Confessing our sins is hard.

Satan doesn’t want us doing it, so he makes us feel uncomfortable. Not with our sins, but with the thought of admitting to them out loud. To a person. He persuades us to postpone our visit to the priest again and again, until finally we’re convinced we don’t need to go at all.

Thus the devil wins.  We lose God’s precious friendship, and if we've committed a mortal sin we put our souls in eternal danger. We ignore His call to come back, no matter how grave the sin we’ve committed. We miss out on His Divine Mercy, which is only available before we die. After that comes judgement.

It takes real courage to fight against the Evil One and step into that confessional. 

The Humility Aspect 
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Our disposition when speaking to God should always be one of total humility, in recognition of His Goodness and our fallen nature, and of Him as Our Creator.

People tell me that they can talk to God directly and don’t need the mediation of a flawed human being. This reasoning allows them to side-step the uncomfortableness of a physical meeting, thereby avoiding the humility that Confession entails.

Is it easier to confess aloud to a living human being or privately to God? It takes a great deal more humility to do so person-to-person than to have a conversation in one’s head. And how often does a person really confess their sins without a nudge from Holy Church to do so?

During Confession, I am talking to God. The priest is acting in persona Christi, like the Apostles, the first priests.  “If you forgive anyone's sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven. (John 20:23).” See also Matthew 16:19 and 18:18.

Many think that Confession gives Catholics a clean slate to sin again. But the opposite is true: the more often we go to Confession, the less likely we are to sin. Confessing to a priest takes great humility, and that humbling experience is a very strong deterrent against sinning in the first place.
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You can’t say that of those who don’t frequent the confessional.

You’re not that Special 
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Proud beings that we are, we worry about scandalizing the priests with our sins and are afraid they’ll look at us differently once we’ve confessed them. But our sins are not original: the priest has heard them all before. None of us is that special.

And, as an appointed minister of Christ, the priest’s job is not to keep a running tab on our misbehavior. He forgets it as soon as confession is over, just as Christ does (remember, the priest is in persona Christi).

Although each of us is important in God’s eyes, we need to remember that we are also part of God’s plan for salvation and fulfill our role by following His Will not ours.
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But God is not looking to crush our freedom and make us feel bad. What He wants is for us to live the fullest life possible. This means ridding ourselves of our sins, and Confession is the sacrament He gave us for doing it.

​The Amazing Takeaway 
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There is a deep peace that comes from admitting one’s imperfections to Someone higher than us, Who understands us better than we understand ourselves.

Christ said of the woman who anointed His feet: “Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven--as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little" (Luke 7:47).

The worse our sins are and the more we appreciate our unworthiness before God, the greater will be our love for Him because of His incredible forgiveness. Some of the greatest saints started out as the greatest sinners. God’s Mercy is unfathomable, but it is there for all of us, if we reach out to Him with repentance in Confession.

It is impossible to describe the sheer joy of receiving absolution in the confessional. I feel an overwhelming sense of Christ’s love when I come away from my encounter with Him. I am once more in friendship with Him and often cry from the sheer happiness of it. Many of my friends have the same reaction. As a forgiven person, I want to try my best not to sin anymore and ‘to avoid the near occasions of sin.’

The worst feeling in the world for me - as a Catholic who was away from the Church for over twenty years - is to lose my sense of being in friendship with Christ. If I sin grievously, I instantly lose that precious gift and need to repair it as fast as I can. Thankfully my local church takes confession before every weekday Mass, and I am able to quickly restore my relationship with God and receive the Eucharist.


As Father Phil Bloom writes in his great article on Confession:
“Some people have considered confession to be a kind of "psychiatry for the masses." Carl Jung … speculated that the confession of sins accomplishes much of what psychiatry does. …..(But) the sacrament of penance is not about feeling better, it is about receiving the Holy Spirit.”

And only the promptings of Holy Spirit give us the courage to go through with it.

Further Reading:
 
What Is the Sacrament of Confession?
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Confession of Sins

His Current Protocol
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Many of you will want to know what my 26-year-old son is doing to maintain his current level of health. With the important caveat that this may not work for everyone, I outline his typical day below.

He is working crazy hours as a CPA with a big firm in Chicago, so his daily routine is pretty grueling. During the week he aims to get to bed between 8 and 9 p.m.

He wakes up between 4 – 4:30 a.m., goes to the bathroom (he’s sleeping through the night without needing to get up – hurray!) then returns to bed and rests his laptop on a pad on his knees and writes in his journal for 30 minutes.

Then he takes his dog for a 20 – 30-minute walk and feeds her when they get back. She (and our dogs, too) are on a raw food diet.
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For ‘breakfast’ he takes a teaspoonful of CBD (hemp) oil and two teaspoons of MCT oil, followed by a highly absorbable Turmeric/Curcumin Supplement with Boswellia Extract.

