Tis the Season

I think that people think I'm nuts. People are wondering what is wrong with me. The culture may call me a Scrooge.  Others may think I've lost my Christmas spirit.

Advent wreath and St. Lucy bread

I don't have lights on my house to be seen from space. I haven't done any Christmas baking yet (although I've celebrated the feast days of St. Barbara, St. Lucy, St. Nicholas, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and the Immaculate Conception). I haven't fallen over backwards to shop on Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or Super Saturday. I haven't played Christmas music 24/7 for the last 4+ weeks. I have only started watching Christmas movies just days before Christmas.

Yep, to everyone else, it may look like I've lost my Christmas spirit.

But au contraire! My Christmas spirit has been growing and growing and this year, I feel fuller than ever!

Jesse Tree

For starters, it's not even Christmas yet (it's currently December 22)! I have been celebrating Advent, meaning, "coming." Yes, Christmas--Jesus--is coming, not, here. We have faithfully lit our Advent candles at dinner every night for the last four weeks while singing, "O Come O Come Emmanuel"--come, Lord Jesus, come! The ornaments are going up on our Jesse Tree and our Nativity scenes are missing one Key Player.

No, I haven't "done" Christmas yet because Advent is the season to prepare. We clean our homes and adorn them with decorations for the season. But a better preparation has been cleaning my soul and making myself a more beautiful dwelling place for the Lord. I haven't "done" Christmas yet because the Baby, the reason for the season, isn't here yet. We don't celebrate our own birthdays a month in advance and then hardly acknowledge the actual day. Why do it to Jesus?

"Doing" Christmas before Christmas Day, when our focus is not on Jesus, is only a distraction. We keep so busy with the hustle and bustle of gifts, wrapping paper, food, cooking, baking, ugly sweaters, decorating, parties, movies, music, and trying to cram it all in a few weeks--how dizzying! With such "noise" and busy-ness, our minds are too busy. The hours in our days are too full. Our focus is on all the wrong stuff. I can't think of a more effective way to forget about Jesus, ironically, in the season when we are supposed to celebrate Him. Too busy to pray. Too much to do, can't sit in quiet prayer with the Lord. Too many places to go, can't make it to Confession or even Mass.

When we're so caught up in "celebrating" Christmas before Christmas Day, we're left with an empty feeling. I know this is WAY too common in homes across America: it's the afternoon of Christmas Day, and suddenly, Christmas is "over." The presents have been opened, which marks the end of the day and season. With all the build-up of the last few weeks, Christmas Day is always anticlimactic. This makes no sense! Christmas isn't OVER on the 25th, it has only just begun! Christmas, the birth of our Lord, the humbling of God to become man--a little Baby--, the Eternal Word entering our fallen world in order to save us, this great event of human history is such a great event that we celebrate Christmas "Day" for eight days! That climax of the season should be celebrated for eight days of the Octave of Christmas! And all this within the Christmas Season, which goes all the way through the middle of January to the Baptism of the Lord!

Our culture "loves" Christmas to death to the point that, just when the holiday gets started, everyone else is over it. Done. And THAT is what happens when Christmas isn't properly prepared for during the season of Advent.

So yeah, people may think I'm nuts. People may think I've lost my Christmas spirit. But this year I'm properly ordering the celebrations. I'm preparing my soul more than all that other "stuff." I still think that the "stuff" is important, but only when properly ordered. And in "holding off" on all that "stuff" during Advent and waiting until Christmas, I'm actually able to enjoy and appreciate it even more.

Merry Christmas!

Amazing what?

Grace.

