitter self-reproach, the keen anguish of burning desire for happiness never to be gained, a wrecked and wasted existence, everlasting separation from the only good, the only joy, the only possession worth living for-the God Who made us for Himself.
And so, in His infinite compassion and mercy, Jesus comes to meet us when we are dead in sin, when we are already being carried out to be buried in hell, when, not the mourning of friends, but the mocking laugh of demons is ushering us to that last dreadful abode of misery. He comes, and He says to the evil spirits, "laugh not: not yet is this soul your prey. I am the Master of Life, the Giver of Grace." And to the soul dead in sins He says: "Arise: go in peace; thy sins are forgiven thee. Rise to the life of grace; rise to a new life in which sin shall no more have place. Go now, and sin no more."
And Christ has placed this power of restoring to souls the life of grace, won by His own death and resurrection, this power of raising souls from death to life, in a great Sacrament of His Holy Church, who is the mother of our souls. Through that great Sacrament He brings us from death to life, and delivers us to our Mother the Church whole and sound, restored to the life of grace and charity. Of this the miracle at Naim was an image. Learn from that miracle the evil of the death of sin, since He who so compassioned human sorrow for the death of the body, yet made it as nothing in comparison with the death of the soul.
Learn to hope in the power of Him who can raise us not only from bodily, but from spiritual death. Glorify God, as did the people of Naim; glorify and thank Him for that great Sacrament of Spiritual Resurrection that He has given us through the shedding of His Precious Blood. Fly, henceforth, from sin which cost Him so dear, which does to our souls such infinite harm ; and, should passion or human weakness, or the force of strong temptation overcome you, fly quickly to that great means of grace--a humble and sorrowful confession, by which the life of grace can be given you again.
How strange it seems, dear brethren, that with so great a means of pardon, so easy of access as confession is, people will go for months, sometimes for years in their sins. God is very patient, but the time is fixed beyond which we shall not be allowed to go on in sin. The sinner will commit his last mortal sin; and what will happen then? Think of the Rich Fool in our Blessed Lord’s parable. He was content; he had said boastingly to his soul, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years: take thy rest; eat, drink, make good cheer" (Luke xii, 19). That night he goes to his couch. He has but laid him down, and is falling away into the unconsciousness of sleep with his thoughts still running on his future enjoyments, when he starts into sudden wakefulness, a dreadful fear at his heart. An inward voice has spoken to him, the Voice of God; "Fool, this night do they require thy soul of thee" (ib. 20). "Fool! This very night, now, thou art to die."
Brethren, when that dread call comes, as it will come to all of us, there is no refusal, no delay. We cannot expect a miracle to raise us from the grave and give us another opportunity. What would that poor rich fool have given for a few moments only of respite, to collect his bewildered senses, to recall some lesson of early life that would help him now, to breathe one prayer for pardon. But it is too late. Even as he struggles to realize what is happening the hand of Death is upon him, and he is hurried before his Almighty Judge. "What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Mark viii, 36).
Brethren, delay not your true and earnest repentance; come, and come quickly to Jesus, Master of Life and Death, Giver of Grace and pardon. He will restore life to your souls; He will give you new life, new strength, new courage, and, if you will ask Him, often, fervently, perseveringly, He will grant you to continue to the end in the divine life of grace, so that when your time shall come, your bodies will die, indeed, but only to know, at the last great day, a resurrection far more glorious than that of the widow's son at Naim; a resurrection, not to joys of earth, but to the incomparably sweeter joys of heaven, our dear and longed-for home.
__________________
Adapted from Plain Sermons by Practical Preachers, Vol. II(©1916)
Nihil Obstat: Remegius Lafort, S.T.D
Imprimatur: John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
____________________
"He that was dead sat up, and began to speak." Luke vii, 15.
In the country of Galilee, not far from our Blessed Lord's own town of Nazareth, there stood, and still stands, upon the slope of a lofty hill, the little town of Naim, where Christ worked the great miracle of which we read in today's Gospel. In our Lord's own time it was a flourishing place; its name meant “Beautiful"; today it is but a squalid village. Yet it is a spot of the highest interest to the Christian traveller; for he can ascend the very pathway, rocky and steep, leading to the gate of Naim, up which the Saviour of Men was going when He met the sad funeral procession descending from the town to the place of' burial without. That was a great day for Naim and its people. Little did they think, as they set forth that day to lay the widow's son in his last resting-place that they were to meet the Lord arid Master of life and death; the Giver of life, the Conqueror of death. Yet so it was to be.
We can imagine that sad procession. In the midst, the body of the young man, cut down in the flower of his youth. The corpse is embalmed with sweet perfumes, wrapped round with linen bands, carried upon an open bier: in front are the hired minstrels or flute-players; round about the bier are the mourners, also hired, paid to express the grief of the relatives of the dead by noisy demonstrations of sorrow; while close to the lifeless body walks the grief-stricken widowed mother, silent in her sorrow, bitterly weeping for her only son, her pride, her hope, and her support. With her, as we read, was "a great multitude of the city"; some of them friends, others passers-by, who, according to the Jewish custom, had joined the funeral train as they chanced to meet it.
Outside the gate of the city, coming up the steep pathway, there approached another procession: it is the great Prophet and Teacher of their country of Galilee, Jesus of Nazareth, surrounded by disciples whom he had won to Himself, and who were full of joyful hope that He would deliver their country from its oppressors, and set up again the glorious throne of David. The two companies, so different in their thoughts and feelings, meet. The glad faces of the friends and followers of Jesus fall to a sad solemnity, changing to looks of sincere pity as they see the weeping mother and learn her sad story. But their pity is as nothing to that of one Heart there, the all-sympathizing Sacred Heart of Jesus, that can read the hearts of men, and so can fathom our griefs as we never can fathom or understand to its depths the sorrow of our fel1ow-creatures.
Jesus stops before the funeral train: He heeds not the mourners; He puts aside the multitude of friends and feIIow-citizens; He goes straight where He is needed most, straight to the heart-broken mother, true to His own promise, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted" (Luke v, 5), true to the mission ascribed to Him by the prophet Isaias, "to comfort all that mourn" (Is. lxi, 2). He stands before that sorrowful mother, and in tones of indescribable compassion He says to Her words few indeed, but laden with comfort and hope, words that cause her to look wonderingly to His sacred face and to gaze into His eyes, in which she sees the light of a pity all divine. "Whom when the Lord had seen, being moved with mercy toward her, He said to her, weep not" (Luke vii, 13). Then "He came near, and touched the bier. And they that carried it stood still. And He said : Young man, I say unto thee, arise" (ib. 14).
Words of mighty power and efficacy! Words that winged their way even into the dread mysterious realms of death, and found out the spirit in its far-off unknown abode and brought it back to its earthly tenement again; for, at those words, lo, "he that was dead sat up, and began to speak." And then Jesus "delivered him to his mother"; gave him back, whole and sound, thrilling once more with young life and energy, to the embraces of his mother's amazed and rapturous love. "And there came a great fear on them all"; for they felt that they stood in the presence of a Supreme Power, of One Whom death obeyed, of One Who gave life as He willed. "And they glorified God, saying, A great prophet is risen up among us, and God hath visited His people."
There is another death, dear brethren, than the death of the body: a death far more terrible than bodily death. It is a death that means eternal ruin of body and soul; a death hopeless, irremediable, unless the same Lord Who showed His power in this great miracle of mercy at Naim work a still greater miracle in the resurrection of souls to the life of grace. It is the awful death of sin. What is bodily death to that? He Who compassionated the widow, He Who wept at the grave of Lazarus, thought little of bodily death compared with the death of the soul. "Fear ye not," He has told us, "them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both body and soul in hell" (Matt. x, 28).
It was to restore the life of grace to poor sinners that He was born, that He lived and toiled and suffered and gave His very life. And if He pitied that mother who had lost her son by temporal death, and who might hope to be one day reunited to him, what must be His deep pity and compassion for foolish souls who, by an act of wilful self-destruction, have cut themselves off from life and love and happiness, separating themselves by sin from God Who is all these, and apart from Whom true life, true love, true happiness are not?
