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One More Life

A wave of nausea washes over me and I grip the edge of the kitchen counter.  Children and chaos swirl around me as I struggle to maintain my composure while giving voice to restore order.  No matter that I have tried to explain to my older children a thousand times before, no matter that they themselves have just recently recovered from the stomach flu and should be able to sympathize a bit.

No matter.

Being infertile for 6 years has afforded me an excuse of amnesia.  I have simply forgotten.  Forgotten what it is like to be 2 months pregnant.  Forgotten the nausea and fatigue.  Add to that a houseful of children and the duties of homeschooling, and you end up with one bewildered and exhausted Mama.

But I wouldn’t change it for anything.

We are so blessed to add one more life to our little family.  We have 5 lively children that grace the halls of our home.  2 more we will meet in heaven.  It was with great sorrow that my children bid good-bye to their two siblings.  It was with a heavy heart that I had to tell them that the baby in my tummy had died.  Twice is two times too many.  And as they watched other families add to the joy of their homes, my children would turn to me and ask “When? When will we have another baby, Mama?”

So I told them to pray.  Pray hard, my little ones.  Maybe God will grant us one more blessing.  One more little set of toes to kiss, of fingers to curl around ours.  One more gurgle, one more newborn belly-laugh.

And much to the joy and wonder of us all, He has.

Megan is an independent contributor to MetroCatholic publications. She publishes the blog Life in a Nutshell under the Pseudonym “Nutmeg” where she writes about her joyous (and sometimes not-so-joyous) days homeschooling her 5 children.

Social Obligations, Charity, and the State

Whenever we institute structures to benefit society, we risk allowing those structures to take over our responsibilities, but I wouldn’t say that such a risk is reason never to institute them. It’s not as thought the face of suffering that motivates our charity will disappear: even the most perfect social program couldn’t help everyone or diminish all suffering. Individual obligations will abound in even the most socialized state.

Social programs and institutions can be a very effective means for individuals to come together as a society to care for one another. We can exercise virtue through our participation in institutions—that’s an idea behind the Catholic Church: we seek and find salvation not as individuals but as part of a community, the Body of Christ. The state, of course, isn’t a church, but the basic underlying principle remains. Specifically, the state allows us to seek and find justice and practice charity not only as individuals, but as part of a community of citizens.

Likes all ways of life, living in the state requires a particular disposition, a particular virtue: citizenship, in this case. The citizen must remember that the state is a means to an end, a way we meet social obligations. It is not something “over there,” detached from us, something to which we should hand over our obligations. If virtue is, as Aristotle taught, a mean between excess and defect, the virtue of citizenship is found not in ignoring social obligations (defect) or in handing them over to the state (excess), but in appropriately and prudently using the state as an instrument to meet obligations.

Leaving the Jail

John 1:1-5

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be.  What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

Have you ever wondered what the pre-incarnate Christ was up to before the incarnation?  I have never really thought about it before.  He was in the beginning.  He is the word of God.  The word was with God in the beginning.  I never thought of the pre-incarnate Christ standing next to the father in the beginning.  All things were made for him and through him- Christ participated in creation.  God the father made creation out of love for the son.  He made us for Christ and both have loved us like they love each other. 

Now, imagine how they felt when Adam and Eve fell to temptation and forever separated themselves from the love of God.  Imagine how devastated they were when the effects of that fall passed through the generations and their beautiful creations chose to die rather than be with God.  Imagine how desperate they were to find a way to save us from ourselves.  So, they came to our level.  They came to us.  Christ took upon our humanity to bring us the message of God’s love.  And then he paid the price for our sin.  He showed us God’s unending and overwhelming love for us by dying an innocent and horrible death so that we may have a way back to God. 

Christ’s death on the cross is such a mystery to me.  I am a very logical thinker and logic is not very clear in this act by Christ.  My finite brain has a hard time wrapping itself around this event which is frustrating because this is the major event for Christianity.  This is the defining moment for us.  This event restored our relationship with God and allowed him to touch us with his love in a whole new way. 