I'll be honest. For most of my life, I had no idea what grace was. I don't even really remember talking about it growing up. Maybe I remember a little from high school. But I definitely couldn't have told you what it was. I know that this sounds all-too-familiar for cradle Catholics who grew up not really knowing or authentically practicing their faith. It's no wonder why I thought I didn't need to confess my sins, or pray, or feel the need for the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist. "For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, fierce, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding the form of religion but denying the power of it." (2 Timothy 3:2-5)

That segment of the verse describes my upbringing! Yep, I went to Mass sometimes, made the Sign of the Cross, did the sit/stand/kneel and went through the motions, had a cross in my bedroom, prayed when things got tough, but in almost everything I did, I just held onto the form of Catholicism, but denied the power of it. That power, being grace. 

Sometimes the grace got through all the walls I built up. I can only imagine how many times in my life I said something like, "I have no idea how I made it through that," or "I didn't think I could do it." I'm not talking about rather superficial things like finishing an exam or fixing something, but times of suffering and enduring. Times where I was so sad I thought I could drown in my sorrows; grace got me through. The times where it seemed like every door was closing on me and my life was crumbling in; grace got me through. The times I was frozen in fear; grace got me through. No matter how many times I tried to shut God out of my life, He still loves me more than I can fathom and as a loving Father, He still reaches out to me in any ways that He can.

But for much of my life, I lived without sanctifying or saving grace offered by Christ through His Bride, the Church. Thanks be to God, He gave me more time in my life to turn things around and return to a state of grace. I did, though, cut myself off of this saving grace through my sins. My own choices. I refused the graces, or help, that God was offering me to overcome my temptations, and I fell. Have you ever known someone with bad habits or lifestyles and you wished they would change? Have you ever pleaded with someone to not light that cigarette, or not have another drink? How upset and disappointed were you when they smoked again or drank again? The wounds that we inflict upon His Sacred Heart by our sins are nothing compared to the disappointment we feel in our loved ones.This is like God's offer of sanctifying grace to us, followed by our rejection of it, on a small scale.  Because He has the greatest capacity to love, He also has the greatest capacity to be hurt when we reject His saving help.

Once I began to have a knowledge and awareness of grace, the more I saw it in my life. It's literally everywhere. Constant. Like the air around me... all I have to do is breathe. But I need extra help to heed Jesus' call to "be perfect, just as your Heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt 5:48). My heart swells with gratitude for the Church and her Sacraments, which are visible signs of invisible graces. The most important and life-altering thing I did in my "re-version" was to go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. By confessing my sins in the confessional, I acknowledged all the times that I sinned, refused God's grace, and damaged my relationship with Him and His Body, the Church. I confessed bad habits and unholy tendencies I had, and through the Sacrament, received the graces to overcome most of them--to this I can attest! The confessional was like a gate to the greatest source of graces: the Eucharist. The Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of our Lord, Himself! Being in a state of grace, I could receive the Eucharist worthily. Remember what St. Paul says:

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.

Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are ill and infirm, and a considerable number are dying. (1 Corinthians 11:23-30)

The graces from the Eucharist are transforming my life all the time because I try hard to be open to them. Jesus told St. Faustina, "When I come to a human heart in Holy Communion, My hands are full of all kinds of graces which I want to give to the soul. But souls do not even pay attention to Me; they leave Me to Myself and busy themselves with other things. ... They treat Me as a dead object" (Diary of St. Faustina, 1385).

Reading that passage during my "re-version" process really made me stop and think, "What is grace?" and, "Is the Eucharist even important in my life?" My journey really took off from those questions, and now He is changing my life from the answers I sought. I pray for other cradle Catholics with similar experiences as mine, who can say, "I don't know what grace is," or, "I don't make it to Mass every week," which means, "I don't know what the Eucharist is." The Church offers every bit of help that we could possibly need to know, love, and serve Him and become the perfected lovers that we are called to be! Turn to her! I will be praying for you. Please pray for me too.

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Missed opportunities

You’ve heard the saying that “if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” Well, for a long time, I was part of the problem. And in my weak human nature, at times, I am still part of the problem, although I work harder to be part of the solution these days.

 

The solution: to bring people closer to God, to show His love and mercy, to show people true faith and how a life can be happily transformed by this faith, and to help people to get to Heaven.