For in a sinful soul, dear brethren, Christ sees, not the destruction of this earthly tabernacle of flesh, the dissolution of material elements, separation from earthly joys and earthly friends, but He sees the utter ruin of that immortal spirit breathed into man by the very breath of God, the destruction of His own beauteous image and likeness; and, in the future, the eternal misery of bitter self-reproach, the keen anguish of burning desire for happiness never to be gained, a wrecked and wasted existence, everlasting separation from the only good, the only joy, the only possession worth living for-the God Who made us for Himself.
And so, in His infinite compassion and mercy, Jesus comes to meet us when we are dead in sin, when we are already being carried out to be buried in hell, when, not the mourning of friends, but the mocking laugh of demons is ushering us to that last dreadful abode of misery. He comes, and He says to the evil spirits, "laugh not: not yet is this soul your prey. I am the Master of Life, the Giver of Grace." And to the soul dead in sins He says: "Arise: go in peace; thy sins are forgiven thee. Rise to the life of grace; rise to a new life in which sin shall no more have place. Go now, and sin no more."
And Christ has placed this power of restoring to souls the life of grace, won by His own death and resurrection, this power of raising souls from death to life, in a great Sacrament of His Holy Church, who is the mother of our souls. Through that great Sacrament He brings us from death to life, and delivers us to our Mother the Church whole and sound, restored to the life of grace and charity. Of this the miracle at Naim was an image. Learn from that miracle the evil of the death of sin, since He who so compassioned human sorrow for the death of the body, yet made it as nothing in comparison with the death of the soul.
Learn to hope in the power of Him who can raise us not only from bodily, but from spiritual death. Glorify God, as did the people of Naim; glorify and thank Him for that great Sacrament of Spiritual Resurrection that He has given us through the shedding of His Precious Blood. Fly, henceforth, from sin which cost Him so dear, which does to our souls such infinite harm ; and, should passion or human weakness, or the force of strong temptation overcome you, fly quickly to that great means of grace--a humble and sorrowful confession, by which the life of grace can be given you again.
How strange it seems, dear brethren, that with so great a means of pardon, so easy of access as confession is, people will go for months, sometimes for years in their sins. God is very patient, but the time is fixed beyond which we shall not be allowed to go on in sin. The sinner will commit his last mortal sin; and what will happen then? Think of the Rich Fool in our Blessed Lord’s parable. He was content; he had said boastingly to his soul, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years: take thy rest; eat, drink, make good cheer" (Luke xii, 19). That night he goes to his couch. He has but laid him down, and is falling away into the unconsciousness of sleep with his thoughts still running on his future enjoyments, when he starts into sudden wakefulness, a dreadful fear at his heart. An inward voice has spoken to him, the Voice of God; "Fool, this night do they require thy soul of thee" (ib. 20). "Fool! This very night, now, thou art to die."
Brethren, when that dread call comes, as it will come to all of us, there is no refusal, no delay. We cannot expect a miracle to raise us from the grave and give us another opportunity. What would that poor rich fool have given for a few moments only of respite, to collect his bewildered senses, to recall some lesson of early life that would help him now, to breathe one prayer for pardon. But it is too late. Even as he struggles to realize what is happening the hand of Death is upon him, and he is hurried before his Almighty Judge. "What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Mark viii, 36).
Brethren, delay not your true and earnest repentance; come, and come quickly to Jesus, Master of Life and Death, Giver of Grace and pardon. He will restore life to your souls; He will give you new life, new strength, new courage, and, if you will ask Him, often, fervently, perseveringly, He will grant you to continue to the end in the divine life of grace, so that when your time shall come, your bodies will die, indeed, but only to know, at the last great day, a resurrection far more glorious than that of the widow's son at Naim; a resurrection, not to joys of earth, but to the incomparably sweeter joys of heaven, our dear and longed-for home.
__________________
Adapted from Plain Sermons by Practical Preachers, Vol. II(©1916)
Nihil Obstat: Remegius Lafort, S.T.D
Imprimatur: John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Lenten Reflection: The Forgiveness of Christ
"Thy sins are forgiven." St. Luke, 7:49.
Imagine that we are all invited to a banquet at the home of Simon the Pharisee. Since Jesus will be there, we accept the invitation. As we sit at table with the Master, lo and behold, there enters the room a woman of the streets, a public sinner.
Clasped to her breast is a box of perfume. She is trembling like an autumn leaf. She seems to feel that the eyes of all are upon her. Staring at her beautiful, swaying body as she hesitates near the doorway, wondering what to do. Timidly, like a little girl on her first day at school, this fascinating creature tiptoes toward the table, raising her eyes for only a moment to see where Jesus is.
Espying Him, she rushes forward, sinks to the floor before Him, embraces His sacred feet, and, unable to restrain any longer the tenderness in her heart, she bursts into tears--tears of sorrow for her sins, tears of hope for pardon, tears of sweetness, the sweetness of being near the Lord, tears of gratitude, of a troubled heart finding peace, tears so abundant that they flow like water to wash the feet of the Savior. She wants to speak, to beg His pardon, to thank Him. But her lips tremble so that she cannot pronounce a word. Her tears have to do the talking.
What a picture--infinite Innocence, and infinite misery--Jesus and Mary Magdalene!
When the penitent has cried her eyes out, she knows not how to dry those feet wet with her tears. She sees no towel around, and her own garments she considers unworthy to touch the sacred person of Him. She thinks of her hair, her long beautiful braids, so much admired for their silkiness. She unclasps the fastenings, slips out the pins. The black mass of tresses, like a waterfall, tumbles over her face, hiding her flushed cheeks and her swimming eyes. With the flowing curls she slowly, tenderly dries the feet of her new-found Lord and Master, as tenderly as a young mother washes her first infant for the first time.
Then, opening the box of ointment, she pours its precious fluid over Christ's freshly washed feet. The odor of the ointment filled the house. Though finished with her task, Magdalene still feels unworthy to lift her head. Meanwhile the host says to himself, not aloud, but to himself:
And He who can read hearts, read the heart of His host, and in answer told of a money-lender who had two debtors, one of whom owed a large amount of money, and the other a much smaller amount. The money-lender cancelled both debts. Jesus asked:
What joy in the heart of Magdalene! What peace, what delight, what rest in a soul restored to the friendship of God! Her sins are forgiven, washed away forever. Again her heart is pure and clean and happy. For all this peace, this inexpressible happiness, she must thank the God-man, the loving, forgiving Master, Jesus Christ, He who had come from heaven to bring forgiveness, to win forgiveness for all.
JESUS OFTEN FORGAVE SINS
While Jesus walked this earth He often forgave sins. Not only to Mary Magdalene did He say, "Thy sins are forgiven," but to the woman taken in adultery, and to the man sick of the palsy. Despite the objections and criticisms of the Jews, Jesus forgave sins. We call our Lord "The forgiving Christ."
That same power of forgiving sins Christ gave to His apostles and to their successors, the bishops and priests of the Catholic Church, in the words:
The sinner must do his part. Christ laid down two conditions for forgiveness. We cannot be forgiven unless, first, we are sorry and confess our sins to a priest, and secondly, unless we forgive others. The necessity of telling our sins to the priest in confession is seen from the fact that he cannot forgive some sins and not forgive others, unless he knows what those sins are. Forgiveness of others Christ always demanded.
CHRIST FORGAVE INJURIES
Truly new and difficult was this command of Christ: "Forgive. . . Forgive. . . Forgive." Yes, even seventy times seven times a day. Until Christ's day men were taught to hate their enemies, to render black eye for black eye, broken tooth for broken tooth. Christ commanded us to put away all hatred, all revenge, all grudges, all resentment, all bitterness. He insisted that we do good to our enemies, that we pray for those who persecute us, that we forgive those who injure us. Just because forgiveness is so difficult and at the same time so necessary, Christ preached it so often, even with His dying breath:
Nowhere is His command more clear than in the Our Father, when we pray: "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."
