End of the World Advice

Not that I believe the world ends Friday, but... why not go to confession just in case?  Best case scenario, it's a wonderful outpouring of God's mercy and love that will fill you with life.  Worst case, the world ends Friday and you're in a state of grace.  Oh, and that wonderful outpouring part also goes for the worst case.  It's a no brainer.

Seriously, without regard to the end of the world, the Sacrament of Reconciliation is God's gift to you!  Why would you stay away?

You're nervous?  Big deal.  I usually am when I go to confession.  You know why?  Because sin is real.  It is really something wrong with you, and you don't want to have to admit it.  Take heart:  nervous people do extraordinary things all the time.

You can't handle telling your sins to another person?  I'm not impressed.  Go behind a screen to a priest you don't know.  I've heard hundreds of completely anonymous confessions, and I truly have no idea who was on the other side of the screen.  It works.

You don't believe that you need to?  You can confess directly to God?  Yeah, that's rich.  I guess all those times that Jesus said to the apostles "whose sins you forgive are forgive" and "whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven" were just suggestions.  And of course, we don't have to pay attention to the Letter of St James:  "Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed."

Wake up!  He intended us to actually take advantage this gift.  He doesn't want us to keep our faith locked up in our mind!  We're human beings, with bodies, with mouths and ears.  Confessing our sins requires us to make use of our entire person, body and soul, and to encounter Jesus himself with our senses, as the priest acts in his very person.  If you only "confess your sins directly to God," you will never hear those words you so desperately need to hear:  "God the Father of mercies through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins.  Through the ministry of the Church, may God give you pardon and peace.  And I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."

I don't care if the world ends tomorrow or Friday or after I'm dead and gone.  But I do care deeply for all of you out there who deny yourselves the grace of Reconciliation.  No priest is withholding it from you.  You are choking yourselves on fear and pride.  You're doing it wrong.