The problem: either purposefully or by omission, doing the opposite. Pulling people away from God, showing people that He can’t really be trusted with my life so I must keep Him at a distance, and overall, not helping anyone get to Heaven (which means I’m doing the opposite.. giving them the easy paths to Hell.)

 

I think of all the times that I was part of the problem on purpose. The times I told friends that contraception was totally okay and even aided one in obtaining it. The times I told people that pre-marital sex is okay “as long as you’re going to marry that person eventually.” The times I told people it was okay not to go to Confession because God will just forgive me with a simple, “I’m sorry,” in my mind. The times that I said or suggested that living with a boyfriend or girlfriend was okay. The times that I said that the Church was wrong on some of her teachings—on contraception, gay “marriage,” purgatory, or the necessity of Confession. The times I said that I don't need to go to Mass every Sunday to be a good Catholic or a good person. The times I gossiped. The times I said, “I’m Catholic, but…” The times I harbored anger for others and refused to forgive them. I could go on and on…

 

I think of all the times that I was part of the problem just by omission! The times that I didn’t speak up for the Truth. The times I didn’t speak up for true, authentic Church teaching. The times that I neglected to help someone in need. By my lukewarm, “cafeteria Catholic,” God-is-awesome-but-I’ll-keep-doing-what-I-want lifestyle that showed people a horrible example that surely led them away from God and straight towards the gates of Hell.

 

My passion and zeal come from the fact that I came to know God’s will and I changed my life because of it. Perhaps most importantly for the average person, my changed life did not get worse—it got so much better than I thought possible. My life is full of love and peace and faith that I thought was reserved for little old nuns or the pope.

 

But I have a long way to go. I have many wrongs to right as I make a daily vow never to commit those same mistakes again. I will continue to fight against the evils of contraception, which is so obviously tied to pre-marital sex, couples living together before they’re married or even engaged, abortion, infidelity, risky sexual behavior, divorce, and the fact that Americans no longer know what true marriage is. I will continue to show my love for Christ’s Bride, His Catholic Church. The one true Church and the fullness of the Christian faith. I will continue to spread the truth about Divine Mercy.

 

If my voice or my life ever become silent again, I will fall back to being part of the problem. I can’t let that happen. I care too much about souls and their salvation to ever lead them away from the straight and narrow path to Heaven. I lament the missed opportunities I had to be part of the solution, but God has graciously given me more time and I will not waste those opportunities anymore.

Friday Guidance from the Saints - V

 
 
 

"Be courageous, do not be cast down. Trust in God and hope that He will grant you every grace. Do not rely on yourself, but rather on the Lord, and if you imagine that all is calm, then be assured that the enemy is quite near. Do not put too much confidence in peace, for in the midst of rest war may break out."

 

- St. Gerard Majella

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1726-1755

Patron saint of: expectant mothers, motherhood, the falsely accused, good confessions

Feast Day: October 16

Read more

 

St. Gerard Majella, pray for us!

What is a smile?

What is a smile? Is it not a physical manifestation of an internal emotion of joy and happiness? Without the smile, we would not be able to understand the invisible emotions.

What is a hug or a kiss? Is it not a physical showing of love? Words fall helplessly short when trying to tell someone that you love them, so we resort to the physical world. How else can you explain love? How can you show it? How can you relay the invisible feelings you have within you?

What does it mean when someone dances? I mean really, unabashedly dances, with eyes closed and no musical rhythm guiding their steps. Is it not a physical manifestation of a deep, fully-alive feeling, and bursting joy? Haven't you ever been so happy that you can't say it, you can't write it, you can't express it other than your pure, shameless dance?

Why do I ask these questions?

My point is that there are many things--emotions, thoughts, feelings, etc--that are purely human which are inexpressible and indescribable without the physical world. Our faces and bodies are physical tools that we use to express those invisible mysteries that we all hold within us. This is how humans were designed by God, to use the physical world to reveal (although it's impossible to do so completely) that which is invisible, indescribable, and mysterious.