How often we say that prayer? Each time we ask God to forgive us as we forgive others. If we really prayed those words our conduct would be more like that of Christ. Like Him, we would always forgive. Remember, we are passing sentence on ourselves with those words. We ask God to forgive our offenses just as we forgive offenses against us. As our Lord once declared:
CAESAR FORGIVES
Many years before Christ's birth a certain Roman named Marcellus had offended the emperor Caesar, Caesar, the ruler of all the world. The offender was brought before the offended emperor. A famous Roman lawyer, Cicero, pleaded with Caesar:
CHRIST'S COMMAND AND EXAMPLE
Though forgiveness was not unknown before Christ, it was our Lord who gave us the strict command and the best example of forgiveness. Remembering that Jesus was God as well as man, take a glance at the insults He received. His enemies whipped Him; they spat on Him; they struck Him in the face; they nailed Him to a cross.
As God, our Savior could have destroyed His tormentors on the spot. Instead He cried out:
MANY FOLLOWED CHRIST
We have many stirring stories of Christians who learned from Christ to forgive. There was a valiant knight, Hildebrand, who was seriously insulted by one of his companions, Bruno. Hildebrand swore revenge. After weeks of planning he decided to get his revenge on a certain night. He took several guns and started for a lonely spot where he knew Bruno would pass. On the way he passed a chapel. Hildebrand noticed the door was open. He entered to await the time for his victim's arrival. He whiled away the time by looking at paintings. Three pictures caught his attention.
The first showed our Lord clothed with the scarlet cloak and crowned with thorns. Beneath were the words: "He returned not insult for insult."
The second picture represented our Lord tied to the pillar and wincing under the whips of His tormentors. Below he read the words: "When He suffered thus He threatened not."
The third scene was of our Lord on the cross, dying in agony. It bore this inscription: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
The knight was struck to the heart. He sank to his knees and prayed. Gradually his hatred disappeared. He waited for his enemy, not to kill, but to extend the hand of forgiveness.
During Lent we also look at pictures of our suffering Savior, especially in the way of the cross. Every time we stop at a station and behold the agonies of Christ, we must be determined to live worthy of our forgiving Lord.
FALSE FORGIVENESS
Two Irishmen, neighbors, had a lifelong quarrel. One of them took seriously sick. His wife called the priest and explained to him: "Father, Pat has been fighting with Mike Murphy for years. Pat's going to die. Can't you patch up their quarrel?"
After more persuasion the priest induced the dying Pat to call in Mike for a reconciliation. In a few minutes Mike was at the bedside. He suggested: "Let's make up, Pat. Let bygones be bygones."
Pat agreed, rather reluctantly. Mike prepared to leave. As he approached the door, Pat raised himself on one elbow in bed, and, shaking his other fist at Murphy, he shouted: "Remember, Mike, this counts only in case I die."
Too often that is the way we forgive - only in case we die. Well we know that we will never be forgiven unless we forgive. But our forgiveness is often false and insincere.
STREET OF LOVE
By way of contrast we take you to the Street of Love in Bologna, Italy. It received its name years ago from an incident in which the forgiving love of Christ triumphed over a mother's grief at the loss of a child.
There lived on this street a widow woman and her only child, a healthy, happy boy who was the joy of her life. One afternoon as the lad was playing in front of the house, a strange man came by. He interfered with the boy's games and made teasing remarks. The boy spoke up in protest. The stranger, either under the influence of drink or of anger, or of both, whipped out a small sword and stabbed the boy.
Coming to his senses, the murderer rushed into the nearest house, ran upstairs, and begged the lady he met there to hide him. The sight of the bloody sword sent shivers through the good woman who, nevertheless, took pity and found him a hiding place.
A few minutes later her boy's body was carried in. You can imagine that poor mother's feelings as she hung grief-stricken over her dead child, knowing that his murderer was in the same house. Grief and revenge and forgiveness fought for the first place in her agonized heart. At last the will of God won.
As the police pounded at her door, she went to meet them with these calm words: "I give you permission to search my house. Look for yourselves. See if you can find him."
But the police could not find the criminal, so well had she hidden him in her home. As darkness came, the heroic Christian mother brought food and drink to the killer and told him how to escape. Her parting words to him were these: "May God forgive you the same as I do."
Surely God would forgive that saintly woman herself, because she had fulfilled in an heroic way the first condition of forgiveness, namely, forgiving others.
The other condition is that we confess our sins to God's duly authorized ambassador, the priest. Oh, there are those who cannot and will not understand how Christ forgives sinners today, just as there were some who could not and would not understand how Christ forgave sinners when He walked this earth. Our Lord even had to work a miracle by healing the body of the paralytic, in order to prove His power to heal the man's soul of sin.
Is it reasonable to say that Christ forgave sins while He dwelt on this earth, but that you and I living nineteen centuries later, could not have our sins forgiven in a certain, definite and unquestionable way?
WE WANT FORGIVENESS
There are thousands of people who have ghosts of sins haunting their hearts. They would give anything, even life itself, to have those sins washed away. Often they have confessed to themselves in the privacy of their homes and hearts, but they want to tell it to someone else, yet be as if it were not told. They want to hear definite, official word of forgiveness. They want to talk to some soul physician who will understand, who will guide and correct and direct their wayward wills. They want to hear, as Mary Magdalene heard, the words that take away their sins: Thy sins are forgiven.
DYING NON-CATHOLIC
This story illustrates this desire for forgiveness. A non-Catholic, a very conscientious fellow, was near death. He sent for his minister to whom he confessed his sins in a general way. When the minister declared: "All-right, God has forgiven your sins," the sick man was not satisfied.
"I want you to forgive my sins," he told the minister, "for we read in the Bible, 'whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them.'"
The minister explained that he had not the power. The sick man called for a Catholic priest and asked him whether he had the power to forgive sins.
"Why, yes," the priest replied, "Christ gave it to me."
The man begged to be received into the Church. He made an act of perfect contrition, received absolution and a few days later died in perfect peace.
Like that dying man everyone of us wants to be sure that his sins are forgiven. We have that certainty in the Catholic confessional. There are certain conditions:
Who can measure the countless benefits of this God-given sacrament, the peace-bringing, heart-easing, soul-uplifting gift of mercy?
How many souls have been set on the right track; how many families have been kept together; how many stolen dollars have been restored; how many hidden habits of sin have been broken; how many lives have been unburdened of unbearable loads of worry and sin! This - only God can tell. And over it all is the seal of sacred secrecy.
The forgiving Christ lives with us - even today. Amen.
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Adapted from With Christ Through Lent
by Fr. Arthur Tonne, OFM (©1951)
Imagine that we are all invited to a banquet at the home of Simon the Pharisee. Since Jesus will be there, we accept the invitation. As we sit at table with the Master, lo and behold, there enters the room a woman of the streets, a public sinner.
Clasped to her breast is a box of perfume. She is trembling like an autumn leaf. She seems to feel that the eyes of all are upon her. Staring at her beautiful, swaying body as she hesitates near the doorway, wondering what to do. Timidly, like a little girl on her first day at school, this fascinating creature tiptoes toward the table, raising her eyes for only a moment to see where Jesus is.
Espying Him, she rushes forward, sinks to the floor before Him, embraces His sacred feet, and, unable to restrain any longer the tenderness in her heart, she bursts into tears--tears of sorrow for her sins, tears of hope for pardon, tears of sweetness, the sweetness of being near the Lord, tears of gratitude, of a troubled heart finding peace, tears so abundant that they flow like water to wash the feet of the Savior. She wants to speak, to beg His pardon, to thank Him. But her lips tremble so that she cannot pronounce a word. Her tears have to do the talking.
What a picture--infinite Innocence, and infinite misery--Jesus and Mary Magdalene!
When the penitent has cried her eyes out, she knows not how to dry those feet wet with her tears. She sees no towel around, and her own garments she considers unworthy to touch the sacred person of Him. She thinks of her hair, her long beautiful braids, so much admired for their silkiness. She unclasps the fastenings, slips out the pins. The black mass of tresses, like a waterfall, tumbles over her face, hiding her flushed cheeks and her swimming eyes. With the flowing curls she slowly, tenderly dries the feet of her new-found Lord and Master, as tenderly as a young mother washes her first infant for the first time.
