Five Ways to Improve Your Prayer Life

The following comes from Fr. Broom at the Catholic Exchange:

How much time and energy is exerted in obtaining a degree from some prestigious University?  How much blood, sweat and tears are expended to win a trophy from some sporting event? How much time and energy can even be consumed in preparing for a surprise Birthday party?   If we can expend so much time, money, emotional and physical energy for such natural pursuits, should we not at least expend more of our time and energy in what is the greatest of all arts, “The art of all arts” and that is learning the Practice of Prayer?

St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church, calls prayer the key to salvation and following are five short, clear and concrete steps we can undertake to improve our personal prayer life, grow in holiness, be a source of holiness to many others and experience a nearly constant peace and overflowing joy!

1.    Conviction. First, we must be convinced of the importance of prayer in our life and for our eternal salvation.  St. Alphonsus expresses it concisely: “He who prays will be saved; he who does not pray will be damned.” St. John Damascene defines prayer: “Lifting of the mind and heart to God.” St. Augustine has a catchy way of expressing the indispensable character of prayer: “He who prays well lives well; he who lives well dies well; and for he who dies well, all is well.”  A final easy analogy: as air is to the lungs, so must prayer be to our soul.  No air for the lungs, death arrives quickly. Likewise, the prayer-less person can easily fall prey to temptation and fall into mortal sin and lose out on God’s Friendship.

2.     Confession.   If we are not at peace with God, if our conscience is reproaching us, if we have unforgiven and unconfessed sins we will find that talking face to face with God as friends will be all the more difficult. If we hurt our friend, we apologize, seek forgiveness, and then return to amicable relations.

3.    Set a time and a place to pray.  Man is a creature of habit. We do certain things every day at the same time and place.  Of capital importance should be to form the habit of prayer. This habit will result in our salvation and possibly the salvation of many others.  We can pray at any time and any place and in any circumstance. However, there are “Prime times” that we should pray. Morning prayer upon arising from sleep, grace before meals, before going on a trip, the family Rosary in the evening before dinner, and night prayers—these are traditional times for prayer.

4.    Mass and Holy Communion.  By far the greatest prayer in the world is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Sunday Mass is obligatory, under pain of mortal sin. However, if we are truly in love with God, we should not aim for the minimum but rather the maximum!   The greatest action and gesture under the heavens that will lead us to eternal life in heaven is to assist at Holy Mass and receive Holy Communion fervently, humbly, and with great confidence.  The angels in heaven experience a holy envy towards us because even the greatest of angels cannot receive Jesus in Holy Communion. How privileged we really are!

5.     Seek Our Lady of the Rosary.  Our Lady of Fatima appeared in 1917 from May to October. In every one of the Apparitions she insisted on the praying of the Rosary. Blessed Pope John Paul II, in Blessed Virgin Mary and the Rosary, also insisted that we pray the Rosary and for two specific important intentions: 1) for world peace, 2) for the sake of the family.   The Rosary priest, Father Patrick Peyton, coined these immortal proverbs: “The family that prays together, stays together….”  And “A world at prayer is a world at peace.”   The family should find a time and place and pray the Rosary every day. May the father who is the spiritual head of the family initiate this practice, bring the family together, and persevere in this prayer for the salvation of his entire family.

If we can implement these five concrete practices in our personal prayer life then we will bring forth fruit and fruit in abundance! May Our Lady of grace inspire us to undertake a daily growth in our prayer life.

G.K. Chesterton on Confession

When people ask me, or indeed anybody else, “Why did you join the Church of Rome?” the first essential answer, if it is partly an elliptical answer, is, “To get rid of my sins.” For there is no other religious system that does really profess to get rid of people’s sins. It is confirmed by the logic, which to many seems startling, by which the Church deduces that sin confessed and adequately repented is actually abolished; and that the sinner does really begin again as if he had never sinned.

And this brought me sharply back to those visions or fancies with which I have dealt in the chapter about childhood. I spoke there of the indescribable and indestructible certitude in the soul, that those first years of innocence were the beginning of something worthy, perhaps more worthy than any of the things that actually followed them: I spoke of the strange daylight, which was something more than the light of common day, that still seems in my memory to shine on those steep roads down from Campden Hill, from which one could see the Crystal Palace from afar.

Well, when a Catholic comes from Confession, he does truly, by definition, step out again into that dawn of his own beginning and look with new eyes across the world to a Crystal Palace that is really of crystal. He believes that in that dim corner, and in that brief ritual, God has really remade him in His own image. He is now a new experiment of the Creator. He is as much a new experiment as he was when he was really only five years old. He stands, as I said, in the white light at the worthy beginning of the life of a man. The accumulations of time can no longer terrify. He may be grey and gouty; but he is only five minutes old.