God Himself is the greatest Mystery. Because He knows how He made us, physically-dependent creatures, He made Himself into the physical. God's Word, which had never been seen and hardly understood, became Flesh for us to see, hear, and touch. Jesus, the Incarnation (Word made Flesh), came to us to bridge the gap between the purely physical and purely mysterious, between man and God.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth." John 1:1,14

Through Jesus' parables, He related our physical world that we are familiar with, to greater mysteries, like Heaven, Hell, repentance, and receiving grace. Through Jesus' healing miracles, he showed us that our physical bodies are curable, but so are our souls! And how much greater it is to heal the eternal soul!

God did not just play to our physical senses only once in the Incarnation. Jesus left His Apostles with commandments and ways to continue to manifest the invisible, spiritual, mysterious world in our physical world. Of course, Christ's greatest gift to us is the Eucharist, His Flesh and Blood, which are "true food" and "true drink" (John 6). These simple foods, when infused with the Holy Spirit, become our spiritual food for everlasting life. Through communion with the Body of Christ, we become part of the Body, His Mystical Bride, which we see physically as the Church.

Aside from the Eucharist, Christ also gave His Apostles the ability for forgive sins. "Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained” (John 20:23). Again, God knows how He made us. We should use this physical world to relate our sins, to show remorse for them through penance, and most importantly, we need to hear the words, "You are forgiven." Thus, He instituted the Sacrament of Reconciliation. After spending years of just trying to ask for forgiveness through silent prayer, and never being sure of that forgiveness, I can tell you that one trip to the Confessional does what a million years of silent plea for forgiveness cannot do. I know that through the Sacrament, I received that grace of forgiveness and grace to help me where I need it. We are human and understand best through physical manifestation.

Christ gave us so much more through His foundation of the Church on St. Peter and the Apostles. The Catholic Church has so much symbolism, so much physical manifestation of the mysteries of God, it may well be impossible to know it all even down to the little things. But the seven Sacraments, in particular (two of which I just mentioned) are great gifts to us, because through simple, physical things, we can better grasp the eternal mystery. Water is just water but when we use it to mark our faith with the Name of the most Holy Trinity, we are given the invisible grace of becoming a child of God!

Do a little research sometime and you'll find that everything in the Catholic Church has some sort of meaning or parallel to that invisible truth which is hard to grasp. We don't just do or have things "just because." Christ's Bride is so rich with these physical manifestations, that we are just so blessed to be ever-surrounded! The more you discover, the more you will fall in love with this faith, and the more you fall in love with this faith, the more you will fall in love with Christ. Loving the faith and loving Christ is an uninterrupted circle, because as a married couple become united as one, so Christ and His Bride the Church are One. To love one is to love the other.



One of my favorite days of the year!

Today is one of my favorite days of the Church year: the Feast of Divine Mercy, or Divine Mercy Sunday.

Quite honestly, last year and all previous years of my life, I was unaware of this day. I never really heard of it (because I wasn't paying attention), I didn't know where it came from, and I didn't know what it was all about.

But last summer, when I was finding myself in re-converting myself wholly to my Catholic faith, I discovered this gem of a feast day. Yes, a gem! My soul feels flooded with love for this day! And it is all because I read a book: The Diary of St. Maria Faustina Kowalska.

St. Faustina was a simple, under-educated young Polish nun in the 1920s and 1930s. In her relatively short life (33 years), she received many appearances and visitations from Jesus Christ Himself. Though she seemed like an unlikely candidate given her limited reading and writing abilities, Jesus ordered her to write about these visitations and to write the words He spoke to her. From her personal revelations, we have learned a great deal about Divine Mercy, we were taught by Christ how to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet and Novena, we have the great image of Divine Mercy, and Divine Mercy Sunday, in which Jesus requested this feast day to be on the Sunday after Easter.