Then, opening the box of ointment, she pours its precious fluid over Christ's freshly washed feet. The odor of the ointment filled the house. Though finished with her task, Magdalene still feels unworthy to lift her head. Meanwhile the host says to himself, not aloud, but to himself:
"This man, were he a prophet, would surely know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner." St. Luke, 7:39.THY SINS ARE FORGIVEN
And He who can read hearts, read the heart of His host, and in answer told of a money-lender who had two debtors, one of whom owed a large amount of money, and the other a much smaller amount. The money-lender cancelled both debts. Jesus asked:
"Which of them therefore, will love him more?"Finally, turning to Mary Magdalene, stooping down to her, He speaks the sweetest words ever heard. Oh, we can see our Lord, we can even hear Him as He says:
"He, I suppose, to whom he forgave more," Simon answered.
"Thou hast answered rightly," declared Christ. And then, pointing to the woman at His feet, Jesus speaks:
"Her sins, many as they are, shall be forgiven her, because she has loved much." St. Luke, 6:47.
"Thy sins are forgiven."WHAT JOY
What joy in the heart of Magdalene! What peace, what delight, what rest in a soul restored to the friendship of God! Her sins are forgiven, washed away forever. Again her heart is pure and clean and happy. For all this peace, this inexpressible happiness, she must thank the God-man, the loving, forgiving Master, Jesus Christ, He who had come from heaven to bring forgiveness, to win forgiveness for all.
JESUS OFTEN FORGAVE SINS
While Jesus walked this earth He often forgave sins. Not only to Mary Magdalene did He say, "Thy sins are forgiven," but to the woman taken in adultery, and to the man sick of the palsy. Despite the objections and criticisms of the Jews, Jesus forgave sins. We call our Lord "The forgiving Christ."
That same power of forgiving sins Christ gave to His apostles and to their successors, the bishops and priests of the Catholic Church, in the words:
"Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them." St. John, 20:21.TWO CONDITIONS
The sinner must do his part. Christ laid down two conditions for forgiveness. We cannot be forgiven unless, first, we are sorry and confess our sins to a priest, and secondly, unless we forgive others. The necessity of telling our sins to the priest in confession is seen from the fact that he cannot forgive some sins and not forgive others, unless he knows what those sins are. Forgiveness of others Christ always demanded.
CHRIST FORGAVE INJURIES
Truly new and difficult was this command of Christ: "Forgive. . . Forgive. . . Forgive." Yes, even seventy times seven times a day. Until Christ's day men were taught to hate their enemies, to render black eye for black eye, broken tooth for broken tooth. Christ commanded us to put away all hatred, all revenge, all grudges, all resentment, all bitterness. He insisted that we do good to our enemies, that we pray for those who persecute us, that we forgive those who injure us. Just because forgiveness is so difficult and at the same time so necessary, Christ preached it so often, even with His dying breath:
"Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." St. Luke, 6:37.OUR FATHER
Nowhere is His command more clear than in the Our Father, when we pray: "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."
How often we say that prayer? Each time we ask God to forgive us as we forgive others. If we really prayed those words our conduct would be more like that of Christ. Like Him, we would always forgive. Remember, we are passing sentence on ourselves with those words. We ask God to forgive our offenses just as we forgive offenses against us. As our Lord once declared:
"For if you forgive their offenses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you your offenses. But if you do not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive your offenses." St. Matthew, 6:14.We make the conditions. Down deep in our hearts we all realize that to forgive is the more reasonable, the more Christ-like course to take. Everybody hates an unforgiving person; one cannot help liking the person who is ever willing to pardon. To err is human; to forgive, divine. Even the pagans realized this.
CAESAR FORGIVES
Many years before Christ's birth a certain Roman named Marcellus had offended the emperor Caesar, Caesar, the ruler of all the world. The offender was brought before the offended emperor. A famous Roman lawyer, Cicero, pleaded with Caesar:
"August Emperor, thy conquests are many and great, but if you forgive Marcellus you have gained your greatest conquest, a victory more honorable, more praiseworthy than all your success in battle. Why? Because to forgive Marcellus would be a victory all your own; it is a most difficult conquest too; it would excite more admiration and gratitude among the Romans than your triumphs on the field of battle."Thus spoke a pagan to a pagan. Need I tell you that Caesar forgave Marcellus? Will we let a pagan put us to shame? Will we let a heathen who never heard of Christ be more Christ-like than ourselves who claim to be followers of the forgiving Christ?
CHRIST'S COMMAND AND EXAMPLE
Though forgiveness was not unknown before Christ, it was our Lord who gave us the strict command and the best example of forgiveness. Remembering that Jesus was God as well as man, take a glance at the insults He received. His enemies whipped Him; they spat on Him; they struck Him in the face; they nailed Him to a cross.
As God, our Savior could have destroyed His tormentors on the spot. Instead He cried out:
"Father, forgive them."That cry still rings in the heart of the true Christian. It rises in the heart, quivers on the tongue, it bursts from the lips of every worthy follower of Jesus. Be a real Christian. Learn to pray: "Father, forgive them."
MANY FOLLOWED CHRIST
We have many stirring stories of Christians who learned from Christ to forgive. There was a valiant knight, Hildebrand, who was seriously insulted by one of his companions, Bruno. Hildebrand swore revenge. After weeks of planning he decided to get his revenge on a certain night. He took several guns and started for a lonely spot where he knew Bruno would pass. On the way he passed a chapel. Hildebrand noticed the door was open. He entered to await the time for his victim's arrival. He whiled away the time by looking at paintings. Three pictures caught his attention.
The first showed our Lord clothed with the scarlet cloak and crowned with thorns. Beneath were the words: "He returned not insult for insult."
The second picture represented our Lord tied to the pillar and wincing under the whips of His tormentors. Below he read the words: "When He suffered thus He threatened not."
The third scene was of our Lord on the cross, dying in agony. It bore this inscription: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
The knight was struck to the heart. He sank to his knees and prayed. Gradually his hatred disappeared. He waited for his enemy, not to kill, but to extend the hand of forgiveness.
During Lent we also look at pictures of our suffering Savior, especially in the way of the cross. Every time we stop at a station and behold the agonies of Christ, we must be determined to live worthy of our forgiving Lord.
FALSE FORGIVENESS
Two Irishmen, neighbors, had a lifelong quarrel. One of them took seriously sick. His wife called the priest and explained to him: "Father, Pat has been fighting with Mike Murphy for years. Pat's going to die. Can't you patch up their quarrel?"
After more persuasion the priest induced the dying Pat to call in Mike for a reconciliation. In a few minutes Mike was at the bedside. He suggested: "Let's make up, Pat. Let bygones be bygones."
Pat agreed, rather reluctantly. Mike prepared to leave. As he approached the door, Pat raised himself on one elbow in bed, and, shaking his other fist at Murphy, he shouted: "Remember, Mike, this counts only in case I die."
Too often that is the way we forgive - only in case we die. Well we know that we will never be forgiven unless we forgive. But our forgiveness is often false and insincere.
STREET OF LOVE
By way of contrast we take you to the Street of Love in Bologna, Italy. It received its name years ago from an incident in which the forgiving love of Christ triumphed over a mother's grief at the loss of a child.
There lived on this street a widow woman and her only child, a healthy, happy boy who was the joy of her life. One afternoon as the lad was playing in front of the house, a strange man came by. He interfered with the boy's games and made teasing remarks. The boy spoke up in protest. The stranger, either under the influence of drink or of anger, or of both, whipped out a small sword and stabbed the boy.
Coming to his senses, the murderer rushed into the nearest house, ran upstairs, and begged the lady he met there to hide him. The sight of the bloody sword sent shivers through the good woman who, nevertheless, took pity and found him a hiding place.
A few minutes later her boy's body was carried in. You can imagine that poor mother's feelings as she hung grief-stricken over her dead child, knowing that his murderer was in the same house. Grief and revenge and forgiveness fought for the first place in her agonized heart. At last the will of God won.
As the police pounded at her door, she went to meet them with these calm words: "I give you permission to search my house. Look for yourselves. See if you can find him."