In October my son went for a week to Rhode Island to attend a seminar for dog trainers.

But he learned much more than how to educate a dog or grow a canine business. He came back with a long list of really good books to read - none of which had anything to do with dogs, but everything to do with self-improvement.
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Thanks to that seminar the Kindle app on my phone is now rapidly filling up with great books!
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I am already re-reading ‘The Slight Edge’ by Jeff Olson. 

Habits of Thought & Attitude 

The book is about changing one’s life for the better by means of slight daily improvements.

He discusses how habits of thought and attitude can either ‘uphold and support you’ or ‘imprison and restrain you.’ It’s important to be aware of those that don’t serve us and either change or get rid of them.

Replacing a bad habit with one that empowers and serves us is a great way to do this and one way to achieve this is to have a positive outlook. People with a positive attitude move towards their goals instead of away from them.

​Daily Appreciation 

Cultivate the habit of gratitude. Mr. Olson says that positive psychologists note how consistently happier people share this trait. He suggests writing down three things to be grateful for upon waking every day – three different things.

We tend to take good things for granted and zero in on those that aren’t so wonderful. But by doing that we give too much power to the negative and derive no benefits from the positive.

By switching our focus to the goodness in life we can totally change our outlook.

For me, this means looking for God’s grace every day. Since I’ve started to do that, I’ve been amazed to find out how much He’s looking out for me.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve suddenly caught myself driving too fast and have taken my foot off the gas, only to find that there’s a cop car waiting up ahead. Thank you, God, for giving me the chance to do the right thing!

The other day I went to the dermatologist and my face was basted with a special cream. This was for the light treatment I needed for pre-cancer cells. A piece of Saran wrap was placed over my nose, with another on my forehead.

I had to wait 90 minutes like this before the actual light treatment and didn’t want to sit in the waiting room that long. So I drove across to Panera and bought myself a coffee. As I was walking to a table, I knocked my cup against my purse and the container fell onto the floor. The lid came off and the contents spilled all over the carpet.

Not only had I lost my entire drink, but had also drawn attention to my Saran-wrapped face. It was most definitely a negative moment!

Then a lady jumped up from her table to help me mop up the mess, telling me that she’s a waitress and a klutz and always dropping things on the floor. Whether that was true or not, I so appreciated her empathy!

When I got to the front of the line again to order a new coffee, the lady looked surprised. I told her what had happened and she immediately asked the barista to remake my drink - and charged me nothing. The barista worried that she hadn’t put the lid on my coffee properly, but I assured her the whole episode was entirely my fault.

Thus, on the heels of huge embarrassment came three spontaneous acts of kindness.

Which was going to serve me best? Dwelling on the positive or the negative?
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If we look for it, we’ll find that goodness abounds everywhere.

Christmas Thanks 

One year ago my son was in a full-blown flare with ulcerative colitis. He had dropped 40 lbs and was unable to walk without the aid of canes because, as a secondary complication, he had also developed bursitis on his knees. He looked skeletal, was getting no sleep, was in constant pain and enduring all the other horrible issues of someone in his condition.

He made it through this Thanksgiving without a flare (YAY!) and we are looking forward to his first healthy Christmas in three years.

Yes, there is a lot to be thankful for.

I hope you find many reasons to be grateful this Christmas and that the New Year brings you ever more blessings.

I am currently reading the Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska. It is the fascinating and intensely holy journey of the Polish nun whom Christ commissioned with the task of spreading devotion to His Divine Mercy.

She records the words spoken to her by Jesus, in which He reveals an unfathomable love for mankind.

Jesus’ Frustration

He also tells her of how deeply saddened He is when we don’t come to Him with pure, childlike trust.

“This distrust of My goodness hurts me very much. If My death has not convinced you of My love, what will?....There are souls who despise My graces as well as all the proofs of My love. They do not wish to hear My call, but proceed into the abyss of hell. The loss of these souls plunges Me into deadly sorrow… I cannot help such a soul because it scorns Me; having a free will, it can spurn Me or love Me.” (580) (My italics)

Last Friday we commemorated the death of Christ, following the horrible scourging with lead-tipped whips and being forced to carry the heavy wooden cross before having His hands and feet nailed to it.

He did all that to prove how much He loves each one of us – regardless of our past. 

In doing so He conquered death and Satan, and urgently wants us to ask for His mercy and forgiveness, so that we can be with Him in Heaven when our life here on earth is over.

It doesn't take a genius to understand Christ’s frustration when we still refuse to believe in Him, despite everything He’s done for us!

Our Free Choice to Descend Into Hell 

Modern man has decided that he’s too smart for God and is happier without Him. 