Dying for someone is the ultimate act of love.  But Christ didn’t just die for us.  It’s not like he pushed us out of harm’s way from a speeding train and ended up getting killed.  No, Christ’s death was a lot more complicated.  Our punishment for original sin is separation from God- a spiritual death.  We were not going to be spending eternity with God because of our sinful nature.  Our sin got us the death sentence.  That is our punishment.  So, imagine your children get into trouble and end up on death row.  What would you do?  Not only can you not share in the wonderful life you dreamed for them, but you know that they are going to die there and you will never see them again.  That is what God felt for us.  So, he went to work.  You can see him working all over the Old Testament making covenants and making more covenants when covenants were broken.  He molded a nation so that at least some of his earthly children would be somewhat prepared to recognize him when he did come to earth to bargain for our lives.  And then he did come and walk among his children- he came to the jail.  He taught about life outside of the jail.  And then he talked the jailer into taking his life instead of ours.  He volunteered to serve our death sentence- our horrible death sentence.  And when the hour came, he was killed.  And at that moment, we were set free.  We were free to leave the jail.

I think that is where we are.  We are all sitting in the jail and God is inviting us out.  He is inviting us to take his son’s hand and walk out.  He wants us to feel the sun on our face and the fresh air in our lungs.  He wants us to see the vivid colors he painted in the sky as the sun takes upon a new day.  He wants us to feel the warm sand between our toes and hear the beautiful songs he gave the birds.  He wants us to experience life the way he created it for us.  All we have to do is take Christ by the hand and walk out.

Sounds inviting doesn’t it?  It sounds like a dream come true for us criminals.  But, I think that it is harder to walk out of that jail then we realize.  We are taken care of in that jail.  They give us meals, a roof over our head and provide books and TV and the like to help us pass the time.  We are comfortable.  We have been in the jail so long that we have forgotten about what the outside world is like.  The experience of God’s perfect world has become a myth- a story of long ago meant for dreamers or crazy people.  The world we know is the jail and the world outside the jail is the unknown.  Leaving that jail takes faith. 

God knows how hard it is for us to leave.  Although it breaks his heart that the children he died for are so reluctant to claim their lives with him, he understands that leaving the jail is a struggle.  That is why he gives us so much to help- scripture, the sacraments, the church, angels, graces, and most of all, the Holy Spirit.  He is hoping that we will leave and not go back.  That we will take Christ by the hand and follow him to the life God wants us to experience.  That we will accept the love poured out to us in the cross and live in it.  He is waiting for us with open and loving arms.  So, will you do it?  Will you step into the unknown and leave the jail?  I can only imagine the joy on Christ’s face when you reach for his hand.

Lori is a stay-at-home mom to her two boys and the children she loves on during the day at her home daycare.  She loving supports her Husband’s calling as a High School Band Director.  Originally from New Orleans, she was raised in the Southern Baptist Church and converted to the Catholic faith while in college.  When she has a rare free moment, she publishes her thoughts and musings at www.lorislifeandtimes.blogspot.com.

Love

Love.  Now that is a big word.  Just when I think I have learned enough to figure out love, I find that I am just scrapping the iceberg.  I know that I crave love.  I know that I need love more than I realize.  I know that love belongs in my being like water belongs in a well.  The desire to find that water to fill my soul is overwhelming.  That desire has driven me to my knees.  It has meant the choice between happiness and despair.  I have found that love is where I am made to live.

I have been learning about triune love- the love of God- the love of the trinity.  Altruistic love is a completely unselfish love that two beings share.  It is a love that gives everything of one’s self to another and expects nothing in return.  It is loving someone for who they are and not for what they have done or accomplished or have given.  In the trinity, the Father and the Son share this perfect altruistic love for one another.  Their love is so powerful that it takes on a being all its own in the Holy Spirit.

God created man in his own image.  Our souls are vessels to hold love.  Our souls need this love like our lungs need air.  God desires with all of his being to share this love with us.  He wants so much to fill our souls.  But we have to say yes.  We have to choose it.  What would this love mean to us if he didn’t give us the choice to choose it?  What kind of lover forces his love on his beloved?  God loves us so much that he wants us to choose his love.  He is patient enough to give us our lifetime to make this choice.  His desire to share love with us is greater than we can ever imagine.