It was difficult at first for me to accept her revelations--like St. Thomas, we like to use our own senses for "proof" instead of just believing someone else's words--but I realized that if we don't believe He can appear to people, then we must discount the writings and experience from St. Paul.

There were two main ideas from Jesus, conveyed by St. Faustina, that stuck with me the most:

“Let the greatest sinners place their trust in My mercy. They have the right before others to trust in the abyss of My mercy. My daughter, write about My mercy towards tormented souls. Souls that make an appeal to My mercy delight Me. To such souls I grant even more graces than they ask. I cannot punish even the greatest sinner if he makes an appeal to My compassion, but on the contrary, I justify him in My unfathomable and inscrutable mercy. Write: before I come as a just judge, I first open wide the door of My mercy. He who refuses to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of My justice…”

“There is no misery that could be a match for My mercy, neither will misery exhaust it, because as it is being granted-it increases. The soul that trusts in My mercy is most fortunate, because I  myself take care of it.”

These two paragraphs are essential to understanding God's mercy. For one, those who sin the most are most entitled to Christ's mercy. So someone who knows that they are a sinner, and they might even call themselves a "big" sinner, they can have full confidence in knowing that Jesus' help, grace, mercy, and love are not just for those who appear to be good all the time. That was His message in the Gospels, too. Jesus didn't come for the righteous, but for sinners. Likewise, when someone tries every moment of every day to avoid sin, when they delight in His Divine Mercy, they know will full trust that they can stand back and invite others in, because those who live in sin or who have great sins on their soul are more entitled to come to Jesus. What a beautiful thing! And it is because He said that there is no sin that is too great for His mercy. There is no combination of great sins that is too much for Him. There is nothing that Christ can't handle and forgive in a contrite heart. Jesus compared His mercy to a vast ocean. One where you can see no borders and no ocean floor. Even the worst sins are but a drop of water in this Ocean of Mercy. That, my friends, is difficult to understand. We humans tend to be very conditional in our forgiveness, and even when we forgive, it is hard for us to forget. But when a miserable and sinful soul runs to those merciful red and white rays from His Merciful Heart, the Heavens rejoice! Jesus has mercy on such a soul, forgiving their sins, seeing them anew, and pours out a flood of graces to help that soul who trusts in Him.

I can truly attest for His great mercy from my own experiences in the last year. When you but peek through the door for Him, He runs to you with open arms and a Heart full of mercy and grace. That grace shines in your soul so that you can understand the gravity of your sins. At that point, you feel the weight of them. You see yourself scourging Him or putting nails in His Hands. You have no choice but to throw yourself at His Feet with a sorrowful heart, seeking mercy and forgiveness. When you receive that forgiveness in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, your life feels changed. You can actually begin to grasp the idea of an Ocean of Mercy. You feel so much inside you: grace, a heart on fire with love, and a deep desire to bring others to the Ocean of Mercy. It's not enough to keep such a treasure to yourself. My love for God has grown because of His mercy and I am a changed person because of it.

I have a particular devotion to St. Faustina because of her diary. I know she prays for every soul that reads it. She prays for souls who approach His mercy either for the first time ever or for the first time in a long time. I know she was praying for me before my first Confession in almost 9 years. St. Faustina is a great saint to turn to for help and prayers, and I know that she can't disappoint.

I pray for so many things today. I pray for all of you to read St. Faustina's Diary. I pray that you trust in Christ's mercy. I pray that you return to His mercy in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I pray for your heart to be on fire for His mercy, and to understand that those people that you see around you every day, doing "bad things," are the ones who are most entitled to come to Jesus. They have the priority and greatest need! I pray for those souls daily, and I pray that you will pray for them too.

Seek His mercy, particularly today on Divine Mercy Sunday. Jesus said, "On that day all the Sources of my Mercy will be open.  I wish that this Feast become a refuge for all souls, but especially for the sinners." 