-G.K. Chesterton (From his Autobiography)

Hat tip to Fr. Z

Pope Francis: What Happens in Heaven When a Sinner Enters a Confessional?

The following comes from Zenit:  

Confessionals are generally quiet, darkened places. But what does heaven look and sound like when a soul enters a confessional?

Pope Francis today invited the faithful to think about the rejoicing and celebrating in heaven when a sinner repents.

He made this invitation before praying the midday Angelus with those in St. Peter’s Square today, as he reflected on the heart of God as revealed in the three parables from Luke 18 recounted in today’s liturgy.

“A common element in these parables is expressed in the verbs that mean rejoice together, make a celebration,” the Pope noted. “Mourning is not spoken of; there is rejoicing, there is celebrating. The shepherd calls his friends and neighbors and says, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep’ (v 6). The woman calls her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found the coin that I lost’ (v. 9). And the father says to his other son: ‘now we must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found’ (v. 32).

“In the first two parables, the focus is on the joy that is so uncontainable that it must be shared with ‘friends and neighbors.’ In the third parable, the focus is on the celebration that springs from the heart of the merciful father and expands to the whole household.”

The Pope said that with these parables Jesus is presenting us with “the true face of God, a God with his arms always open, a God who deals with sinners with tenderness and compassion.”

God is waiting for us to get back up again, to rise up out of sin, the Pope explained. And “he awaits us with patience, he sees us when we are still a long way off, he runs to meet us, he embraces us, he kisses us, he forgives us. That is how God is. That is how our Father is.”

“And,” the Pope continued, “his forgiveness cancels the past and regenerates us in love. To forget the past — this is the weakness of God. When he embraces us, he forgives us, and he loses his memory. He doesn’t have memory. He forgets the past. When we sinners convert and bring ourselves to be re-encountered by God, reproaches and sternness do not await us, because God saves, he welcomes us home again with joy and makes a celebration.”

Beautiful

Jesus himself speaks of the rejoicing in Heaven, the Pontiff noted. It is Jesus who says, “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance.”

In this light, the Pope proposed a question: “Have you ever thought about how each time we go to the confessional, there is joy and celebration in heaven?” he asked. “Have you ever thought of this? It’s beautiful.”

Francis said that we can be filled with great hope, since “there is no sin in which we may have fallen, from which, with the grace of God, we cannot rise up again.”

No one is so far gone they can’t be recovered, he assured, “because God never stops wanting our good — even when we sin!”

The Pope concluded with a prayer to Our Lady, under the title of Refuge of Sinners, asking that though her intercession, the confidence of the prodigal son might well up in our hearts: “I shall get up and go to my father and I shall say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you,” the prodigal son said.

“On this path,” the Pope affirmed, “we can give glory to God, and his glory can become his celebration, and ours.”

Time for Confession

The following comes from the Crisis:

We humans can be a bit fickle sometimes. What we choose to do with our time often depends directly on how the people and places with which we associate ourselves make us feel. If we don’t feel welcome in a place, we probably don’t stay long.

If we try a place or organization out on the suggestion of other people, but never really learn or understand what it’s all about, we’re also likely out the door before long. Likewise, if we devote ourselves fully to a place or organization, only to experience betrayal at the hands of that organization, surely it won’t take long for us to find a new home.

As a result, many who see the place that was left behind from a distance, and perhaps hear horror stories from others who’ve been there, will look with hostility upon it and never go near it if they can help it.

This phenomenon occurs in a lot of places, but none as much as the Catholic Church. For tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands of people today, the instances above are, sadly, more often than not very real and very legitimate beefs.

We could talk for days about who did what to whom, ranging from petty to incredibly serious, but I’m writing this post instead as a plea to those who no longer come to Mass as a result of those experiences, to those who no longer identify as Catholic, and even those who aren’t Catholic and are skeptical about the Church, to come back, to come and see one more time.

We all have people in our lives who have left the Church—who aren’t attending Mass for one reason or another, and there’s one thing we all should encourage those people in our lives to come back and do more than anything: Come to confession.

Now, I’m not saying this because those people are heathens in need of repentance before you can re-enter or anything—heck, we’re all unworthy all the time. We’re all sinners, and we all could stand to attend confession more often.

I’m suggesting confession, because the Catholic Church is about Jesus, and confession lets us meet Him face to face.

We believe that priests, when acting in their capacity as priests (saying Mass, anointing the sick and dying, hearing confessions), are acting in persona Christi—literally “In the person of Christ.” In his priestly capacity, that’s no longer Fr. Bill on the altar or in the confessional. That’s Jesus.

