That first Easter Sunday night Jesus
appeared to the Apostles, hidden in the Upper Room, and breathed on them the
Holy Spirit and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you
forgive will be forgiven and whose sins you hold bound shall be held bound.”
(Jn. 20:21-23)
At this precise moment Jesus was
instituting the Sacrament of Confession, giving ordained priests the power to
forgive sins in His name. How exceedingly grateful we should be for the Easter
Gift that the Lord Jesus gave to the Church and for its individual members.
We would like to encourage all to
take advantage of this infinite ocean of God’s mercy by frequenting this
Sacrament often, with an excellent preparation and with a limitless trust in
His Infinite mercy.
We will offer five wonderful effects
that the Sacrament of Confession can produce in your tired and weary soul.
Jesus invites you to come. “Come to me all you who labor and I will
give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and
humble of heart; and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and
my burden is light.”(Mt. 11:28-30)
1.
SANCTIFYING GRACE. By making a good sacramental confession,
Jesus forgives mortal sins, through the person of the priest, and the state of
sanctifying grace is restored to the soul.
Once again the soul is alive!
2.
HUMILITY. To examine one’s conscience, come to terms
with his misery and dark shadows, to repent and then to go to the priest and
sincerely open up one’s heart demands courage and much humility. But God loves
the humble of heart.
3.
SELF-KNOWLEDGE. By approaching the Sacrament of God’s mercy,
after a thorough examination of conscience, and a humble expression of our sins to the priest, we arrive at greater
self-knowledge. We get to know what makes our inner clock tick; we get to know
our strong points, but we also get to know our own “Kryptonite”--- that is to
say, our own weakness. With this self-knowledge, we can avoid future moral
pitfalls. Historians are well aware of this maxim: “He who does not know history is condemned to
repeat the same errors.” With respect to
our spiritual life, if we do not know why, when, the reasons behind our falling
in to sins, we are more than likely to fall into them again. This is the vicious cycle of repeating the
same sins ad-infinitum!
4.
BETTER HOLY COMMUNIONS! Saint Ignatius of Loyola, who encourages the
making of a General Confession, also makes this observation. After making a
good general confession, the individual is much more inclined to receiving Holy
Communion with a much better disposition. An analogy! You clean your windows with WINDEX. Notice
now how the sunlight will enter and inundate your room much more. Why? The reason is simple: the window is crystal
clear. The sun has nothing to prevent it from penetrating and inundating the
room to the fullest possible extent! Therefore, the purer the soul, the more abundant the light of
God’s grace!
5.
PEACE OF HEART, MIND AND SOUL. In Shakespeare’s tragedy, Lady Macbeth was
not at peace and had to wash her hands over and over. This was symbolic of the
cleansing of her conscience. Many people today live nervous, stressed out,
tense, discouraged and depressed. Worse yet, they do not even know the reason
for this anguished state of soul. The reason is simple and one word: SIN!
Unconfessed sin that lodges in the depths of the heart, and torments the
conscience takes away inner peace. Why
not today pursue this inner peace by making a good sacramental Confession. The
words of dismissal from the priest are most encouraging: “Your sins are
forgiven. Go in peace!”
1.
SANCTIFYING GRACE. By making a good sacramental confession,
Jesus forgives mortal sins, through the person of the priest, and the state of
sanctifying grace is restored to the soul.
Once again the soul is alive!