But the police could not find the criminal, so well had she hidden him in her home. As darkness came, the heroic Christian mother brought food and drink to the killer and told him how to escape. Her parting words to him were these: "May God forgive you the same as I do."
Surely God would forgive that saintly woman herself, because she had fulfilled in an heroic way the first condition of forgiveness, namely, forgiving others.
The other condition is that we confess our sins to God's duly authorized ambassador, the priest. Oh, there are those who cannot and will not understand how Christ forgives sinners today, just as there were some who could not and would not understand how Christ forgave sinners when He walked this earth. Our Lord even had to work a miracle by healing the body of the paralytic, in order to prove His power to heal the man's soul of sin.
Is it reasonable to say that Christ forgave sins while He dwelt on this earth, but that you and I living nineteen centuries later, could not have our sins forgiven in a certain, definite and unquestionable way?
WE WANT FORGIVENESS
There are thousands of people who have ghosts of sins haunting their hearts. They would give anything, even life itself, to have those sins washed away. Often they have confessed to themselves in the privacy of their homes and hearts, but they want to tell it to someone else, yet be as if it were not told. They want to hear definite, official word of forgiveness. They want to talk to some soul physician who will understand, who will guide and correct and direct their wayward wills. They want to hear, as Mary Magdalene heard, the words that take away their sins: Thy sins are forgiven.
DYING NON-CATHOLIC
This story illustrates this desire for forgiveness. A non-Catholic, a very conscientious fellow, was near death. He sent for his minister to whom he confessed his sins in a general way. When the minister declared: "All-right, God has forgiven your sins," the sick man was not satisfied.
"I want you to forgive my sins," he told the minister, "for we read in the Bible, 'whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them.'"
The minister explained that he had not the power. The sick man called for a Catholic priest and asked him whether he had the power to forgive sins.
"Why, yes," the priest replied, "Christ gave it to me."
The man begged to be received into the Church. He made an act of perfect contrition, received absolution and a few days later died in perfect peace.
Like that dying man everyone of us wants to be sure that his sins are forgiven. We have that certainty in the Catholic confessional. There are certain conditions:
1. We must examine our conscience or think of our sins.Christ is present in every tabernacle of the Catholic Church. But in another sense Christ is present in every confessional of the Catholic Church. In the person of the priest Christ is present there in that little house of mercy. There Christ listens to you as He listened to Mary Magdalene. There Christ's heart goes out to you as it went to Mary Magdalene. There Christ's words of forgiveness are spoken again to a sinner of today. There the peace and joy and calm that Magdalene received, you also receive.
2. We must tell God that we are sorry. That is absolutely necessary for a good confession. You must be sorry.
3. We must make up our minds that we will try to do better. This firm purpose of amendment is also essential to a good confession.
4. We must tell our sins to a priest. Mortal sins we must tell - their kind and their number. We may also confess our venial sins.
5. We must perform the penance assigned by the priest. These five conditions we might remember by putting them on the five fingers of one hand. With that hand we reach out for the forgiving hand of God.
Who can measure the countless benefits of this God-given sacrament, the peace-bringing, heart-easing, soul-uplifting gift of mercy?
How many souls have been set on the right track; how many families have been kept together; how many stolen dollars have been restored; how many hidden habits of sin have been broken; how many lives have been unburdened of unbearable loads of worry and sin! This - only God can tell. And over it all is the seal of sacred secrecy.
The forgiving Christ lives with us - even today. Amen.
__________________
Adapted from With Christ Through Lent
by Fr. Arthur Tonne, OFM (©1951)
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Catholicism Tarred by Christian Film...
And this, coming on the heels of "The Golden Compass"...
On December 7, Gener8Xion Entertainment, a prominent Protestant film company, will release “Noëlle.” Catholic League president Bill Donohue disputes the claim that the movie is merely “a parable of forgiveness and grace”:
“We’ve seen the movie and it’s a gem. In the synopsis provided by Gener8Xion, it accurately describes Jonathan Keene as ‘a young Catholic priest seemingly devoid of genuine human emotion’; his job is ‘to do what he does best: shut down a failing parish.’ Then there is ‘the child-like Fr. Simeon Joyce, a faithful but disillusioned priest who blatantly disregards church regulations, uses church monies to pay an old fisherman’s medical bills and spends most of his time drinking at the local pub.’ Both priests are portrayed as losers....
“Throughout the film, confession is trivialized, celibacy is ridiculed, the Virgin Mary is disrespected, nuns are belittled, last rites are mocked, and priestly vocations are caricatured. In short, that which is uniquely Catholic is trashed. However, the plot and the acting are so deliriously absurd that it is impossible for us to get too worked up about this flick....
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Got sin? YouTube, shredders your modern confessional
New ways to confess your sins point to a revival of the ancient religious ritePerhaps with the right direction, some may come to see the benefits of the Sacrament of Penance...
This February at the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI instructed priests to make confession a top priority. U.S. bishops have begun promoting it in diocesan newspapers, mass mailings and even billboard ads. And in a dramatic turnaround, some Protestant churches are following suit. This summer, the second-largest North American branch of the Lutheran Church passed a resolution supporting the rite, which it had all but ignored for more than 100 years.
To make confession less intimidating, Protestant churches have urged believers to shred their sins in paper shredders or write them on rocks and cast them into a "desert" symbolized by a giant sand pile in the sanctuary. Three Capuchin friars now hear confessions six days a week at a mall in Colorado Springs., Colo...
Some Protestants now air their sins on videos that are shared on YouTube and iTunes or are played to entire congregations...
Confession is no longer strictly a private matter between a sinner, a priest and God. More than 7,700 people have posted their sins on ivescrewedup.com, a confession Web site launched by an evangelical congregation in Cooper City, Fla.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Joint sacramental confession? Dr Ed Peters Explains
Spouses should not attempt joint sacramental confessionRead the rest at http://www.canonlaw.info/2007/08/spouses-should-not-attempt-joint.html
The practice of spouses jointly celebrating the sacrament of confession recently garnered support from Catholic News Service veteran columnist Fr. John Deitzen. Provided that couples "approve and consider it helpful for their marriage", Deitzen holds that spouses may confess their sins in each other's presence and receive absolution. He notes only that each spouse would be bound by the seal of confession in regard to what he or she learned about the other.
I believe, however, that there are formidable canonical and practical objections to joint sacramental confession, and I set them out for consideration.
Monday, August 13, 2007
The Priest at Prayer for August 14, Confession for the Priest
The Fourth Part - Some Means of Perseverence
Confession for the Priest
Second Meditation - Evils Arising from the Priest's Neglect of Confession
I. If there is ever a priest who goes for weeks and months and possibly years without confessing his sins, without purifying his soul from stain in the Blood of the Lamb shed unto the remission of sin, how can this priest hope to escape the indictment of being a man devoid of piety or moral rectitude, of being downright wicked, dishonest, and dissolute?
Having fled from the Sacrament of Penance, how many weeks, how many months would he go through without profaning with detestable sacrilege not only as many Sacraments as he administers but the very Body and Blood of the Eternal Word in the Sacrifice of the Mass? How long could he hope by his own unaided efforts to remain free of grave sin?
When a priest reaches the stage of venturing with supreme audacity to eat and drink unworthily of Christ's Body and Blood by celebrating Mass sacrilegiously, when a priest tramples on the very Person of Christ, what else is there for him to respect? Christ's commands? Are they of greater value than Christ in Person?
One may gather a priori that such a priest will contemn and walk over with equal audacity as many commandments (and they will be more than one) as come in the way of his unleashed passions; abandoned by God, he will treat God's laws with at least as little respect as he treated the Divine Person, the God of God.
What qualms of conscience will refrain him from brushing aside the laws of justice when it comes to administering or exacting goods that do not belong to him? How lightly he will tear to tatters those bonds wherewith the fear of God and his own solemn priestly promise sought to curb the wild lustings of the flesh!
Once the hope of eternal reward begins to evaporate, or nearly so, due to his habitual state of mortal sin, what depths of crime will he not plunge into?