To boot, the seal of confession is what makes this such a powerful sacrament. That means the priest will never, ever (ever!) tell anyone. Seriously, never. Because if he did, he’d be removed from priesthood immediately and would excommunicate himself from the Church. For real.

No one else is offering that. Especially in a culture that insists on broadcasting every little detail of one’s life.

Even so, the thought of going to confession usually brings the response, “I don’t want/need to go,” especially among people who haven’t gone in years.

But dig deeper and I’d bet it’s more one of two things:

• “I don’t want the priest to judge me for things I’ve done wrong.” OR
• “I experienced hurt at the hands of a priest, and I’ll never trust one again.”

Not going to Confession is typically rooted, on some level, either in fear of being exposed, or a fear of being hurt again.

Read the rest here.

"I've confessed this 1000 times!"

The Titanic’s Catholic priest who went down hearing confessions

The following comes from Lifesite News:  

Amidst all the tales of chivalry from the Titanic disaster there is one that’s not often told.

It is that of Fr. Thomas Byles, the Catholic priest who gave up two spots on a lifeboat in favour of offering spiritual aid to the other victims as they all went down with the “unsinkable” vessel.

A 42-year-old English convert, Fr. Byles was on his way to New York to offer the wedding Mass for his brother William. Reports suggest that he was reciting his breviary on the upper deck when the Titanic struck the iceberg in the twilight hours of Sunday, April 14th, 1912.

According to witnesses, as the ship went down the priest helped women and children get into the lifeboats, then heard confessions, gave absolution, and led passengers in reciting the Rosary.

Agnes McCoy, one of the survivors, says that as the great ship sank, Fr. Byles “stood on the deck with Catholics, Protestants and Jews kneeling around him.”

“Father Byles was saying the rosary and praying for the repose of the souls of those about to perish,” she told the New York Telegram on April 22, 1912, according to the website devoted to his memory, FatherByles.com.

In the words of the priest’s friend Fr. Patrick McKenna, “He twice refused the offer of a place in a boat, saying his duty was to stay on the ship while one soul wanted his ministrations.”

Pope Francis on Preparing for Confession

(CNS)  As Catholics are encouraged to make going to confession a significant part of their lives during Lent, Pope Francis offered some quick tips to help people prepare for the sacrament of penance.

After a brief explanation of why people should go to confession -- "because we are all sinners" -- the pope listed 30 key questions to reflect on as part of making an examination of conscience and being able to "confess well."

The guide is part of a 28-page booklet in Italian released by the Vatican publishing house. Pope Francis had 50,000 free copies distributed to people attending his Angelus address Feb. 22, the first Sunday of Lent.

Titled "Safeguard your heart," the booklet is meant to help the faithful become "courageous" and prepared to battle against evil and choose the good.

The booklet contains quick introductions to Catholic basics: it has the text of the Creed, a list of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes. It explains the seven sacraments and includes Pope Francis' explanation of "lectio divina," a prayerful way of reading Scripture in order to better hear "what the Lord wants to tell us in his word and to let us be transformed by his Spirit."

The booklet's title is based on a line from one of the pope's morning Mass homilies in which he said Christians need to guard and protect their hearts, "just as you protect your home -- with a lock."

"How often do bad thoughts, bad intentions, jealousy, envy enter?" he asked. "Who opened the door? How did those things get in?"

The Oct. 10, 2014, homily, which is excerpted in the booklet, said the best way to guard one's heart is with the daily practice of an "examination of conscience," in which one quietly reviews what bad things one has done and what good things one has failed to do for God, one's neighbor and oneself.

The questions include:

-- Do I only turn to God when I'm in need?

-- Do I take attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation?

-- Do I begin and end the day with prayer?

-- Am I embarrassed to show that I am a Christian?

-- Do I rebel against God's plan?

-- Am I envious, hot-tempered, biased?

-- Am I honest and fair with everyone or do I fuel the "throwaway culture?"

-- In my marital and family relations, do I uphold morality as taught in the Gospels?

-- Do I honor and respect my parents?

-- Have I refused newly conceived life? Have I snuffed out the gift of life? Have I helped do so?

-- Do I respect the environment?

-- Am I part worldly and part believer?

-- Do I overdo it with eating, drinking, smoking and amusements?

-- Am I overly concerned about my physical well-being, my possessions?

-- How do I use my time? Am I lazy?

-- Do I want to be served?

-- Do I dream of revenge, hold grudges?

-- Am I meek, humble and a builder of peace?

