Call to Confession

I think God sometimes calls us to confession, or at least he sometimes does to me. It seems like He … well, let me just give you an example which came to mind this morning.

Sis was still alive, although fighting her cancer, when I visited her one Thanksgiving week about 5 years ago. I got up early one morning while there and went to mass and stayed afterwards to read the Office. It didn’t go unnoticed by me that the gospel that day spoke of confession, and then so did the daily readings which I read alone in the quiet of the church. While contemplating them, an un-confessed sin of mine came to mind – or was it really a sin? I remember that I had debated in my mind about whether the sin was just one of those many little imperfections of mine, or was it something more serious. But my musings that morning didn’t seem to clear things up in my mind, and I left the church with some lingering doubts.

Later, back at the hotel I stayed at when visiting sis, I had breakfast and turned on my computer to check on how things were going back at the office. This was something I felt compelled to do whenever I traveled, because you know, the company might well fold in my “critical” absence. (Perhaps it’s deranged thinking like that which helps explain why I am so easily confused about sin. :-) ) At any rate, I dashed a short note to a friend at work about my musings and my “sin”, and the “coincidental” readings about confession that morning. (Sheesh! Looking back, I was confessing to her, but not God!) Although she was a Protestant, she wrote back rather strongly: “Listen to God! Go to confession.” I chuckled at her reply and responded back: “Okay, I’ll look into it the next morning,” when I again go to mass.

Well, to be honest, I forgot all about the exchange the next day, as I went to mass and then again enjoyed the quiet afterwards. This time I had brought a book by one of the saints to read and meditate upon after mass, when all of a sudden there in the words, there it was again: “you need to confess!” Good grief, I get it already! Alright Lord, I said aloud in the empty church, if there is a priest available as I leave this church today, I’ll ask to go to confession.

About a half hour later I walked out, thinking about what to have for breakfast when there, in the entranceway of the church, stood a priest. He was one I had never seen before in this church which I was visiting. His unexpected presence caught me unawares, and I paused in surprise for only a second, but it was enough. He sensed me, turned, and asked: “Can I help you?”

I asked him to hear my confession, if he had the time. He said: “Of course!” He then led me to his office in an area of the church I had never seen before, and let me have a couple of quiet minutes to collect my thoughts, and then I blurted out all that was troubling me, including sis’ cancer fight. Afterwards he said, “I know just the right penance for you. I want you to go back into the church and read and meditate on, um … let me see here … ah, here it is: Matthew 6:25.”

I laughed out loud, very loud, startling him. The Lord has such a sense of humor at times. “Yes, Father, I think I’ll be able to do that. It is my favorite passage in the whole bible. My own copy is heavily marked there. It starts out: ‘Do not be anxious.’”

God is so good to me. I hope you can appreciate the grace God gave me that day, the knowledge that in my prayers, and in my trials, he would not leave me alone. He wanted my confession that day so that he and I could be as close as we could be. In confession, we could talk things out, and there would be no more misunderstandings between us. He would always be there as my best friend.

Such consolations are yours to be had also, my friends, if you but listen to his call, as I did. He is there. Like for me, he does wait for you to respond. You don’t have to jump when he calls. Like me, you can wait and think things over. He won’t give up. He’ll still be there. And perhaps when you and he speak he’ll give you something to laugh at, through your tears, as he did me. He makes all things right.

Peace.