All around us is clear evidence that this is not so. Yet we’re such ‘a stiff-necked people’ that we persist in our self-delusion. Do we really prefer our culture of death, the direct result of scorning God’s Ten Commandments? Do we really believe that we live in a better world now? Do you believe that?

As has already been noted, God is such a gentleman that when we say we don’t want Him, He leaves. And then we complain about the state of the world and wonder ‘how God can let it happen.’

Don’t we understand that we let it happen? We’re only getting what we asked for! And so we ‘do not wish to hear (His) call, but proceed into the abyss of hell.’

It’s our choice and an exercise of our free will. (Which, by the way, we wouldn’t have if God hadn’t given it to us….)

Sin & Satan: Myth or Reality?

We have to turn our backs on the secular culture that tells us there is no such thing as sin. The world and its very real prince, Satan, is having a wonderful time right now.

Satan knows that if we acknowledge sin, we’ll stop wasting our money on frivolous things and give more to the poor and needy. We'll spend less time watching television and more on praying and going to church. We’ll then be in real danger of getting out of his grasp and go to Heaven.

He hates us, and wants us to forget about God and sin.

Deep down we know that sin is real, even though we try to ignore it. Everyone one of us understands that murder is a sin, lying is a sin, theft, envy, etc.

All the things the Ten Commandments tell us not to do we are innately aware are wrong. God put that moral code into our hearts. But we don’t want to do the right thing because it ‘impinges on our freedom.’

As I mentioned earlier, where has that version of ‘freedom’ got us?

Those who have been through wars remind us that freedom doesn’t come for free. How much truer that is with God! We have to battle to keep our freedom.

Complete Forgiveness

Divine Mercy Sunday is this weekend.

‘No soul will be justified until it turns with confidence to My mercy, and this is why the first Sunday after Easter is to be the Feast of Mercy. On that day, priests are to tell everyone about My great and unfathomable mercy.’ (570)

Jesus is hurt that we don't understand how true freedom is a release from our sins. He reassures us that absolutely no one has reason to shrink from going to Confession. ‘Let no soul fear to draw near to Me, even though its sins be as scarlet.’ (699)

Christ rejoices when those who have been away from the Sacraments come back to the Church. His parable of the Prodigal Son wasn’t simply a moving story: He told it so that we could understand God's joy when one of His lost sheep comes back to the fold.

For non-Catholics, it is also a call to ask for forgiveness as well as an opportunity to see the many ways the Catholic Church can help its members draw closer to God and to Heaven.

‘I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and shelter for all souls, and especially for poor sinners. On that day the very depths of My tender mercy are open. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the fount of My mercy. The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion shall obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment… Mankind will not have peace until it returns to the fount of My mercy.’ (699)



Jesus' call for our repentance is just as valid today as it was when Noah was told to build the Ark, when Jonah was sent to save Nineveh, when John the Baptist preached in the desert or Peter converted over 3,000 people at Pentecost.

This Sunday,let’s take advantage of God’s fathomless ability to forgive.

God has a wonderful gift for us this Lent.

Sadly many of us will refuse to open it, and eye it instead with suspicion. But God affords us the opportunity to learn about His gift before accepting it. 

And then we have two choices:

a)      accept God and be happy - forever
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b)      reject God and live in misery - forever.

Doesn’t it make sense to check that gift out?

What Is This Gift? 

Even if you don’t make to the end of this post, go to http://fathersloveletter.com/ and watch the video. Its message is uncomplicated and beautiful. 

And it describes the Gift.

You will meet a God who desires to lavish His love on you. A God Who is your Father, and wants you to know that you were not created in error or by accident. You were created by Him on purpose and for a purpose. You are His child - if you accept Him as your Father.

Abba, Daddy

If you have, or are around children, you’ll understand how wonderful it is when they reciprocate your love.

But how do you feel when they turn their backs on you, because you’re ‘old-fashioned’ and ‘don’t know anything’? 

It’s tough, isn’t it, to watch rebellious children head for disaster because 'they know best’? As youngsters we may have been down that road ourselves, and know from experience that it leads to destruction.

If only our children would heed us, and stay on the right path, how much better their lives would be!

God feels the same way when we insist He is ‘old-fashioned,’ ‘doesn’t understand us’ and is therefore 'irrelevant' to the 21st Century.

But when we turn from our godless ways, come back to Him and follow His commandments, God rejoices that we have chosen His gift. Confession is a wonderful way to start accepting His gift this Lent.

(Aren't we thrilled when our children abandon their reckless ways and apologize to us?)

Just as loving offspring heed their parents because they don’t want to hurt them, we as children of God obey Him because we don’t want to upset Him. We want to be His ‘special treasure:’

“Now if you will obey me and keep my covenant, you will be my own special treasure from among all the peoples on earth; for all the earth belongs to me.” (Exodus 19:5). (My italics.)

Whatever We Ask...