Catholics should go to confession, the pope said, because everyone needs forgiveness for their sins, for the ways "we think and act contrary to the Gospel."

"Whoever says he is without sin is a liar or is blind," he wrote.

Confession is meant to be a sincere moment of conversion, an occasion to demonstrate trust in God's willingness to forgive his children and to help them back on the path of following Jesus, Pope Francis wrote.

A Love Affair with the Sacrament of Confession

The following comes from  Jenny Uebbing at the CNA:

How about I kick things off with a confession of my own? I have not, despite 33 years of instruction, including a handful of Catholic schooling, managed to memorize the Act of Contrition.

(I think I might start reading it daily for the remainder of Lent, just to remedy the situation once and for all.)

Confession, or Reconciliation, is my very favorite of the 7 Sacraments. But it was not always so.

I still vividly remember being a hot, shaky mess waiting in line on Saturday afternoons as a young teenager, sure that I was about to finally die of stage fright/anticipatory dread/having father recognize my voice from behind the screen.

Then I’d get in there, plow though that list of admittedly boring sins, and voila, the sweet, sanctifying release of absolution would be mine.

For anyone who’s never tried it, walking out of the Confessional is a little like finishing a race or walking out of finals after a solid showing. There’s so much relief mingled with a lightness and a freedom that is hard to describe. A runner’s high is a close approximation, but it’s a runner’s high of the soul.

I didn’t think I could say all that, I didn’t think I’d be able to admit to it, but I did, and now I’m free.

It’s pretty wonderful.

I’ve heard the argument made that it’s weird to confess to a priest, that one needs only to confess one’s sins to God directly without need for any kind of intermediary, and I guess because I’m a cradle Catholic, I’ve always kind of scratched my head over that one. After all, I didn’t baptize myself, and I don’t DIY the Eucharist on Sunday mornings at home. I received the Sacrament of Confirmation from the hands of my local bishop, and a priest friend witnessed our marriage vows on our wedding day.

God loves to use other people to minister to us. That’s why He brings us into familial relationships to begin with: we need each other.

But I digress.

I used to see Confession as a kind of necessary evil (ironic, no?) of being Catholic, something I resigned myself to participate in a couple times a year, or more frequently as my poor behavior and lifestyle choices warranted. And sure, the payout was always light-footed and fancy free on the way out of the box, but the dreadful ramp up was agonizing.

I’ve since come to truly love and even anticipate with joy this means by which God and I become intimately acquainted again. And the secret is this: the more I go, the more I want to go.

Read the rest here.

An old-school confessional revives saying ‘I’m sorry’

(RNS) The Rev. Janusz Kukulka can’t say for sure that his parishioners are sinning more, but they sure are lining up at the new confessional booth to tell him about it.

For years, Kukulka, was content with absolving sins in a private room marked by an exit sign to the right of the altar St. Mary the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church.

But something happened during Lent this year. For the first time, Kukulka really noticed the two confessionals missing from the rear of his church. They’d been gone for four decades, ripped out during the 1970s to make room for air conditioning units during a renovation inspired by the Second Vatican Council.

They must have been a thing of beauty, Kukulka thought. He imagined their dark oak paneled doors and arched moldings to match the Gothic architecture of the church designed by renowned 19th-century architect Patrick Keely.

Their absence was striking, especially when the Archdiocese of Hartford had asked parishes to extend their confession hours during Lent, part of a public relations campaign to get Catholics to return to the sacrament of reconciliation.

So, one Sunday Kukulka announced his desire to the congregation. “I told them I wanted a visible confessional,” he said.

He got one within a week.

Parishioners Timothy Conlon and Patrick Knott moved quickly to fulfill their priest’s wish. They thought about building a confessional, but the cost was prohibitive for the cash-strapped parish. So, they turned to the Internet, where Conlon found an antique confessional for sale in Iowa on eBay.

Conlon flew out to Iowa and drove the confessional back to Derby. Knott’s wife, Elisa, donated the $1,100 cost of the confessional in honor of her parents, who were devoted church members. A plaque above the confessional bears their name.

“It’s a big hit,” Conlon said.

Patrick Knott, who had never confessed in the private room, said a long line formed in February when Kukulka held the first confession in the booth. He was the first to try it out.

“I got celebrity status,” he said. “It wasn’t bad.”

Kukulka said confessions have been up ever since at the church.

But Thomas Groome, professor of theology and religious education at Boston College, doubts that an old-school confessional will be enough to keep the momentum going.

Confessions among American Catholics have been on the decline for decades, a trend many theologians attribute to changes introduced by the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).