Because of original sin, we have been separated from God.  Our ability to share in his love was greatly compromised when Adam chose to believe a lie.  God has gone to great lengths to restore that relationship with us.  God’s desire to give that love to us drove him to do the unthinkable.  God gave up his beloved for us.  The father sacrificed the second person of the trinity for us.  He gave us the object of his powerful love.  And Christ, for the love of us and the Father also did the unthinkable.  He chose to leave the father’s presence and come to earth and become vulnerable to us.  He became a helpless baby.  He became a man in a world absent of the love that possessed every ounce his very being.  He delivered the message of divine love to a generation that didn’t understand it or accept it.  And when they rejected him, he continued to give- to love.  When they couldn’t or wouldn’t understand His message, he showed them- he showed us.  He completely gave himself to us.  He took upon himself the punishment of our sin.  He sacrificed himself so that we may share in the powerful love of God.  This act by Christ is a mystery that I will spend my life unraveling.  But I know that the love God shows us in this act is greater than my mind can imagine and my heart can understand.

So how do I grab a hold of this love?  How do I come to accept the love of God and let it flow in my soul?  Its one thing to say that I want to accept the love- but it’s an entirely different thing to actually do it.  I am learning that accepting this love is a process.  He gives me as much as I am ready to receive.  I have chosen Christ.  I am open to him.  I have shared my life and I daily invite him to live in my soul.  But I found that it doesn’t stop there.  He asks for something greater from me.  He wants me to love him like he loves me.  Am I even capable of this kind of love?  After suffering rejection and humiliation by the people he loved, he got up on a cross and died a horrible death so that I may share in eternal life with God.  Is it possible for me to return this kind of love?  I know that he doesn’t expect me to because altruistic love has no expectations.  But I feel him asking me to try it.  I think that the more I love, the more love I am able to accept.  Sacrifice of one’s self to the other is the birth of this perfect love.  I have to sacrifice my humanity. I have to surrender. 

To surrender is to give up control.  To surrender is to place myself in his hands.  To surrender is to make His will my will.  Out of love, he gave his life for me so I must surrender my life to him .  I must free fall backwards into the arms of God- arms I cannot see with my humanity but whose strength I must trust with my spirit.  I must let him take the wheel, let my life be his and allow him to live through me. 

Even though I am the biggest control freak on the planet, over time I have managed to surrender some aspects of my life to God.   And in each surrender, love flows.  Love abundantly flows.  It fills my soul and overflows into every aspect of my life.  My spirit experiences a joy that words fail to describe- a joy that transcends my daily struggles.  So that even though the storm rages all around, as long as my focus is on my Lord, the joy sustains me and the love flows.

Not only do I find joy in the surrender, but I find freedom.  When I completely surrender to the Lord, freedom reigns.  First, trust drives out fear which allows peace to replace worry.  Then love flows more freely and joy overtakes my spirit.  I am free to be loved, free to give love and free to live the life God wants me to experience.  I am free to do the one thing I am made to do- worship and love my God.

Lori is a stay-at-home mom to her two boys and the children she loves on during the day at her home daycare.  She loving supports her Husband’s calling as a High School Band Director.  Originally from New Orleans, she was raised in the Southern Baptist Church and converted to the Catholic faith while in college.  When she has a rare free moment, she publishes her thoughts and musings at www.lorislifeandtimes.blogspot.com.

A flyer on Dr. Richard Gaillardetz

Someone has been doing some additional research on Dr. Richard Gaillardetz (pronounced gah-lard-eez), the University of Toledo ‘theologian’ who will be the speaker at the upcoming Lenten retreat being held at St. Mark the Evangelist in Plano.  Although I have been quite concerned about bringing Dr. Gaillardetz to speak on marital (or several other) matters, this is not my work.  Check this out:

I know that a number of people have been concerned about this conference, and the defense that “he’s a theologian, it’s a theologian’s job to question the Church” doesn’t hold water, in particular his views on ‘non-traditional married unions’ and contraception.  Given that one primary topic Dr. Gaillardetz will be discussing is the Sacrament of Matrimony, it’s a good bet that questions on the Church’s doctrine on contraception and gay marriage will come up.  Will Dr. Gaillardetz present the Church’s infallible doctrine on these subjects clearly, or will he interpret it through dissenting beliefs?  That’s a serious question, and judging from his commentary on this blog, it’s not one that I think can be answered positively from an orthodox viewpoint. 

