Cardinal Lamberto: Would you like, to make your confession?
Michael Corleone: Your Eminence, I’m uh – I’m uh — it’s been so long, I wouldn’t – wouldn’t – wouldn’t know where to uh, it’s been thirty years, I’d – I’d – I’d use up too much of your time, I think.
Cardinal Lamberto: I always have time to save souls.
Michael Corleone: Well, I’m — I’m beyond redemption.
Cardinal Lamberto: [in italian to an approaching priest] Give us a couple of minutes alone please – thanks… [To Michael when the other priest leaves] I hear the confessions of my young priests here. Sometimes the desire to confess is overwhelming. And we must seize the moment.
Michael Corleone: What is the point of confessing if I don’t repent?
Cardinal Lamberto: I hear you are a practical man. What have you got to lose?
In my opinion if you had to name both the most and the least popular sacrament of the Catholic Church the answer would be the same.
Confession.
The Godfather Part 3 1990
There are people who rush to the confessional and go there regularly sometimes multiple times a week. There are others who avoid it like the plague itself. The source of both of these impulses are the same.
Seeing oneself in the light of truth.
To the person who sees himself in the light of truth and accepts that reality. The confessional is a place of cleansing. Like a shower after heavy work. Such a person understands the state of their soul and wishes to be made clean. The irony among such people is it’s my experience that the holier a person is the greater the tendency for confession because like a skilled carpenter who can tell the difference between a beam off 1/32 of an inch and one that is not, a person of deep faith and devotion sees the small imperfections in themselves that others might miss and confess to get themselves completely right with God.
Ironically to those who avoid confession it is many times the same but are in denial. It’s one thing to know in the back of your head who and what you are, but it’s quite another to have that reality brought before God to be acknowledged even in the privacy of the confessional becuase at that moment you have to bear the sight of yourself in the light of truth.
That more than anything else I suspect is what hell is all about, the denial and self loathing of what a person is in the light of truth which is God. It’s why so many choose hell, and believe me it’s a choice because to them the acknowledgement of what they are is beyond what they can bear. I recall a priest telling me a story of a saint who had been allowed to visit heaven asking about a friend who had died. When told the friend was in hell, the saint pleaded with God to the point where God allowed the soul in his presence. Rather than sharing the joy of the saint at deliverance the soul was angry and said to God “Tell this fool that all this brings me is pain.” To the damned the sufferings of hell, horrible as they are, are more bearable than the presence of God and the truth of themselves.
Maybe that is you. Maybe your sins are so great that the very idea of confessing them is abborant, or maybe like Michael Corleone you believe the sins are so great they can’t be forgiven. You have given into despair.
But that need not be for as Christ told St. Faustina:
I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and shelter for all souls, and especially for poor sinners. On that day the very depths of My tender mercy are open. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the fount of My mercy. The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion shall obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment. On that day all the divine floodgates through which grace flow are opened. Let no soul fear to draw near to Me, even though its sins be as scarlet.”
St. Faustina Diary 699
All over the world in parishes near and far priests are gathering for extra confession, extra masses and extra adoration to help the faithful and the lost take advantages of these mercies offered by Christ so that they may be wiped clear and get on that narrow path that leads to life. Again in the Lord’s words related to St. Faustina:
[Let] the greatest sinners place their trust in My mercy. They have the right before others to trust in the abyss of My mercy. My daughter, write about My mercy towards tormented souls. Souls that make an appeal to My mercy delight Me. To such souls I grant even more graces than they ask. I cannot punish even the greatest sinner if he makes an appeal to My compassion, but on the contrary, I justify him in My unfathomable and inscrutable mercy.
Diary 1146
Those who take advantage of this feast to obtain the mercy of God not only get that mercy, but discover something that so many people don’t realize. That Christ offers this mercy every single day of their lives thorough the sacrament of confession. It’s they’re for the taking if people will only grab it.
Take advantage of this mercy while you can, seize the moment because as Christ warns…
He who refuses to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of My justice
Diary 1146
Your call.
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