In an attempt to make confession less about sin, many churches during Vatican II shuttered their confessional booths and opened “reconciliation rooms” where the faithful could sit face-to-face with a priest and talk about their sins in the context of self-improvement.

“The church was moving in a direction where priests were supposed to be counselors instead of judges,” Groome said. “The problem was that many priests didn’t have the counseling or spiritual skills, and people didn’t like the openness. They wanted the anonymity that comes behind the grill.”

When Monsignor Stephen DiGiovanni arrived at St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church in Stamford, Conn., in 1998, he found two confessionals nailed shut during Vatican II.

He closed off the church’s reconciliation room that featured “two beat-up old chairs and a crummy little screen” and opened up the confessionals. In 2009, he told a New York Times reporter that more than 400 people partake in the confessional rite every Sunday.

That number continues to grow, and the church has added more confession times.

“When I began as a priest in 1977, it was about ‘I’m OK , you’re OK, we don’t have to confess anything,’” he said. “We shouldn’t be guilt-ridden Catholics, that’s all true, but we should be contrite.”

Kukulka couldn’t be happier with the new confessional.

There’s just one small problem: Voices inside the confessional echo through the sanctuary.

(Ann Marie Somma is the editor of Hartford Faith & Values.)

Fr. Longenecker on Perfect Contrition

The following comes from Fr. Dwight Longenecker:

If you go to confession just because you feel it is your duty and you scrounge around to find a few things you think might be a “sin” but you’re not really sure and you think you probably haven’t done anything bad because you’re a nice person and after all, you didn’t commit adultery or rob a bank or hit anyone…

This is not perfect contrition.

If you go to confession because you’ve done something that embarrasses you when you think about it, or maybe you just feel guilty or you are ashamed of what you’ve done or maybe you’re scared you’re going to get caught. These are some of the good emotions you should have, and this is better than nothing, but this is not perfect contrition.

This is what the church calls “imperfect contrition.”

Perfect contrition is when you have learned to accept the love of God and you love God so much that you are truly sorry for your sins because you have offended the one who loves you and gave everything to redeem you.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you lost your temper and slapped your mother. Think of the look of hurt and sadness in her eyes. Suddenly you see that and you are terrified at what you’ve done. You are truly and completely sorry because you have hurt the one who loves you.

THAT’S perfect contrition. When you are given the grace to truly repent because you have understood how much your sin has wounded the purity, goodness, beauty and truth of God himself.

Pray then, during Lent for the gift of perfect contrition, but to get there you must first understand and accept at the core of your being the totally perfect love and mercy of God.

Pray then, for this gift.

PS: One way to enter more fully, and experience the complete and total love of God is through my book Praying the Rosary for Inner Healing.

Healing & Forgiveness by Dr. Margarett Schlientz

The following comes from The Integrated Catholic Life: 

“You don’t ask too much from God, you ask too little,” the silver-haired, Dr. Margarett Schlientz scolded her audience during a talk last month at the Thirst Conference in Bismarck, ND.  She spoke with confidence, infusing her audience with the certainty of the Gospels and the fire of the Holy Spirit.  Schlientz has the authority of one with three masters degrees; in theology, spirituality, and psychiatric nursing, as well as a doctorate in psychiatric nursing, and many years as an administrator and teacher at Marquette University.  But it is her no-nonsense, cut-to-the-chase style that gets an audience’s attention.

Schlientz knows of what she speaks. She has been involved in the deliverance ministry for many years and is the assistant director at the Institute for Priestly Formation at Creighton University where she teaches and ministers to seminarians in an intensive ten-week spiritual renewal program each summer.   “The Jesus of the Bible is still the Jesus of today,” she said. “He did miracles then and he will still do them for us today but we need to have faith and ask.”

Schlientz explained that in Scripture, Jesus healed everyone who came to him. She pointed to the sacrament of Confession as a powerful means to open up a flood of healing graces. Then, she talked about the power of the Eucharist. Schlientz asked, “Do you really trust what God wants to do in your heart or is it automatic?” She explained that the Eucharist should be taken very seriously because it has the power of grace to transform everything in your life.

“You’ve got the richest father in the world, who is waiting to pour out graces,” she said. Schlientz referred to Luke 11 where Jesus says, “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?  Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?  If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11-13).

“He is doing that in the Eucharist every time you receive it,” Schlientz said. “Every time you have the opportunity to receive God in the Eucharist, don’t negate it,” she said. For those not going to Mass daily, Schlientz challenged them. “How late do you watch television?  That’s not going to get you to heaven; the Eucharist will.”