I had read, with great dismay, this weekend Gaillardetz’ argument that items not dogmatically defined by Church councils, but those traditional items believed by the Church that are defined through the Magisterium and through certain Papal authorities (the ordinary universal magisterium) may not constitute truly infallible teachings, but only are infallible insofar as they remain ‘uncontroversial.’  Once they become ‘controversial,’ these teachings would no longer be infallible.  My jaw hit the floor when, being pressed by another theologian, Dr. Lawrence Welch, Dr. Gaillardetz asserted that even such a part of the ordinary universal magisterium as the RESURRECTION could become controversial, and, thus, fallible, if it became controversial.  In essence, anything that is not dogmatically and specifically defined by a Church council could become a fallible, less than certain doctrine of the Church.  Anything.   And who typically generates this controversy?  Why, theologians, like Dr. Gaillardetz!   One could wonder at the emotions in play as a theologian arrogates to himself and other theologians the authority to dictate the doctrine of the Church. 

Dr. Gaillardetz shares this view with one of his heroes and mentors, Richard McBrien, that well known Notre Dame ‘theologian’ and dissenter from too  many Church doctrines to list.  Both have argued it would be reasonable to replace the current magisterium with one consisting of…….wait for it……theologians!  It’s nothing if not ironic. 

This may sound like a small thing, but  it’s huge.  As I’ve read more on Gaillardetz, I’ve become convinced that he thinks all teachings of the Church, save for those dogmatically defined in a Church council, are up for grabs, in a sense, and subject to a continuing reevaluation based on the mores of the faithful at the time.  It is very hard not to see this as moral relativism.  I’m not the only one who sees Gaillardetz views of the authority of the Church in the magisterium as a view tending towards legitimizing cafeteria catholicism.

.pdf of the flier below.   I believe you are free to pass it around, if you so wish.

Dr Gaillardetz flyer1

Cross posted at http://veneremurcernui.wordpress.com

A Tale of Two City Magazines

-by Kyle Cupp

I recently received two locally-published magazines in the mail addressed to the resident of my address—or possibly someone named Resident, a cruelty that would give credence to my position that parent-given names should require the approval of city council or at least the parent’s pastor. In any case, the two magazines tell complementary stories about what it means to be a resident of this fair city. Let me note that I live in one of the fastest growing and most affluent cities in the country. Its median family income has shot up in the past decade from under eighty grand to over six figures. Billboards in neighboring cities advertize our schools to housing developments that fall into our independent school district. We have more restaurants than I could ever possibly sample even if I made something approaching the median income. Concrete parking lots seem to span miles. We have everything imaginable, it seems: consignment shops, designer clothing stores, malls, a store devoted entirely to soccer, another that sells only yogurt, mega churches, and a thirty-foot marble statue of me. Okay, I’m still fixing to make that last dream a reality. My efforts to change the redundant city motto, “Progress in motion,” have kept me busy and made me powerful enemies, so the progress towards my statue hasn’t been in much motion.

The first magazine I received is our unofficial city magazine, a publication that seeks to capture the style of the city. This particular issue has stories about the city’s past and current economic development. We could easily have become another bedroom community, but an early push to make shopping available in the city, while difficult at times, paid off over the years. Our city has a fascinating history of dreams, hopes, risks, benefits, and immense growth. We have successfully become a city marked by mass consumption.

Economic prosperity can be a great thing; in no way do I mean to pooh-pooh it in itself. I live in a fabulous place to raise a family: we have plenty to do, top-notch schools, a relatively safe environment. All we’re really missing is a massive statue of yours truly, but that’ll come in time. That said, the consumerism of this place does seem to be a foundational and fundamental aspect of who we are as residents. To be a character in our city’s story would seem to mean being a consumer.

The second magazine, a publication about living in these parts, features a cover story about becoming a new person through plastic surgery. Another prominent article shows us the 10 shoes every woman really needs. The managing editor writes about how great skin is a foundation for beauty and how we need to feel pretty in order to be pretty. There doesn’t seem to be much difference between the articles and the barrage of advertisements for spas, ultra-white teeth, style floors, home theaters, hospitals, laser body sculpting, white teeth, weight loss, sports orthopedics, more white teeth, stores that proudly sell city apparel, galas, resorts, crawfish, tummy tucks, and divorce lawyers.