II. And each time farther and farther away from confession, he will perhaps begin to hate this last remedy like a bad dream; he will turn away indefinitely from all examination of his own interior; he will become estranged to himself, and by dint of refusing to listen to the appeals of his conscience, by sheer deliberate distraction in order to silence its importunate warnings, his conscience - the echo of God's Voice - will gradually lose pitch, will muffle and extinguish its jarring inflexions, and making common cause with the inadvertence and the crass ignorance of an intelligence which allowed years to elapse without revising its distasteful obligations, his conscience will finally drop off to sleep, losing all sensitiveness and delicate awareness in order to sink lower and lower into the most abominable excesses without noticing them and with such a hardness of heart that the most terrible admonitions of Divine Justice will be powerless to soften; and then will be fulfilled in that priest the fearful words of Isaias, transcribed by the four Evangelists:
Would to God such fearful lines were written only in the pages of Sacred Scripture! Would to God they were not engraved indelibly in more than one priestly heart lost beyond recovery and sealed with the death of the sinner! This, in the last resort, is the fate of the priest who fled from Sacramental Confession; this is the history of the impenitence of weeks and months and years issuing with relentless logic into an impenitence final and everlasting.
III. A priest of the type described above, being insensitive to his own sad condition, will show a much greater indifference towards the spiritual evils of his neighbour, even of those souls whom he is bound by duty of justice to lead to salvation. He will obstinately refuse to sit down and hear confessions - he does not go to confession himself; and well may the Church appeal to him and command him in every pitch and key to draw souls to the Sacraments, he just turns a deaf ear: all her admonitions and precepts are dismissed as a piece of play-acting, as narrow-minded fads and pietistic extravagances.
That, O God, that is the reason for those Catholic churches and chapels where the confessional is a mere ornament gathering dust and cob-webs and mouldering away, where the Tabernacle is well-nigh superfluous and the altar-rails remain unused by the parishioners, who take it as the natural thing to go from one year's end to the other without receiving the Bread of Life, except during the period of Easter duties.
And when that day arrives the indolent pastor will condescend, with no little reluctance and hurriedness, to sit down and hear his peoples' confessions with all the rush and fury of a hurricane, and without having gone to the trouble of preparing or instructing them in advance; and once the hurricane of confessions and the tornado of communions have blown over, again the Tabernacle doors are closed and the confessional is relegated to oblivion until the following year, to the great relief and rejoicing of both shepherd and flock. . . .
And God forbid that the only person in the parish who has not fulfilled the Paschal precept be the priest, the confessor himself!
O Jesus, let there not be a single case of this; let this dark picture exist only in the writer's imagination, the outlet of his irrational pessimism and of his ill-founded fears; no, never, never an appalling reality!
Resolutions
1. My first resolution is to confess my sins every week, as so many other people do who are not priests, and to confess as often as I need to in order to celebrate Mass worthily and administer the Sacraments in the state of grace. And this resolution is based on the following convictions: a proper and frequent reception of the Sacrament of Penance is sufficient to preserve a priest within the terms of honourableness and virtue befitting his priestly state, or to recall him if he has fallen away; not a few of the abuses and weaknesses and scandals among the clergy are directly the outcome of their neglecting this efficacious Sacrament; in spite of my inherent frailties, I know that frequent and fervent confession will keep me in the state of grace; my own experience has borne out the experience of others, namely, that nearly every virtue of Christian souls is rooted in them through this Sacrament. Therefore, to keep my resolution of frequent confession I shall crash my way through all difficulties.
2. Out of gratitude for the ineffable benefits God has bestowed and will continue to bestow upon me, in His loving Mercy, through this Divine Sacrament of Penance, I am resolved to hold this ministerial duty of mine in the highest esteem, as being my noblest occupation and the task most profitable to my neighbour; and in spite of fatigue and annoyances that accompany the hearing of confessions I shall devote myself to it with all my heart and as often as I am permitted to do so; in order that God's other children may not be deprived of what I, unworthy sinner, can obtain for myself with such great ease and comfort to my soul.
_________________________
Adapted from The Priest at Prayer
by Fr. Eugenio Escribano, C.M. (© 1954)
Translated by B.T. Buckley, C.M.
###
Please pray for our priests and pray for vocations to the priesthood!
Confession for the Priest
Second Meditation - Evils Arising from the Priest's Neglect of Confession
I. If there is ever a priest who goes for weeks and months and possibly years without confessing his sins, without purifying his soul from stain in the Blood of the Lamb shed unto the remission of sin, how can this priest hope to escape the indictment of being a man devoid of piety or moral rectitude, of being downright wicked, dishonest, and dissolute?
Having fled from the Sacrament of Penance, how many weeks, how many months would he go through without profaning with detestable sacrilege not only as many Sacraments as he administers but the very Body and Blood of the Eternal Word in the Sacrifice of the Mass? How long could he hope by his own unaided efforts to remain free of grave sin?
When a priest reaches the stage of venturing with supreme audacity to eat and drink unworthily of Christ's Body and Blood by celebrating Mass sacrilegiously, when a priest tramples on the very Person of Christ, what else is there for him to respect? Christ's commands? Are they of greater value than Christ in Person?
One may gather a priori that such a priest will contemn and walk over with equal audacity as many commandments (and they will be more than one) as come in the way of his unleashed passions; abandoned by God, he will treat God's laws with at least as little respect as he treated the Divine Person, the God of God.
What qualms of conscience will refrain him from brushing aside the laws of justice when it comes to administering or exacting goods that do not belong to him? How lightly he will tear to tatters those bonds wherewith the fear of God and his own solemn priestly promise sought to curb the wild lustings of the flesh!
Once the hope of eternal reward begins to evaporate, or nearly so, due to his habitual state of mortal sin, what depths of crime will he not plunge into?
II. And each time farther and farther away from confession, he will perhaps begin to hate this last remedy like a bad dream; he will turn away indefinitely from all examination of his own interior; he will become estranged to himself, and by dint of refusing to listen to the appeals of his conscience, by sheer deliberate distraction in order to silence its importunate warnings, his conscience - the echo of God's Voice - will gradually lose pitch, will muffle and extinguish its jarring inflexions, and making common cause with the inadvertence and the crass ignorance of an intelligence which allowed years to elapse without revising its distasteful obligations, his conscience will finally drop off to sleep, losing all sensitiveness and delicate awareness in order to sink lower and lower into the most abominable excesses without noticing them and with such a hardness of heart that the most terrible admonitions of Divine Justice will be powerless to soften; and then will be fulfilled in that priest the fearful words of Isaias, transcribed by the four Evangelists:
"Go then. . . and give a message to this people of mine: Listen as you will, but ever without understanding: watch all, and nothing perceive!This is the foreshadowing of the just judgements of God against those who have spent their life's energies fighting and resisting the Holy Spirit.
"Thy office is to dull the hearts of this people of mine, deaden their ears, dazzle their eyes, so that they cannot see with those eyes, hear with those ears, understand with that heart, and turn back to me, and win healing." (Is. vi, 9-10.)
Would to God such fearful lines were written only in the pages of Sacred Scripture! Would to God they were not engraved indelibly in more than one priestly heart lost beyond recovery and sealed with the death of the sinner! This, in the last resort, is the fate of the priest who fled from Sacramental Confession; this is the history of the impenitence of weeks and months and years issuing with relentless logic into an impenitence final and everlasting.
III. A priest of the type described above, being insensitive to his own sad condition, will show a much greater indifference towards the spiritual evils of his neighbour, even of those souls whom he is bound by duty of justice to lead to salvation. He will obstinately refuse to sit down and hear confessions - he does not go to confession himself; and well may the Church appeal to him and command him in every pitch and key to draw souls to the Sacraments, he just turns a deaf ear: all her admonitions and precepts are dismissed as a piece of play-acting, as narrow-minded fads and pietistic extravagances.
That, O God, that is the reason for those Catholic churches and chapels where the confessional is a mere ornament gathering dust and cob-webs and mouldering away, where the Tabernacle is well-nigh superfluous and the altar-rails remain unused by the parishioners, who take it as the natural thing to go from one year's end to the other without receiving the Bread of Life, except during the period of Easter duties.