Schlientz said that she believes that if we had greater faith and asked God, we would see far more healings. “God really wants to bring people to wholeness,” she said. “Jesus is a physician of love with absolute power. His work of healing and salvation continues.” She strongly encouraged people to pray with faith and to evangelize by praying with and for others. “Every baptized Christian should be praying with people and those in the medical field should ask for the gift of healing,” she said.  “Pray for the gift of miracles. They are not dead. They are dormant because we don’t ask enough.” Schlientz explained that there are people in her prayer group that received the gift after asking. “The expression of Pentecost needs to live within our own prayer lives every day in our own experience,” she said. She encouraged people to set aside time for God but to also pray throughout the day, using every opportunity such as being stuck in traffic.

Speaking to parents, Schlientz told them they have tremendous power. “I don’t care what your kids have done, you lay them in the heart of Jesus every day. Do you realize how vulnerable God is to parents?”

The holy sacrament of matrimony holds the power of great graces according to her. “Hold each other every day and renew your marriage vows and ask the Lord to release the power he gave you in that sacrament,” she said. “I renew my baptism every day whenever I put my hand in the holy water font, I say. ‘Lord, renew the power of my baptism, explode the power of baptism in me and the power of confirmation.”

Schlientz reminded the audience of the healing of the blind man Bartimaeus in Matthew 10.   He heard Jesus walking by and shouted, “Jesus, Son of David, Have mercy on me.”

Then Jesus called to him and asked, “What do you want of me?”

“It is the same question Jesus asks of us every day in the Eucharist,” said Schlientz, —“What do you want of me?”

She advised everyone to “go for broke” and ask for everything God wants to give us and for every kind of healing that we need. Schlientz closed by sharing a story at her own church of a blind woman that was healed. “Ladies and gentlemen, that is not unusual,” she said.  “I could tell you a thousand stories like this.”

“Jesus never gave anyone false expectations,” she said.  “He healed anyone who came to him and he continues to do so.”

St. Francis de Sales’ Guide to Reconciliation

The following comes from the Catholic Exchange:

For St. Francis the sacrament of Reconciliation (aka Confes­sion)affords us the opportunity to experience divine compassion directly. In a “memo” in which he provides pastoral advice about Confession to the priests in his diocese, the saint emphasizes the sacrament’s salutary power. He reckons that “confession and penance render a man infinitely more honorable than sin renders him blamable” and that “the greater our misery, the more is the mercy of God glorified.” With this attitude in mind, we might approach the sacrament more frequently and more profitably.

In the lifelong fight against our faults, the aid of divine grace is indispensable. To avail ourselves of this heavenly help through sacramental means, St. Francis de Sales recommends first that we prepare thoroughly to receive it. In the Spiritual Directory, he suggests several ways by which to ready ourselves for Confession.

First:

In the spirit of deep humility at the feet of our crucified Lord, we will ask for the grace and light of the Holy Spirit to discern our faults well.

Here the image evokes the intention. Coming to grips with the theology of atonement — in which Christ’s death on the Cross responds to the deadly nature of sin for all humanity — we first humble ourselves with the consideration that our own sins contribute to what Christ suffered. This little virtue grows larger through spiritual imagination: were we to stand “at the feet of our crucified Lord,” how could we not be moved to repentance?

Coupled with this excitement of our affections, a cognitional preparation is also needed. To this end we acknowledge that, given our natural aversion to self-recrimination, we need help to know ourselves well and thereby discern what is really going on in the faults we commit. We call on the aid of a spiritual light, to shine on our deeds in such a way that we can see them not simply from our own perspective but from God’s. In this way we will see more clearly that we stand always in need of divine grace.

Then, with hearts and minds opened to reconciliation:

We should recall everything we have found in our daily examinations since our previous confession and consider for a moment if there is anything else.

This act of personal recall presumes the daily practice of the Examen. It also supposes a much more frequent practice of sacramental Confession than is common today. Otherwise, such total recall of everything we have done would be virtually impossible! Even then, the saint recognizes that we must think about this twice — in case there is anything else we might have missed, given the fickleness of our memories.

Still, recalling actual faults is necessary, no matter the length of time since our previous confession. For St. Francis de Sales, this realistic appraisal arises not simply as supplying the traditional “matter” of the sacrament, but as coming from the every­day focus of our spiritual quest. Just as our devotion is to be enacted in concrete deeds, so our failings take shape in actual times and places and affect real people. Even if we are unable to recall everything, the examination of conscience the saint calls for here is not a generalized view or broad perspective. Rather, he invites us to give humble consideration to the actual what and when and where of how we live, particularly when we do not live as well as we ought or as we would like.