I can’t say that my story coheres much with the narrated identity of my city illustrated by these magazines, though I’m not so above or below it all to conclude that the consumerism of this city could never define me. I’m not looking for a plastic surgeon right now, but if I actually had expendable income, I’d be happily browsing and buying from the stores devoted to videogames, computers, and books. So while I cannot very well participate in this city’s story of consumption, I cannot claim at heart to be an antagonist in the tale. I’m in the background, waiting for the plot to push me into the foreground, waiting to be made a center-stage champion of consumerism, waiting for the city to award me with a statue. Of course, were I to embrace consumerism wholeheartedly, I would only be waiting to be, at the end of my days, miserable. A deeper drama underlies our fears of economic collapse: we may get everything we want and find, in time, only misery. At least people will know where to look for divorce lawyers.

Kyle Cupp is an independent contributor to MetroCatholic publications. Kyle publishes the blog Journeys in Alterity, which features his thoughts on culture, hermeneutics, language, literature, moral dilemmas, personal life, philosophy, politics, postmodernism, and religion.

An Exchange of Hearts

- by Lori

I am taking a catechism class at church.  We are reading Catholic Christianity by Kreeft which is an explanation of the Catechism.  I have only gotten through the first chapter, but so far I am really impressed.  I am especially impressed and excited about his take on salvation theology.  You see, I have this debate always going on in my head.  I was raised Protestant.  I was taught  doctrine of the Protestant faith for the first 18 years of my life.  I can’t just shake that off.  I know to the depths of my soul that the Catholic faith is true, but I can just forget 18 years of Protestant education. So when I stumble across something that the two can agree on rather than debate about, I find a little peace.

In the Baptist church I was raised in, you are saved when you pray a special, simple prayer.  Basically, you ask God for forgiveness for the way you have been living your life and you invite Jesus to live in your heart.  By praying this prayer, you acknowledge that you believe in Jesus and that he wants to have a relationship with you.  By inviting Him into your heart, you are engaging Him in that relationship and thus you gain salvation.  It is a very simple process and also a very life changing process.

The Catholic Faith doesn’t make it quite that plain and simple. But according to Kreeft, the Catechism does explain a very similar process.  Faith is given to us by God.  It is handed down to us through the Church.  God places the desire for faith in us through the Holy Spirit.  We have a choice.  We can either accept the faith and open the door to our soul and invite God in our lives, or we can reject it.  When we open the door and let God into our soul, we are choosing to act on the Faith.  Salvation is the presence of God in our soul.  So by acting on the Faith and allowing God into our soul, we gain salvation.

So, as you can see, the Protestants and Catholics agree here.  God must be present in our hearts/soul in order for us to gain salvation.  Now there are several other points about salvation that Catholics and Protestants can debate, but I am not going to go into those in this blog.  I would like to savor this little bit of peace for right now.

There are several things that Catholics can learn from Protestants.  One is the process they use to become saved.  They have a conversion experience.  They give Jesus their broken lives, broken families, broken friendships, and broken hearts.  And they allow Jesus to work in them.  They allow Him to change them.  They trust Him to fix the wrong in their lives so they might be able to walk closer with Him.  They allow Jesus to use them.  They allow Jesus to reign in their soul.

When I was five, I prayed the special, simple prayer.  I didn’t really have anything broken inside me yet, but I know I was changed.  Jesus did engage me in a personal relationship on that day.  As I grew up, I sought after Him.  I learned more about Him.  I prayed to Him.  I tried to be the person He wanted me to be.  The more I sought after Him, the more strained my relationship with the Baptist church became.  And then He led me out door of the Baptist church and into the door of a Catholic church which was the last place I thought I would ever be.  But I followed Him.  And when I finally got there and understood what was going on in the Mass- not just with my intellect, but with my spirit, I was so humbled.  All these years, I was handing Jesus my heart.  I was giving him my everything.  I even went so far as to leave the faith of my family and friends to go to this strange church.  And when I first got there, I was sure that Jesus was nuts.  Why was I at a Catholic Mass?  But then I looked at the sacrifice on the altar, and I finally understood what Jesus was doing for me.  All these years, I had been handing Jesus my heart, and up there on the altar, Jesus was handing me His.  My hunger for the Eucharist began on that day.