And now I will leave you with a few more quotes from Jesus Himself that are found in the Diary:

“Tell souls not to place within their own hearts obstacles to My mercy, which so greatly wants to act within them. My mercy works in all those hearts which open their doors to it. Both the sinner and the righteous person have need of My mercy. Conversion, as well as perseverance, is a grace of My mercy.”

“Today the Lord said to me, Daughter, when you go to confession, to this fountain of My mercy, the Blood and Water which came forth from My heart always flows down upon your soul and ennobles it. Every time you go to confession, immerse yourself entirely in My mercy, with great trust, so that I may pour the bounty of My grace upon your soul. When you approach the confessional, know this, that I Myself am waiting there for you. I am only hidden by the priest, but I myself act in your soul. Here the misery of the soul meets the God of mercy. Tell souls that from this fount of mercy souls draw graces solely with the vessel of trust. If their trust is great, there is no limit to My generosity. The torrents of grace inundate humble souls. The proud remain always in poverty and misery, because My grace turns way from them to humble souls.”

"The greatest sinners could become great saints if they trusted in my Mercy. I delight in sanctifying the souls. The greatest sinners have the individual right to my Mercy. It is for Me a joy when they go to my Mercy. I overflow them with my graces above their expectations." 

"The loss of each soul brings me to a mortal sadness. You always console me when you pray for sinners.  The prayer that is most pleasing to Me is the prayer for the conversion of sinners.  You have to know, My daughter Mine, that this prayer is always heard."

 

O, Blood and Water which gushed forth from The Heart of Jesus as a fountain of Mercy for us, I trust in You.  

 

"Draw a picture according to how you see me, with the invocation: 'Jesus I Trust in You.' I want that image venerated throughout the world... Both rays mean the Blood and the Water. The pale ray symbolizes the Water that it justifies to the souls. The red ray symbolizes the Blood that is the life of the souls... Both rays emerged from the deepest entrails of My mercy when My dying Heart was pierced in the cross by the lance... I promise that the soul that venerates this image will not perish.  I already promise here on Earth victory over the enemies: mainly at the time of death.  I myself will defend them like my Glory.  I offer mankind a container where they can come to the source of Mercy to gather graces.  That container is this image with the inscription 'Jesus I Trust in You' under and not on the image."   

For more quotes from the Diary: click here

For the Divine Mercy Chaplet: click here

For the Divine Mercy Novena: click here

Wax and Mud

We are all born as wax, and throughout our lives, our inner-most being remains wax. But through life, through our thoughts, through our actions, through our sins, we build mud around that wax. When we stop praying, when we stop feeling, when we stop hoping, we build mud around that wax.

 

“The same sun shines upon mud that shines upon wax. It hardens the mud but softens the wax. The difference is not in the sun, but in that upon which it shines.”

-Venerable Fulton Sheen

 

I remember as a young child, being the wax. I remember the awe and wonder of life around me. I remember my child-like faith, innocently talking to my Creator, never lost for hope of Everlasting Life. I was wax, I was softened by His Light, and I relished in it.

 

Then as I got older… middle school, junior high, high school… I started building mud around my wax. My prayer life suffered. The world was no longer a magical place that was full of life and hope. My defiant teenage ways led me to sin. The more I sinned, the more mud I built, the harder I became. My relationship with Him was no longer the same. There were holes in the mud, and from time-to-time, I would feel the warmth of the melting of my wax, but the mud grew.

 

I felt choked by the mud. I could barely see through the window of my soul because it was so dirty and hard. I couldn’t see clearly. The world was dark and frightening. Despair was easy. Love (agape) was hard to find. Christ was distant.

