Weekly Reflection 3/15/2020

REFLECTION – RECONCILIATION

Third Sunday of Lent

March 14-15, 2020

     This season of Lent we are especially called to reflect on our lives and seek change, specifically those changes necessary to get ourselves in a right relationship with God and His Church. The sacrament of reconciliation is a sacrament of healing; healing the damage we cause in our relationship with God and His Church because of our sin. In today’s world of political correctness and a society where we are discouraged from actually holding people accountable for their actions, where there seems to be no consequence for actions, we are reminded that as disciples of Christ we are called to acknowledge our sins and reconcile ourselves. Sin still exists even though it seems in today’s society that we are not supposed to talk about sin. But the fact is we are a sinful people; that is our nature after the fall of Adam and Eve. St Augustine said, “Man and Sinner are two realities; “man”—this is what God has made; “sinner” –this is what man himself has made. Destroy what you [we] have made [sin] so that God may save what He has made.” We have enormous hope, thanks to Jesus, who instituted for us this healing sacrament of reconciliation. Our individual challenge is to overcome our pride, overcome any internal shame we might feel of confessing our shortfalls. It is necessary that we do so, for the grace we gain from the Sacrament can’t do for us what it intends, if we don’t. We read in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “When Christ’s faithful strive to confess all the sins that they can remember, they undoubtedly place all of them before the divine mercy for pardon. But those who fail to do so and knowingly withhold some, place nothing before the divine goodness for remission through the mediation of the priest, “for if the sick person is too ashamed to show his wound to the doctor, the medicine cannot heal what it does not know”.”

     We know we fall short; we know we fail; we know we are a broken, sinful people, but we have the “remedy”. Jesus made it available to all the baptized faithful. We owe it to ourselves to take maximum advantage of it. Let Jesus heal us.

                                                                                                                                                                                           Deacon Chuck Hoppe