Note the 'if you will obey me' above. God needs our co-operation in order to shower us with His blessings.

When children are disobedient, destructive, anti-social and selfish, do we encourage this behavior by granting them their every wish?

Of course not!

In the same way, God will not reward bad-living by granting sinful wishes.


To obtain His help, we first need to repent of hurting Him, work on changing our bad habits and destroy unhealthy attachments. This will lead to our wanting the right things.

Then:  “…. whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight” (1 John 3:22). (My italics.)


Through His commandments and Holy Scripture, together with the Sacraments and teachings of the Church, God Our Father offers us a step-by-step guide for right living, so we can be with Him in heaven.

He even sent His Only Son to set us the example of right living!

God waits for us with love and longing. Will we use His guide this Lent and let Him lead us, His children, to our redemption through His Son this Easter?

Further reading: 

If you still need convincing to become a child of God now, here is a powerful and sobering testimony!

http://www.markmallett.com/blog/the-seven-seals-of-revolution/#more-4958  

Isn’t ‘pondering’ a great word? Its synonyms include: contemplate, reflect, meditate and cogitate on. You can just imagine Mary by her newborn baby, looking at him adoringly and pondering in her heart on the huge significance of this first Christmas.

Such was my inner response to the unexpected blessings this Christmas brought.

‘Twas an Unfamiliar Christmas Eve  

Florida is where my family spent Christmas this year. I was unhappy to leave my beautifully decorated Maryland home, but it was the right thing to do.

My mother is in assisted living - in Sarasota, where my husband hopes to retire soon. She cannot travel to visit us anymore, having lost the use of her left side in a stroke and being wheelchair bound.  We had to fly out and visit her, because we're her only family in the States - everyone else lives in England. 

It upset me that the closest thing to midnight Mass locally was at 10:30 p.m. Back home we have a true 12 o’clock Mass, but I reckon the older generation couldn’t stay up that late!

Offer up your sadness, I told myself. I expect Mary was a tad dismayed when she saw where her baby was supposed to sleep! And I bet she didn’t give St. Joseph a hard time about it, either. She will have smiled through her disappointment and focused on the positive. 

When Christmas Eve dinner was over I reminded the family that I was going to ‘midnight’ Mass in half an hour.

My twenty-one year old son smiled. “Mum, I’ll come with you. It’s a tradition and it won’t feel like Christmas if I don’t.”

You can imagine how overjoyed I was to hear those words! Not wanting to set myself up for misery, I’d not even secretly hoped he would come. 

Although this would have been the first year without his company, I’d been careful not to bring it up. He is no longer a regular church goer, which I pray will change. But he's too old to have his mother tell him what to think and do.

He pulled out the ironing board, and pressed a clean shirt to wear to greet Our Lord at His birth.

Graces, Godsends & Gratitude

The church was twenty minutes away, and while he drove, my son talked to me about personal things which don’t usually get discussed in the hurried life we lead. Another blessing.  

I had forgotten about the carol service immediately preceding this Mass, and the parking lot was chock full. Yet we found a space and once in the building, were lucky enough to get two seats next to each other half way up the aisle.

The pews were just regular chairs, without any kneelers. During the times in Mass when Catholics would normally kneel, the congregation had to stand.

(I’ll skip over my aggravation - as soon as I’d sat down - at seeing a parishioner walk in with two large, takeaway cups of coffee. I deliberately looked no more in their direction, as I didn’t want to see whether or not they had the audacity to drink it during the service!! Judge not lest ye be judged, I told myself.)

My son remembered all the prayers and responses during Mass, which was another wonderful surprise. The priest then incensed the offerings, and after a short while that distinctive aroma reached us.

Ross beamed. “Ah! Now it’s Christmas!”

I was so grateful to God that my son still embraced Catholic tradition.  I pray this will lead him fully back to the Church one day.

After Mass, as we were returning our hymnals, he noticed that a free book was being handed. The title was on my ‘to buy’ list: Rome Sweet Home by Scott and Kimberley Hahn. Another unexpected bonus, which I voraciously read over the next three days.

Merry Christmas to Us, and to Us a Good Night 

Our cozy chats resumed during the trip back to the semi-darkness of my mother-in-law’s house, where everyone else had gone to bed.

Traditionally, after midnight Mass Ross joins me in a glass of mulled wine and we eat a minced pie each. Sadly, he was unable to do so this year, having been recently diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. God willing, he will share these things with me again next year.

Instead, we hugged and wished each other “Merry Christmas!” before he retired to bed.

Midnight Meditations

In a happy daze, I sat alone at the little breakfast table, sipping my hot spiced wine and munching on a minced pie - baked in Maryland for this very occasion - past the hour of 12 a.m.

My heart was full as I pondered this evening’s miraculous events and contemplated Mary’s wonder on beholding her child in the manger that first Christmas night.