 

But perhaps through the prayers of others, through the prayers of the saints and angels, perhaps through the somewhat frequent reception of His most precious Body and Blood, those precious holes remained in my thick mud. Through grace, His Light shined through these small holes, and He made me love it. I couldn’t deny the warmth and the bliss. Slowly, I wanted more. Slowly, the Light shined brighter through the mud, and I wanted to know Him as I never have before. I wanted to be wax again. I could not get rid of the mud on my own, despite my attempts; I could only get rid of it through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I told the priest, though I was truly speaking to Jesus, about all of the mud. I told him how that pile of mud got there, and how I threw that chunk of mud on top, and so on and so on. And with each confession, Jesus removed that mud. With His grace conferred through the Sacrament, I became wax again. I remember the moment that I felt like wax, and the joy brought me to tears.

 

 

Now I bask in His Light. The sun (Son) shines on me brightly, and I melt under His Love. My wax is thick, so I regularly remove the mud and keep His Light on me so that it penetrates deeper and deeper with time. I feel it, and I know it to be true. It’s as if I’m looking through a new pair of glasses and I’m seeing the world anew. I see the beauty, the love, the hope, the purpose. I see God’s work in creation and I see Christ’s Spirit in others. The deeper His Light penetrates my wax, the more I can see this, and the easier it becomes. I see, understand, the purpose and beauty in suffering; and this, too, becomes clearer and more manageable with time.

 

I will no longer listen to the voice of the hardened world, telling me not to be so “naïve” and to get back to “reality.” That is the way of the world, of the mud-covered, of the hardened. That is not the way of child-like faith. There is wonder and beauty in everything. There is no need to fear when God is in control and when you place your trust in Him. There is only pure love, pure joy, and pure hope when you uncover your wax and embrace the Light.

 

 

The sound of my lover! here he comes

springing across the mountains,

leaping across the hills.

 

My lover is like a gazelle or a young stag.

See! He is standing behind our wall,

gazing through the windows,

peering through the lattices.

 

My lover speaks and says to me,

“Arise, my friend, my beautiful one, and come!

 

For see, the winter is past,

the rains are over and gone.

 

The flowers appear on the earth,

the time of pruning the vines has come,

and the song of the turtledove is heard in our land.

 

The fig tree puts forth its figs,

and the vines, in bloom, give forth fragrance.

Arise, my friend, my beautiful one, and come!

 

My dove in the clefts of the rock,

in the secret recesses of the cliff,

Let me see your face,

let me hear your voice,

For your voice is sweet,

and your face is lovely.”

 

Catch us the foxes, the little foxes

that damage the vineyards; for our vineyards are in bloom!

 

My lover belongs to me and I to him;

he feeds among the lilies.

 

Until the day grows cool and the shadows flee,

roam, my lover,

Like a gazelle or a young stag

upon the rugged mountains.

 

Song of Songs 2:8-17

Washing away the filth

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been almost 9 years since my last confession….”

 

Those were some hard words to muster this past August.

 

I remember the last time I went to Confession, back in 2003. My high school held penance services twice a year. Several priests from throughout our deanery would come and were scattered about our gym, far enough apart so that you couldn’t hear the confessions nearby. It was my freshman year; I had gone to Confession that winter for Advent. I remember sitting on the bleachers around my friends, examining my conscience. And then I got up and went to my parish priest. When I was done, I didn’t know my next Confession would be as an adult, a married woman with another name, living in another state. I remember my school’s penance service again that spring (Lent) of my freshman year. I can still hear the moment that I really de-railed from my authentic Catholic faith, becoming just a nominal Catholic, when one of my old friends said, “I don’t need to tell a priest my sins. I can just tell God myself and He will forgive me.” I believed the lie, and I did not go to Confession. I threw away the 2000-year-old, perfected road map and picked up something else that took me in another direction during the most vulnerable time of my life.

