"[Jesus] breathed on them and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained." (John 20:22–23).
DS: Jesus said these words to His apostles just days after His Resurrection, thus giving the great gift and power to his priests to forgive men's sins in the Holy Sacrament of Confession. It is necessary to understand that it is not the priests who are doing the actual forgiving, but that they are mere instruments in the hands of Christ who does all the forgiving...
So, if it is Jesus who is reaching out to sinners in the confessional, why do a few Catholics feel it is not necessary? Instead, many echo the words of our protestant brothers and say, "Why should I confess my sins to a man? I go directly to God!" Well bro, that's not the way Jesus set it up! He would not have breathed the Holy Spirit on his apostles and given them this beautiful gift to forgive mens sins in the first place if all men had to do is "go directly to God." In all actuality, we humans do go "directly" to God in the confessional, in a much more powerful way than if we were kneeling at home confessing to God on our own.
In a few days time, it will be Lent...and Lent is the Church's perpetual call for all to end their sinful ways and embrace the love, mercy and forgiveness of the Lord. This is a common theme in our lives because as we all know, when Jesus died on the Cross, He gave us the hope of salvation, but he did not take away our ability to sin. Jesus didn't die on that cross to make us mere robots. He did not remove our free will. And because of our fallen human nature, Jesus ensured we would always have access to his mercy and forgiveness in the Sacrament He alone created by the spilling of His own precious blood...
There is just one thing we forget...
When Jesus forgave sins, he made sure to say, "Go and sin no more..." So Confession is not some magic trick that you go to to wash away your sins, keep on sinnin' and go back to for forgiveness. That is not how it works. It is there because sin is here. And there is a necessity and will be a necessity for reconciliation until the day we die. But we must strive to be better, and with the graces poured out to us in Confession, we can overcome sin...
Confession is good for the soul. Confession is a hard thing to do sometimes, and it can be a humbling experience presenting your sins to Jesus through a priest. Some of the more shameful sins you are tempted to keep hidden, but the Lord knows all, so why hide them? You also receive words of wisdom and advice and counsel from the priest in confession, who has probably heard every sin in the book...
In the spirit of reconciliation, I wish to make a formal apology to Vee. A few months ago, Vee's mother was diagnosed with an inoperable tumor at the base of her spine. It is metastatic....cancer. Ever since then, I've been really hard on Vee, because I myself have experienced the suffering (and death) of my mother...and I started to give Vee attitude because I felt like she was not responding like she should. So many people deal with suffering in their own way, and they have ways to survive it. I had no right to impose what my own feelings are on the subject and direct my own emotions in a lousy, attacking, biting attitude at Vee. I am very ashamed of this. Instead of consolation, I offered desolation. Instead of comfort, I handed out barbs. Vee, please accept my apology. You are my best friend and I would never want anything to destroy this precious gift of friendship God has so bestowed on me.
I want to begin anew. For Lent this year, I am going to keep away from my usual internet haunts. What I wish and hope to do is wake up this sleeping blog and keep it alive with posts about Faith, Hope, Charity, Suffering, LOVE and experiences with our Almighty God.
(...not to mention experiences with another gift from God: beer! This blog was meant to also offer our reviews on various beers we run into in our daily lives... lol....hopefully, we will not disappoint!)