Naturally, one of the first books I bought when I decided to convert was a book on Eucharistic miracles.  I wanted to know more about the Eucharist.  The other day, I was re-reading it and this one miracle really struck a chord.  In the 8th century in Lanciano, Italy, the blessed sacrament actually became a piece of flesh and the wine became real blood.  This miracle has been preserved and is still on display today.  In the seventies, they ran some tests on the preserved flesh and found that it was from the human heart.

The invitation for Jesus to live in our hearts is not one sided.  Just as the three persons in the trinity completely give themselves over to each other, Jesus desires to give Himself to us and hopes we have the same desire to give ourselves to Him.  Yes, we should invite Him into our hearts.  We should invite Him to reign in our souls, but He is offering us something too.  He is offering us His heart.  His perfect heart that He sacrificed on the cross.  The heart that stopped beating for our sin.  The heart that rose from the dead and gained salvation for mankind.  He gives us His heart in the Eucharist and He hopes that we will come to the table and meet Him there.  And that we will share in His gift, be swept up in His love and allow Him to reign in our souls.  In exchange for our hearts, He offers us His.

It is my greatest desire that I live long enough to die to my humanity and allow Jesus to completely reign in my soul.  When I prayed that special, simple prayer all those years ago, a process began.  The prayer I prayed embraced my justification before the Lord and it started my sanctification.  It started the life-long conversion process that is leading me to my God.  In order to get me there, Jesus is giving me His heart. He is leading the way.  He is holding my hand and sometimes carrying me on the dark and stormy ill traveled road. And when I get to the end of that road and stand before the Father, it is my hope that He will not see me.  That my life will have been one where I died to my humanity and allowed Christ to live in me and through me.  May the Father see His Son who has dressed me in His salvation and reigned in my soul.

Lori is a stay-at-home mom to her two boys and the children she loves on during the day at her home daycare.  She loving supports her Husband’s calling as a High School Band Director.  Originally from New Orleans, she was raised in the Southern Baptist Church and converted to the Catholic faith while in college.  When she has a rare free moment, she publishes her thoughts and musings at www.lorislifeandtimes.blogspot.com.

On Reading

-by Kyle Cupp

The philosopher Paul Ricoeur compared reading a text to the execution of a musical score, an analogy that highlights the plurality of possible readings while keeping those readings situated in the text. Just as each musical performance of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto differs from all others, even those others performed by the same musician, while still remaining true (or false) to the score, so too will each reading of Moby-Dick differ and realize new semantic possibilities of Melville’s novel. Each reading of a text and each execution of a score involves interpretation; each interpretation brings forth more than the intended and inherent meanings of the text and sheet. What the author and composer write functions more as a guide for interpretation than a dictator of meaning. Nevertheless, the reader has no more liberty to make the text mean anything he wants it to mean than the musician has the liberty to play impromptu melodies when performing Chopin. Reading is an exercise of pluralism, not relativism. It gives birth to a surplus of meaning, not its absence.

Kyle Cupp is an independent contributor to MetroCatholic publications. Kyle publishes the blog Journeys in Alterity, which features his thoughts on culture, hermeneutics, language, literature, moral dilemmas, personal life, philosophy, politics, postmodernism, and religion.

Is Scott Brown’s Victory in Massachusetts a Victory for Pro-Life?

This morning I read an article from the Washington Post that claims Senator-elect Scott Brown is pro-choice but against partial birth abortions.  Well aren’t we blessed to have such a morally upright man represent us in Congress.  While I was initially excited as to the signal this win would send to Washington and the far-left leaning agenda promoters, I now question whether the citizens of Massachusetts are sending a man who truly opposes the funding of abortion in the current federal healthcare bill(s) or if he merely opposes it because that is what made him different from his opponent and thus more popular with his Massachusetts constituents.  In my humble opinion, Brown’s win may be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.  The Magisterium of the Church allows for us to vote for a pro-abortion candidate if both candidates possess the same views but one candidate’s views on other grave matters align more closely with the Church, as is the case with Brown favoring a ban on partial birth abortion and embryonic stem cell research while his opponent does not.  Please stand your ground and send a clear message that the lesser of two evils is not good enough for the millions of pre-born infants who’s lives  have been terminated in their mothers’ wombs and who will continue to be terminated until we can elect true pro-life candidates.