And when that day arrives the indolent pastor will condescend, with no little reluctance and hurriedness, to sit down and hear his peoples' confessions with all the rush and fury of a hurricane, and without having gone to the trouble of preparing or instructing them in advance; and once the hurricane of confessions and the tornado of communions have blown over, again the Tabernacle doors are closed and the confessional is relegated to oblivion until the following year, to the great relief and rejoicing of both shepherd and flock. . . .
And God forbid that the only person in the parish who has not fulfilled the Paschal precept be the priest, the confessor himself!
O Jesus, let there not be a single case of this; let this dark picture exist only in the writer's imagination, the outlet of his irrational pessimism and of his ill-founded fears; no, never, never an appalling reality!
Resolutions
1. My first resolution is to confess my sins every week, as so many other people do who are not priests, and to confess as often as I need to in order to celebrate Mass worthily and administer the Sacraments in the state of grace. And this resolution is based on the following convictions: a proper and frequent reception of the Sacrament of Penance is sufficient to preserve a priest within the terms of honourableness and virtue befitting his priestly state, or to recall him if he has fallen away; not a few of the abuses and weaknesses and scandals among the clergy are directly the outcome of their neglecting this efficacious Sacrament; in spite of my inherent frailties, I know that frequent and fervent confession will keep me in the state of grace; my own experience has borne out the experience of others, namely, that nearly every virtue of Christian souls is rooted in them through this Sacrament. Therefore, to keep my resolution of frequent confession I shall crash my way through all difficulties.
2. Out of gratitude for the ineffable benefits God has bestowed and will continue to bestow upon me, in His loving Mercy, through this Divine Sacrament of Penance, I am resolved to hold this ministerial duty of mine in the highest esteem, as being my noblest occupation and the task most profitable to my neighbour; and in spite of fatigue and annoyances that accompany the hearing of confessions I shall devote myself to it with all my heart and as often as I am permitted to do so; in order that God's other children may not be deprived of what I, unworthy sinner, can obtain for myself with such great ease and comfort to my soul.
_________________________
Adapted from The Priest at Prayer
by Fr. Eugenio Escribano, C.M. (© 1954)
Translated by B.T. Buckley, C.M.
###
Please pray for our priests and pray for vocations to the priesthood!
Sunday, August 12, 2007
The Priest at Prayer for August 13, Confession for the Priest
The Fourth Part - Some Means of Perseverence
Confession for the Priest
First Meditation - The Need of Frequent Confession
I. All praise to Thee, dear Lord, Author of the Sacraments, for having bestowed on me, Thy most unworthy servant, so many graces and favours through the Sacrament of Penance!
Ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis. How sweet and tender Thy words of pardon ring in my ears: pardon for my hideous sins, a pardon so often and so abundantly flowing from Thy divine lips!
Thanks to this pardon I can face my own conscience without nightmarish fears, without a sense of unbearable loathing for the blackness and filth of the vile offences I have committed against Thee, and without having my heart torn to shreds by the thorns of remorse.
Thanks to this Sacrament, I have learned to know myself a little, having been constrained to probe so frequently into the tortuous, obscure, labyrinthine ways of my own mind; and thus I have succeeded in determining the substance, shape, and form of my duties in life. Sacramental confession has become for me the chief spur goading me along the path of virtue without deviating to the right or left; it has been, humanly speaking, a divine and human bridle, wrought of divine faith and lawful human respect, drawing me back with shame from life's miry swamps, reminding me that I should have to confess the evil which I was about to perpetrate.
Thou well knowest, O God, and I know too, that when in the vertigo of passions carrying me to the edge of the precipice, without this leash I would have thrown myself headlong into the abyss, never perhaps to rise again; this Thou knowest, and I know it, too.
And is it possible, dear Lord, for Christians, let alone Thy priests, to consider this Sacrament of Divine Pity something tyrannical and unworthy of our human
dignity? Could the Goodness of God invent anything more concise, less arduous, more ennobling to the heart of man, and within easier reach of all, whereby man must lift himself up, spontaneously regenerate himself, so to speak, without the application of exterior forces?
Heaven and earth bless the Lord, for He is the Father of all mercies!
II. These two concluding meditations are the most important in the whole book. For if they really convince me and make me determined to show practical devotion to the Sacrament of Penance they will profit me as much as all the other meditations combined.
I have to confess my sins very often. Why say, I have to? I certainly have the right, the supreme privilege, of confessing frequently, every week or more often still; approaching the arms and feet of my heavenly Father, like a poor prodigal. And my Father wishes me to do this, He requires it of me:
And remember your obligation sub gravi to administer the Sacraments in the state of grace, and the admonition given in the Missal under the heading Ritus servandus in celebratione Missae. In a prefatory paragraph it says:
III. There are obstacles in the way of frequent confession, occasionally obstacles that would seem insurmountable: either physical, such as the isolation of your parish, the rough roads and long distances to reach the neighbouring parish, your age and state of health; or moral obstacles, which are no less painful: the lack of a good confessor, a man of virtue and sound common sense, in whom you can have confidence.
There is no denying that such obstacles do exist, and Thou, Lord, who knowest and weighest these obstacles at their true value, art moved to pity for those poor priests who for Thy sake and in order to obey their Prelates deprive themselves of facilities which the laity themselves enjoy in abundant measure, the facilities to receive Thy forgiveness in the sacred Tribunal. Therefore in this, as in many other matters, we might apply the literal interpretation of the psalm as contained in the Vulgate:
Then, for the sake of spiritual healing, Lord, I shall overcome just as great difficulties; because life has taught me that the only treatment which cures or arrests the course of moral disease is the Sacrament of Penance; and if, unfortunately, I do not dispose of a prudent, understanding and virtuous confessor, I shall kneel before any priest, however unworthy and incompetent I may feel him to be. A loving trust in Thee, dear Lord, will enable me to do this. But besides, the efficacy of this spiritual treatment does not depend on the good or bad qualities of the minister of the Sacrament; it is Thou, Lord, who bestowest forgiveness through him.
IV. Will-power is not enough to make me approach the confessor every week or as often as I need him. It is to be feared that my confessions are ineffective through lack of serious preparation. The day I go to confession I shall devote my morning meditation to preparing for it.
Here are the three main points I shall consider:
First: Examination of conscience. I shall delve courageously into my conscience, not sparing its most rugged or boggy patches, asking God for strength and light to arrive at a clear-cut knowledge of the quality, kind, and number of my mortal sins, or, if I have no mortal sins, to discover three or four venial sins which expose me to the greatest dangers.
Second: Contrition. In order to excite myself to sincere sorrow for having offended God my Redeemer, for having repaid Him with so much ingratitude, and transgressed His precepts, I shall dwell upon the most persuasive and impressive motives of faith, and I shall detest my wrong-doing wholeheartedly.
Third: Purpose of amendment. I shall resolve, no matter what the cost, to correct all my seriously sinful lapses, and, if I have only venial sins, at least that which does me the most damage, and to promise their amendment specifically until my next confession.
If only I had taken my shortcomings one by one and combated each one with resoluteness and energy after each confession, how many of them would have been rooted out by now!
Above all and however much trouble it may entail, I shall resolve to cut out the voluntary proximate occasions of sin. If the occasion is not voluntary, if it is inevitable (and I shall not allow myself to be deceived easily on this point), I shall make it a remote occasion. This I shall resolve to do even if it should be as painful to me as cutting off my right hand or foot, or plucking out an eye. And I shall put my resolution into practice as soon as I have got up from confession, if I had not already done so before confession - which would be the best thing to do - or if a prudent confessor does not oblige me to take these measures before returning for absolution.
Dear Lord and God, I really do wish to save my soul, I do want to walk the road to heaven, even if I have to go all alone or eyeless or without hands and feet.
Resolutions
1. As often as I confess my sins I shall do so making an effort to reap all the fruits of the Sacrament, considering my preparation for confession the most serious and profoundest act of my religious and moral life. I can make a good Communion without much reflexion, but I cannot confess properly without a complete renewal of my innermost mind:
Convinced that in the fulfilment of these two resolutions lies the surest sign of my predestination, I trust, O God and Father of the predestined, that Thou wilt not refuse me the strength of will required to carry them out faithfully.