After this, let us humbly ask Our Lord for pardon and for the grace to correct ourselves. For this pur­pose we will make a firm resolution, especially concerning the more important things we have noticed.

Acknowledging wrong is hard. But humility is good, and so is God’s mercy. To ask God for pardon and grace is to redirect our intention to our Lord rather than to wallow in our imperfection. This prayerful request turns us away from ourselves and toward God, who alone leads us along the way of the good life.

To advance on that never-ending path:

We will renounce our faults and attempt to stir up true sorrow for them, however slight they may be, because it is always too great an evil to have been displeasing to the sovereign goodness of our Savior who is so merciful to us each day.

This dual response — an effective renunciation and an affective sorrow — results from the foregoing considerations. An honest consideration of our thoughts and words and deeds in light of God’s love for us can yield only a displeasing recognition: we fail in our relationship to God and others. But, as St. Francis de Sales learned at a young age, this admission need not beget depression. Instead, the merciful goodness of God remains sovereign — and is magnanimously offered to us each day.

With this salvation in mind, one preparatory step remains:

Having noticed our current faults, we should add something from the past which is clearly sinful and make an act of contrition for all these together.

Why add some past sin to our list? Are our current faults and failings not sufficient to engender humility and sorrow? What St. Francis de Sales recommends here does not deny the efficacy of sacramental confession to absolve all sins in our life, even those we cannot recall. Rather, it serves simply as a powerful reminder that imperfection accompanies us throughout this life. Still, the saint acknowledges this human reality positively:

“Dear imperfections, they force us to acknowledge our misery, give us practice in humility, selflessness, patience, and watchfulness; yet, notwithstanding, God looks at the preparation of our heart and sees that it is perfect” (Letters of Spiritual Direction, p. 98).

The time of preparation is now complete. While it appears long and detailed, it need not be so in practice. This preparation can take place in a short period spent in quiet prayer, particularly if we have accustomed ourselves to this self-examination on a regular basis. With this humble recognition, sorrowful affection, and renewed resolution in mind:

Then we will go humbly to our confessor honoring God and the sacred priesthood in the person of the priest. We ought to look upon him in confession as an angel whom God sends to reconcile us to his divine goodness.

Here, it seems, is where the celebration of this sacrament has run into difficulty. A common objection today asks why we should confess our sins to a priest instead of entreating God’s forgiveness directly from the Almighty. Particularly if one has had a bad experience in the confessional, this element of the divine-human interaction becomes an obstacle to the reconciliation we seek.

Read the rest here.

Ten Reasons You Should Get to Confession This Weekend

The following comes Simcha Fisher at NCR:

1. You need to.  You have a mortal sin on your soul, and it’s killing you.  You know you want to live. So go to confession.

2.  You don’t need to.  Oh, really, you don’t need to?  You don’t need to have your soul refreshed, your courage strengthened, your dusty, crusty, venial sin-chapped hide soothed with the sweet balm of forgiveness?  You don’t need to hear one more time that the Almighty Son of God came down from Heaven, was born, suffered, died, and rose again so that you, personally, could be saved?  No thanks, you don’t neeeeed any of that right now?  Really?  Go to confession.

3. Your kids need to see you do it.  You can talk all you want about receiving the sacraments, but if you don’t do it, chances are they won’t do it when they grow up.  So go to confession.

4. Your spouse needs to see you do it.  In the words of Anthony Esolen,

Look in the mirror. Take a long, slow, excruciating look in the mirror. See your faults for what they are. See all the petty selfishness and cowardice and spitefulness and pride and envy. Then think that there's somebody on earth who is silly enough to love you. And when you are exercised about your spouse's faults, just repeat these words three times: "You're no peach either." Works wonders.

  Go on, peachy.  Let your spouse know you’ve looked in the mirror.  Go to confession.

5. You might die soon.  Honest to goodness, it could happen!  All it takes is for some distracted lady driving a huge 15-passenger van to get whacked in the side of the head with an apple core while she’s driving in the roundabout and BAM, you’re gone.  Get it in now, while you can still walk and talk, because it may be your last chance.  Go to confession!

6. It’s the beginning of the school year.  Whether you’re homeschooling or sending the kids off, or if you’re a teacher, or maybe you’re a student yourself, or maybe you’re the unlucky son of a gun who stocks the back-to-school shelves at Staples, and you feel like you’re going to strangle the next inconsiderate slob who thinks it’s funny to rearrange all the Flair pens – you need to turn things around.  The start of something new is always a good time to get a clean slate.  So go to confession.

7. You spent the whole day glued to your computer yesterday, reading everything you can about Syria and Miley Cyrus, and now you have a wretched, empty sensation between your ears.  All the world is sad and dreary, and you can’t think of any particular reason why you should even bother to get up tomorrow.  Confession restores hope.  Go to confession.

