This memory came up on my Facebook feed yesterday. It is from December 19, 2018. It seems like a lifetime ago, but I remember that day very vividly. I actually read the feed while I sat waiting for Sunday Morning mass to begin. Coincidentally, I had been pondering going to confession before Christmas. Even though it is dated and I now longer work for the Franciscan Sisters, I thought it was worth sharing.
December 19, 2018
I really do not like going to confession. I know there are some people that enjoy it, they feel liberated and restored and, therefore, receive the sacrament of reconciliation often. I don’t experience that same “joy”. The thought of confessing my sins, whether it is to a priest I know well or to a total stranger, makes me feel physically ill. I become anxious and agitated and eventually talk myself out of going to confession at all. That would explain why in the past 25 years, I may have gone to confession half a dozen times.
But now I work for religious sisters, sisters who receive the sacrament of reconciliation weekly. I mean I already kind of feel like a heathen when I am with them, but now I feel even more like an unrepentant sinner because I don’t like the process of atonement. In the 3 years that I have worked for them, I have gone to confession 3 times. That 3 times is included in the 6 times that I have gone in the past quarter century. One of those times was today.
There is a priest who comes every other week to hear confessions at the Mother House for the sisters. I asked if I could sign up for one of the confession slots. One of the sisters was kind enough to put me on the schedule for this afternoon. Then this morning before mass began, I had a change of heart. I just wasn’t feeling the whole “let’s go confess our sins” thing. I had decided that I would take my name off of the schedule. I’m not going to confession, no big deal, right? Wrong.
There were several tiny little signs that were telling me I needed to go to confession today. The first one was before I even got to work. I was coming down the drive to work when I was overcome by a profound feeling of sadness. It hit me like a wave and I felt like I was drowning. I started thinking about my Dad, how Christmas was less than a week away and that this would be the first Christmas without him. All of these thoughts are running through my head as I pull into the parking space and I notice a deer in the grass at the edge of the lot. The Reverend Mother had told me that the deer symbolizes God’s grace. Immediately, the feeling of sadness left me. Amazing!
Fr. Gregory said mass this morning, and he opened up mass talking about REO Speedwagon’s song “Keep on Lovin’ You.” He said that is why we are here, to love Jesus. It made me smile and kind of laugh to myself. REO Speedwagon’s cassette, Hi-Infidelity, was the first tape I ever bought. That is the album which contains “Keep on Lovin’ You”. Really? What are the chances of that actually coming up in mass – ever. It caused me to reflect on the happiness of my childhood. I can still remember listening to that tape in a tape recorder, sitting on the wall along the drive of the house on Whitehaven when I was nine years old. That memory makes me smile.
Fr. Gregory had a great homily about how God bears fruit in us, even when we might not see it. We just need to be open to the work He will do within us and through us. Then he closed mass by stating that he would be available for confession if anybody would be interested. I sat in the pew dumfounded. Alright, I get it. So I went to confession.
It is amazing the ways in which God will speak to you if you only listen. It is amazing the work He will do in you and through you if you only open yourself up to that possibility. I never thought it was possible, to hear God, but now that I have, it is pretty amazing what He says. Today, listen for God to speak to you; it may even happen through an REO Speedwagon song.
As I prepare to share this, I am also getting ready to go to morning mass; morning mass at that very monastery. I am not sure who the celebrant will be or what words of wisdom he might share, but I am looking forward to listening for God to speak to me today. And today, please pray for me and I will continue to pray for you.
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