_________________________
Adapted from The Priest at Prayer
by Fr. Eugenio Escribano, C.M. (© 1954)
Translated by B.T. Buckley, C.M.
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Please pray for our priests and pray for vocations to the priesthood!
Confession for the Priest
First Meditation - The Need of Frequent Confession
I. All praise to Thee, dear Lord, Author of the Sacraments, for having bestowed on me, Thy most unworthy servant, so many graces and favours through the Sacrament of Penance!
Ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis. How sweet and tender Thy words of pardon ring in my ears: pardon for my hideous sins, a pardon so often and so abundantly flowing from Thy divine lips!
Thanks to this pardon I can face my own conscience without nightmarish fears, without a sense of unbearable loathing for the blackness and filth of the vile offences I have committed against Thee, and without having my heart torn to shreds by the thorns of remorse.
Thanks to this Sacrament, I have learned to know myself a little, having been constrained to probe so frequently into the tortuous, obscure, labyrinthine ways of my own mind; and thus I have succeeded in determining the substance, shape, and form of my duties in life. Sacramental confession has become for me the chief spur goading me along the path of virtue without deviating to the right or left; it has been, humanly speaking, a divine and human bridle, wrought of divine faith and lawful human respect, drawing me back with shame from life's miry swamps, reminding me that I should have to confess the evil which I was about to perpetrate.
Thou well knowest, O God, and I know too, that when in the vertigo of passions carrying me to the edge of the precipice, without this leash I would have thrown myself headlong into the abyss, never perhaps to rise again; this Thou knowest, and I know it, too.
And is it possible, dear Lord, for Christians, let alone Thy priests, to consider this Sacrament of Divine Pity something tyrannical and unworthy of our human
dignity? Could the Goodness of God invent anything more concise, less arduous, more ennobling to the heart of man, and within easier reach of all, whereby man must lift himself up, spontaneously regenerate himself, so to speak, without the application of exterior forces?
Heaven and earth bless the Lord, for He is the Father of all mercies!
II. These two concluding meditations are the most important in the whole book. For if they really convince me and make me determined to show practical devotion to the Sacrament of Penance they will profit me as much as all the other meditations combined.
I have to confess my sins very often. Why say, I have to? I certainly have the right, the supreme privilege, of confessing frequently, every week or more often still; approaching the arms and feet of my heavenly Father, like a poor prodigal. And my Father wishes me to do this, He requires it of me:
Canon 906: Each and everyone of the faithful of either sex has the obligation, from the time he attains the use of reason, to confess all his sins truthfully at least once a year, that is to say, all his mortal sins which have not yet been properly confessed and directly remitted by absolution.What shame and sorrow for the Church, and what ignominy for the priest, if the latter should even fail to confess his sins once a year! Is it possible to visualise such a terrible case?
Canon 125: The Ordinary must take care that the clergy go frequently to Confession.What does" frequently" mean? Would you call three-monthly or even monthly confession frequent? Any Christian in the world would say no. Confession is frequent when made once a week or at least once a every two weeks.
And remember your obligation sub gravi to administer the Sacraments in the state of grace, and the admonition given in the Missal under the heading Ritus servandus in celebratione Missae. In a prefatory paragraph it says:
"The priest about to say Mass having, if necessary, made his sacramental confession. . ."And Canon Law defines this obligation more explicitly:
Canon 807: The priest who should find himself in mortal sin shall not dare to say Holy Mass without previous sacramental confession, no matter how contrite he may be over his sins.You see? In order not to fall into grievous sin, or in order to rise again after having fallen, you must go to confession frequently, even twice a week or more, if needs be, so as not to sink into the deepest and most terrible profanations.
III. There are obstacles in the way of frequent confession, occasionally obstacles that would seem insurmountable: either physical, such as the isolation of your parish, the rough roads and long distances to reach the neighbouring parish, your age and state of health; or moral obstacles, which are no less painful: the lack of a good confessor, a man of virtue and sound common sense, in whom you can have confidence.
There is no denying that such obstacles do exist, and Thou, Lord, who knowest and weighest these obstacles at their true value, art moved to pity for those poor priests who for Thy sake and in order to obey their Prelates deprive themselves of facilities which the laity themselves enjoy in abundant measure, the facilities to receive Thy forgiveness in the sacred Tribunal. Therefore in this, as in many other matters, we might apply the literal interpretation of the psalm as contained in the Vulgate:
Propter verba labiorum tuorum ego custodivi vias duras. . . .But I must not exaggerate the difficulties and obstacles. If a medical doctor told me to go to him once a week or even more frequently, and promised me a definite cure on condition that I followed his orders, would bad roads or long journeys or any amount of expense and trouble stop me from going to him?
Then, for the sake of spiritual healing, Lord, I shall overcome just as great difficulties; because life has taught me that the only treatment which cures or arrests the course of moral disease is the Sacrament of Penance; and if, unfortunately, I do not dispose of a prudent, understanding and virtuous confessor, I shall kneel before any priest, however unworthy and incompetent I may feel him to be. A loving trust in Thee, dear Lord, will enable me to do this. But besides, the efficacy of this spiritual treatment does not depend on the good or bad qualities of the minister of the Sacrament; it is Thou, Lord, who bestowest forgiveness through him.
IV. Will-power is not enough to make me approach the confessor every week or as often as I need him. It is to be feared that my confessions are ineffective through lack of serious preparation. The day I go to confession I shall devote my morning meditation to preparing for it.
Here are the three main points I shall consider:
First: Examination of conscience. I shall delve courageously into my conscience, not sparing its most rugged or boggy patches, asking God for strength and light to arrive at a clear-cut knowledge of the quality, kind, and number of my mortal sins, or, if I have no mortal sins, to discover three or four venial sins which expose me to the greatest dangers.
Second: Contrition. In order to excite myself to sincere sorrow for having offended God my Redeemer, for having repaid Him with so much ingratitude, and transgressed His precepts, I shall dwell upon the most persuasive and impressive motives of faith, and I shall detest my wrong-doing wholeheartedly.
Third: Purpose of amendment. I shall resolve, no matter what the cost, to correct all my seriously sinful lapses, and, if I have only venial sins, at least that which does me the most damage, and to promise their amendment specifically until my next confession.
If only I had taken my shortcomings one by one and combated each one with resoluteness and energy after each confession, how many of them would have been rooted out by now!
Above all and however much trouble it may entail, I shall resolve to cut out the voluntary proximate occasions of sin. If the occasion is not voluntary, if it is inevitable (and I shall not allow myself to be deceived easily on this point), I shall make it a remote occasion. This I shall resolve to do even if it should be as painful to me as cutting off my right hand or foot, or plucking out an eye. And I shall put my resolution into practice as soon as I have got up from confession, if I had not already done so before confession - which would be the best thing to do - or if a prudent confessor does not oblige me to take these measures before returning for absolution.
Dear Lord and God, I really do wish to save my soul, I do want to walk the road to heaven, even if I have to go all alone or eyeless or without hands and feet.
Resolutions
1. As often as I confess my sins I shall do so making an effort to reap all the fruits of the Sacrament, considering my preparation for confession the most serious and profoundest act of my religious and moral life. I can make a good Communion without much reflexion, but I cannot confess properly without a complete renewal of my innermost mind:
Cor mundum crea in me Deus, et spiritum rectum innova in visceribus meis.2. I shall go to confession invariably once a week or more if the need arises - with a fixed and well chosen confessor, or, if I have no choice, with anyone available. God, Who sees my good will, is pledged to make up for the shortcomings of His minister. All my other acts of piety and self-denial must give place to this great and fundamental act of frequent confession.
Convinced that in the fulfilment of these two resolutions lies the surest sign of my predestination, I trust, O God and Father of the predestined, that Thou wilt not refuse me the strength of will required to carry them out faithfully.
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Adapted from The Priest at Prayer
by Fr. Eugenio Escribano, C.M. (© 1954)
Translated by B.T. Buckley, C.M.
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Please pray for our priests and pray for vocations to the priesthood!
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