When I Embrace Reconciliation

“‘As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained’” (John 20:21–23)

I admit it. I am addicted to reconciliation. Not in a million years did I think that I would WANT to utilize this sacrament-especially since I have a fear of trusting anyone in ministry. But, now that I have utilized it, I can’t seem to get enough of it.

When I was growing up in the Southern Baptist Church, I was taught that the Catholic’s practice of reconciliation was not necessary. I was taught that confession directly to almighty God through prayer is all that is needed for forgiveness of sins. Although my Southern Baptist brothers and sisters are correct in that confession directly to God will forgive their sins, they are overlooking a great gift Jesus gives us in reconciliation.

I wasn’t sold on the idea of reconciliation when I first became Catholic. I didn’t really understand why I should confess my sins to a perfect stranger. To tell you the truth, I never really thought about my sins. As a Southern Baptist, we weren’t taught to focus on what we had done wrong, but to try to move on and live right. God has already forgiven us when we invited Jesus to live in our hearts so there was no need to ask for forgiveness unless you did something really wrong. So, when I became Catholic, the whole thing didn’t make sense to me. I hadn’t murdered anyone, so why did I need to go to confession? It wasn’t until I started studying the bible through the eyes of a Catholic that I understood how Jesus established this great sacrament in order to bring us closer to Him.

In his letter, the Apostle James says that we should confess our sins to one another(James 5:16). This was common practice during Jesus’ ministry and the early church. As the church developed, what had begun as a public confession of one’s sins turned into a confession to a representative of the community- a Priest. The Priest as the confessor makes perfect sense when you read John 20:21-23(above). Jesus intended for the Priest to hear and forgive the sins of the people, just like He heard and forgave the sins of the people who followed Him during his time on earth.

Throughout the gospels, you can see how Christ experienced all of His humanity. He felt all the human emotions. He knows what it feels like to be happy, sad, angry, hurt, or scared because He felt it as a flesh and blood human. Christ knows how important it is for us to face our emotions so that we can live in His love. Jesus understands that humans need to say it out loud with their own voices to other Christians where they have failed. When we do this, we are forced to put our faults it into words which helps us to understand their impact and to work through our emotions. When we acknowledge our failings, we can begin to heal the damage those choices have made and find peace. Jesus knows that our voices need to say it out loud and our words need to be heard by trusted ears so we can grasp that acknowledgement and deal with our emotions. And our ears especially need to hear a human voice say that God loves us and forgives us. Our spirits need to feel Christ lift those burdens from our shoulders. And this is why He gave us the sacrament of reconciliation.

In the few times I have gone, I have had a great experience. The Priest always says something that blows me away. His words have given me confirmation of something God laid on my heart or direction on something I needed to do. Sometimes the words that spilled out of the Priest’s mouth are the same exact words a friend said to me or something I read in a book or an article or the bible that didn’t really make a whole lot of sense until that moment. Every time I go and give a voice my failings and ask for forgiveness from God with the Priest, those obstacles that were between me and God are lifted and the communication I have with God is that much clearer. And the Priest is the catalyst of that communication. It’s a really interesting and amazing experience for this simple girl who stumbled upon the Catholic faith.

I wish I can say that I have been to reconciliation many times, but I haven’t. I do have trust issues with people in ministry that I am working to heal. Becoming vulnerable to a Priest is still not easy for me. But now that I have been a few times, I find myself examining my conscience more often. Every time I go, I let a little less time pass between visits. I suppose my mind and my heart are feeling the value of the confession while my spirit is anticipating and craving that next close and unique encounter with our Lord. And every time I have the courage to walk through that door and trust the Priest and ask for God’s forgiveness, a little more of the wall is torn down which allows a little more of Christ to live in me.

 Lori is a stay-at-home mom to her two boys and the children she loves on during the day at her home daycare.  She loving supports her Husband’s calling as a High School Band Director.  Originally from New Orleans, she was raised in the Southern Baptist Church and converted to the Catholic faith while in college.  When she has a rare free moment, she publishes her thoughts and musings at www.lorislifeandtimes.blogspot.com.

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