8. You’ve been doing great lately.  You pray a lot, you’ve been patient and kind, you’re making all kinds of progress in your career, and your personal life is blooming.  Confession gives glory to God.  Go to confession!

9. You’re not really sure that God is listening to you anyway.  You don’t bear him any particular ill will, but He doesn’t seem to have anything to do with you, and vice versa.  Confession makes a connection with God.  Go see Him in confession.

10. What, nine reasons aren’t enough for you?  Now you’re just looking for excuses. It's only Thursday; you can totally figure out how to get it into your schedule.  Go to confession.  Go!

Plan Out A New Life in Christ

The following comes from the Catholic Exchange:

As a result of Original Sin we all experience disorder in our lives. Emotional disorders, dysfunctional families or family disorder, mental disorder, social disorders, economic disorders, personal disorders, work disorders, and finally the most serious of all disorders are moral and spiritual disorders which springs from Original Sin and personal or actual sin.

Saint Ignatius of Loyola in the Spiritual Exercises invites us through prayer, meditation, contemplation and Examination of Conscience to work on overcoming the disorder in our life so as to know God’s will and to carry it out faithfully. This will give us great peace of heart, mind, and soul. For this reason the Augustinian definition for peace hits the mark:  “Peace is the tranquility of order.” That is to say a prerequisite for peace is interior and even exterior order—a well-ordered life.

The Holy Spirit, being the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, is a God of order. He wants to help us to order our lives. Now is the time! When Our Lady appeared to Saint Juan Diego in Mexico Dec. 12^th, 1531, she told him to climb the hill and to cut and gather the roses and then to put them in his tilma. Obedient to her, she beckoned Juan Diego to come close to her and with her own hands she ordered the roses that were simply cast in a disarrayed fashion in his tilma. Devotion and prayer to Our Lady can be a sure and efficacious means to overcoming the moral disorders in our lives and experiencing a deep peace of soul.

This presentation will suggest ten specific areas in our personal, family and professional life that we can examine closely and honestly and see if we can make some modification so as to order and improve our lives.  If done well and offered as a gift in prayer to Jesus through the hands of Mary, this plan can be a powerful motivation to grow in our spiritual lives and pursue a pathway that leads to sanctity. Jesus commands us: “Be holy as your heavenly Father is holy.”

These then will be ten areas in our lives that we can look at, examine and see what we can do to improve, so as to order the disordered and thereby achieve true peace of heart, mind and soul.

1. “It is necessary to pray always without giving up,” (Lk. 18:1). Examine your prayer life with objectivity. Now, it’s a good time to write down at least one concrete way that you can improve your prayer life after each point.

2. “Unless you do penance you will perish,” (Lk. 13: 5).  For an eagle to soar to the heights of the highest mountains, he must have two strong and health wings. For a follower of Jesus to be faithful he needs the two wings: prayer and penance, which will give power, patience, perseverance and ultimate peace of presence in a painfully morally poor planet!

3. “Be reconciled to God,” (II Cor. 5:20). Confession! We are all sinners and have fallen short of the honor and glory of God. Thanks be to God that Jesus instituted a Sacrament in which we can always filled with hope start again—that is the Sacrament of Penance or Reconciliation. Make better confessions and work on a better preparation.

4. “I am the Bread of life. Whoever eats the bread I give will have everlasting life and I will raise him up on the last day,” (Jn. 6: 22- 71—The  Bread of Life discourse). Make better Holy Communions. Starting now, receive Holy Communion as if it were your first, last, only and on which you will be judged for all eternity.

5. “Love one another as I have loved you,”(Jn. 13:34).  Rewind the film on your social relations. Maybe some relations are harmful more than they are helpful. Get the axe and cut. Sometimes better to sever rather than cultivate.  True friends should help us to get closer to God.

6. “Be slow to quick to listen and slow to speak.” (Read entire chapter of James 3) The saints teach us this principal with respect to speech, speak on three occasions:

• 1) to praise God
• 2) to accuse yourself (of your own shortcomings)
• 3) to edify your neighbor—using words to build up rather than tear down

7. “You are the light of the world… let your light shine before men so that by seeing your works they may give glory to your Father who is in heaven,” (Mt 5: 13-16—Sermon on the Mount). Permanent Formation.  It is incumbent upon all followers of Christ, who is the Light of the world, to work assiduously and constantly on their own permanent formation in the faith.  The more we fill ourselves with the knowledge and love of Christ the more we can give to others.

Read the rest here.