Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church

Dear Good People of Saint Mary,

You know, the three traditional practices for a Catholic during Lent are the most ancient: prayer, fasting and almsgiving. We should make use of all three: these are the three most powerful means for growth in the spiritual life and calling into being the Kingdom of God, preparing for the new flood of his grace. I plan to use these letters during the Lenten Season to help open up these as real instruments of grace as we journey through Lent together.

Last week I spoke about the need for simplicity and clarity (choosing a “desert”) in our lives of faith, to set the stage for prayer. I will talk more about prayer next week. But this week, since we are early in the season of Lent, I want to use this opportunity to challenge you about the sacrament of Reconciliation.

I have joked in the past (half-joked, really) that I will offer half-off on penances if you come during the first half of the season. I actually had someone ask for a better deal, BOGO for their spouse who never comes to Confession! If only … Same with using Skype, I guess, and if pigs could fly. Anyway, in the past I have even given penances like 1½ Our Fathers, since it was half off three.

We encourage you to come early for several reasons. Obviously, at some point the lines run long and time runs out. Every year there are people who are angry, mostly at themselves I would think, for waiting too long. Please remember, we don’t have Confessions while Mass is going on (no two-fers) and once 3pm on Good Friday comes, no sacraments are celebrated: the King is in the tomb. The only practice is, in grave need, Communion to the sick. Grace, though welling up in the midst of the silence of his death, is not  accessible until its glory breaks forth in the new life of his resurrection when we sing the Gloria at the Easter Vigil.

The other reason I encourage you to come early is to avoid rushing your experience of the sacrament. When the line is long, we really can’t talk like we might, if you wanted to talk. Nor, at that point, would you want to take someone else’s (maybe) only opportunity to even get in by taking a lot of time. There is always the alternative of making an appointment—and I encourage you to consider this option.

I would also like for you to come to Confession really prepared. Look on our homepage for the link to our examination of conscience. It is something I wrote, because so many examens you might find on line are crazy with scrupulosity or don’t seem to include enough for ordinary peoples’ reflection. Jesus warned the priests of his time to not heap up burdens for others that are too hard for them to carry. But he did instruct us to carry what we need to carry, with him, on our way to Calvary. Here is a quick sketch of how you might be prepared for confession:

• Consider what your sins are. Don’t be merciless on yourself, at the same time don’t minimize sins, or fall into a kind of relativism and say, like another Pharisee in the Gospels, “Well, at least I’m not as bad as that guy, or those people.” You are not that guy. Also, there is no point in confessing all the sins of your children. This is about you. Jesus looks into our hearts, in fact, and already knows what our sins are. The process of Confession requires that we acknowledge them, and tell him we are sorry. He has to hear it, the personal relationship you have with him requires it and can bear it, because he only responds with love to a penitent heart. Don’t get all wrapped up in the process, with guilt or shame. Just say them simply without a lot of details. Honestly, we don’t need (or want) to hear details. I avoid those movies and don’t need the pictures in my head. Remember, no one present is there to judge, just to forgive.

• Come after you have built up in yourself a real desire to change. Please don’t treat Confession like a carwash. The validity of the sacrament requires a “firm purpose of amendment.” Otherwise, it is basically an empty  exercise. This is the danger of coming to Confession too often. Sometimes I ask people if they might possibly sin less if they knew they might not get there for Confession every Saturday? Often they admit that this is the case. Do you think that Jesus gave us the frequent opportunity for reconciliation so that we would sin more? I don’t think so.

Above all, stay mindful that this is all about love. It isn’t the priest who says your sins are forgiven, though it might sound like his voice. It is about Jesus, who desires that you be reconciled totally— with God and with his Church, restoring the unity of the Body and the soul to grace.

God bless you.

Dear Good People of Saint Mary,

Welcome to Lent.

I have to admit, often Lent is a very difficult season for me if I am paying attention. There are a lot of obstacles and challenges that Lent seems to bring that call to question many things. But—you know—so often people come to confession to confess that they don’t have a faith that is strong enough or they have times of doubt and difficulty with many aspects of faith. This is not a sin! It is being human (which, last I checked, was noble and sacred). How easy it is to forget that faith requires a certain level of not knowing certainty. It is honest to have doubts. And it is, like any suffering, the path through them that causes us to grow. You never grow by walking around life’s challenges and problems, by remaining indifferent or intentionally ignorant. You have to go through them to grow. We must be confronted.

For this reason, the Stations of the Cross is so important. Jesus is carrying our cross, after all, not his own. And we can see in his example the way to carry our own. For a long time I thought that it was an unhealthy piety that always focused on how we “carry our cross” in the “vale of tears.” Well, maybe it is unhealthy to always be living out of that perspective but at some point, if you are honest, you realize that this is often the reality. If we weren’t supposed to carry it, why then does Jesus pick it up for us? That cross—the one that brings about the salvation of the world that we could never earn on our own—that cross isn’t the enemy. It is the effect of the enemy that we confront daily: jealousy, hatred, persecution, discrimination, violence, murder, pain and death. It does no good to pretend that these things don’t continue to crucify goodness, beauty and truth everyday. It doesn’t mean that we give in to all that robs us of our beauty, our truthfulness, goodness so that we are no longer good or true. The cross is the conflict that confronts us every day of our lives.

Coming to the Stations of the Cross gives us perspective. We see ourselves in the soldiers, in the women of Jerusalem, in Veronica and Simon the Cyrene, in Joseph of Arimathea. Ultimately, we see ourselves in Jesus, and the realization brings tears. Good tears, tears that we must cry in order to appreciate what Jesus has done for me, and for you, and for all his creation.

Speaking of tears, we saw a lot of tears this past week with the visit of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I hope you could come, I hope she filled our parish family with peace and joy.

Many were touched in ways they can’t really describe. That is okay, because words are really limiting. Others spoke to me after and wondered why they didn’t feel her (or Jesus’) heartbeat, the warmth of her hands, see any miracle. Were they not holy enough or was something wrong? I said of course not, Mary connects with people in the way that they need it at the time, I think. They said that they had such a desire to experience a wonder, a closeness of God through Mary. I asked them what they did find.

I sat back and watched you throughout the visits at different times. I will tell you the greatest wonder of all: hundreds, hundreds of you came with a fervent desire to feel her closeness, her heartbeat. What vivid faith filled the church. Just the desire that we all have that became visible: our hopefulness of a sign of her love, a love we obviously already believe in. It is as prevalent as the glitter that suddenly is seen all over the floor. (Might I add, not just around the image, but all over the church from wall to wall…) Not a person who was seeking came away without a feeling of peace and joy, a calmness or a sense of being loved. It is a testimony to Our Lady of Guadalupe, who historically came not to give some kind of stern warning or vision of hell as she has done in other instances, but to simply remind us that she is our mother, what more do we have need of? I have to tell you, it was the experience of love that caused the people of central America to be baptized at a rate of 3,000 per day in the days after the appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe. She has a lot to tell us about our modern day, about respecting life, about caring for one another. As Patroness of all the Americas, she has a lot of work still to do.

The image will return again, one more time on next Sunday and I expect that there will be quite a crowd. We do what we can, but let us all be glad of the outpouring of love—both ours to her and hers to us—which makes us each day more of a family, brothers and sisters to each other at Saint Mary.

Now let’s get busy with Lent.

God bless you.