 

Fast-forward almost 9 years and here I am in Montana. A lot of things happened all at once in the summer of 2012. I realized how much free time I had outside of work, so I started renting books from the library. In particular, I started reading books by Venerable Fulton Sheen. We were getting to know some great Catholic couples who were very well-versed in their faith and took it very seriously. It was very inspiring. The battle for religious freedom from the unconstitutional HHS Mandate was still red-hot, and I really wanted to understand why the US Bishops were fighting it so hard. Still, on top of all these outside influences, the most important was what was happening inside me. I can only describe it as the Holy Spirit pursuing me and moving me. It felt almost as though He had found that road map I had thrown away almost 9 years ago and was urging me to take another look at it. I was able to truly look at myself and see the sick state of my soul. I continued to learn more because although a large part of me wanted to live that authentic Catholic life, a part of me still wanted to stay “comfortable” and not challenge myself, so I was looking for a way out. A part of me still wanted to keep things simple (“don’t interfere with my life or conscience”) because I did not want to be a “crazy” Catholic (read: different from modern society). I thought I would lose a lot because the Church seemed to have so many “rules” and in my selfish, resistant spirit, I couldn’t yet see that those “restrictions” are actually freeing.

 

The road back to the confessional was not easy and it was not quick. It took months. I would constantly recall my sins and they still weighed heavily on me, but I tried to ignore it. I read Your Life is Worth Living: The Christian Philosophy of Life by Fulton Sheen and the Diary of St. Maria Kowalska Faustina. Between those two books, I found the guts I needed to face my fear of the confessional and I found a true conversion of heart, an essential step for a good confession. I had made up my mind that I was going to go.

 

Even after I had made up my mind, it still took me almost 2 months to gather the courage to actually do it. I had to figure out what in my life was gravely sinful and make the decision to live that way no longer. I had a great fear of something unfamiliar to me. How do I make a good confession? Is it face-to-face in our confessional? Will the priest recognize me? What will he think of me? I don’t know the Act of Contrition. What if I forget what to do once I'm in there? 

 

I spent a few weeks examining my conscience, trying to recall my sins of the past 9 years. I wrote them down as I remembered them. I ended up with 3 full pages of notebook paper. I thought I would start out with my worst (mortal) sins to try and get them out of the way as soon as possible. The night before my confession, I was very focused. I was steeped in prayer, constantly going over my examination of conscience list and my written confessions. I did not eat anything after dinner and was determined to fast until I was back in full communion with the Church. Before bed, I thought it would be best to practice saying everything out loud, in my own voice. That was one of the hardest things I ever did. Saying things in your head is infinitely more different than saying things out loud. Halfway through, I started to cry, and I cried hard. I literally felt as though I had outwardly covered myself with dirt and filth. When I was done, I went to my husband and told him that I thought I was the worst person on earth, because surely no one can have an awful list like me.

 

The next morning I woke up to go to Saturday morning Mass. I denied myself the Eucharist, which hurt, but I should have been that doing all along. My heart was racing as I got in line after Mass, and I fervently prayed for help. I wanted to speak to Father (acting in persona Christi) as a child would, without pride or embarrassment. I entered the confessional, knelt behind the screen, and pulled out my list. I began to cry again halfway through, but I made it. When Father had absolved me, I felt like all that dirt that I had smeared all over myself the night before had just been washed away. I could breathe easier and walk taller than I had in years because the Sacrament of Reconciliation is real. I was back in full communion with the Church and I felt the graces abound from the Sacrament. There were sins that I confessed that I was sure I would commit again just because they had been such a part of my life, but the graces received through the Sacrament are real and I have been able to keep from many of those sins.

 

My journey back to the confessional was long, but I do not regret the choices or lifestyle changes I have made in order to return to my authentic Catholic faith and an authentic relationship with Jesus.

 

My timing in sharing this is not a coincidence. I dearly pray for Catholics to return to the confessional, especially during this season of penance. I know it took me a long time to “get ready,” but we are about 2 months away from Easter. Use the Lenten season to just take a look in the mirror at least. Spiritually, are you where you want to be? Are you aware of mortal sins? How is your relationship with Jesus? Do you associate your sins with His suffering? How well-formed are you in Catholic catechesis?

 

Just Google, “Returning to Confession.” It’s never too late and you won’t regret it.