This Palm Sunday begins Holy Week.  We are probably all familiar with the various rituals which make up the liturgies of this week.  Many of these rituals stretch back to the very early life of the Church.  Of all the liturgical rituals, perhaps the one that best sums up the Church’s prayer this week is the Adoration of the Cross on Good Friday.  During the Good Friday service, the Cross to be used for veneration is processed into church and an antiphon is sung: “Behold the wood of the Cross, on which hung the salvation of the world.  Come, let us adore.”  The moving liturgies of Holy Week focus on the salvation which was won for us, by Our Savior Jesus Christ, who hung on the wood of the cross.

As could be expected, this central theme of Christianity – salvation – plays out throughout Saint Paul’s letters.  Almost every one of his letters makes some reference to the mystery and gift of salvation.  What, then, does Saint Paul say about salvation?  What is his understanding of it?  First of all, Saint Paul sees salvation as being a gift which is given to us from a loving God, “God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).  Christ intends this gift of salvation for all who are willing to accept it, “he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them” (2 Corinthians 5:15). 

We accept this gift of salvation in Jesus Christ through baptism.  Baptism is the gateway for all the sacraments, removes original sin, gives us sanctifying grace and initiates us into the Church and makes us sons and daughters of God.  Baptism is also a participation in Christ’s own death and resurrection, “we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead…we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4).  In baptism we are given a share in the salvific act of Christ’s death and resurrection. 

Baptism is, however, not the end of the journey to salvation, but the beginning.  Over the course of our lives we strive to live out our baptismal promises through faith.  Saint Paul says that this life of faith, which begins in baptism, is what guides us into salvation and we are “justified by faith in Christ” (Galatians 2:16).  It is something that we need to strive for over the years, heeding Saint Paul’s call to “work out your salvation in fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12).

Saint Paul sums up the path to salvation in his Letter to the Romans, “if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).  Over these next few days of Holy Week, we will be doing just that, confessing with the lips of the Church that we believe that Jesus is Lord and that He has been raised from the dead.  We will, through the liturgical actions of the Church, give thanks to God for the gift of our salvation and for Christ who is our “righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30).

This weekend marks the Fifth Sunday of Lent.  Traditionally, this Sunday began what was known as Passiontide.  Passiontide ran from this Sunday through the celebration of Palm Sunday until the beginning of the Paschal Triduum on the evening of Holy Thursday.  During this time of the Lenten season, the focus of the prayers and readings of Mass shifts and we hear more and more about the Cross of Jesus Christ. 

For Saint Paul, Jesus Christ cannot be understood without reference to His Cross.  He writes in his first letter to the Corinthians, “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).  The Cross is such an important part of Jesus’ life and mission that when we look upon Jesus, we instantly recognize Him as the “Crucified One.”  To attempt to understand Jesus without His Cross is to lose Him entirely.  Saint Paul recognized this truth and wasn’t afraid to stress the importance of Jesus’ own cross, as well as encouraging people to join themselves to that cross. 

In the midst of the Hellenistic world that Saint Paul inhabited, this emphasis on the Cross seemed foolish.  Why would anyone glorify in someone who died a criminal’s death on an instrument of torture?  Saint Paul recognized this paradox, but did not back away from it, he wrote, “the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians1:18).  As the prophet Isaiah once said, ‘God’s ways are not our ways.’  The Cross seems to be a sign of defeat and death, but in God’s wisdom it is not so – it is the sign and vehicle for victory and eternal life. 

Saint Paul saw the Cross as something to glorify in, to revel in.  He wrote to the people of Galatia, “may I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6:14).  Saint Paul would glory in the Cross because of what was accomplished upon it.  It is because of the Cross that the broken relationship between God and humanity was restored, “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19).  This reconciliation has brought peace between us and God, a peace which comes “through the blood of his cross” (Colossians1:20). 

As this Lenten season enters its final phase, may we too spend time prayerfully considering the Cross, its power, and its glory.  Jesus embraced His Cross, Saint Paul gloried in it – may we not be afraid to embrace it and join Christ in carrying it up the steep slopes of Calvary.

In my last article I spent some time talking about the preparation that is necessary for celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation and taking an honest look at one’s life through an examination of conscience. The article this week will focus in on how to actually confess those sins well in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Traditionally, the Church has said that the easiest way to make a good confession is to honestly confess one’s sins by their nature and their number. This means that one is specific enough so that the priest knows what one is confessing and also gives a sense of how often these sins have been committed. Over time it may be hard to remember how often one has committed a particular sin and so it’s okay to give a general sense of it, for instance, by saying that it’s something that has been  committed once or is of a frequent occurrence. This  not only helps the priest to know how deep the roots of this sin go, but it also helps the penitent to get a sense of what part of their lives they need to work on, with the influence of grace and the help of the Holy Spirit. It also helps one to be more honest and to confront the sin more directly, since it doesn’t call for an explanation or excuses to be given – it’s just the confession of the sin and its frequency - bluntly, honestly and directly. 

For this reason, it’s good to keep in mind, that it is not necessary to relay all the circumstances surrounding each sin. If the circumstances are particularly important than it may be helpful for the priest to know, however every confessed sin does not require an explanation and, the rule of thumb is often that the more succinct the better. Another thing to keep in mind is that the Sacrament of Reconciliation is not a short counseling session. While very real problems and issues can manifest themselves in various sins, if the situation requires some type of counseling or advice, it’s better to pursue that outside of the confessional by setting up a separate appointment. Finally, confessing our sins directly by their type and number prevents the subtle human tendency to want to mitigate our sinfulness or to give excuses for it. It is not the amount of words that are used to confess one’s sin that makes for a good confession, it’s the honesty and the directness that they are confessed with that does. 

As we continue to move through the Lenten season, it’s good to take a few minutes to ask ourselves if it has been too long since we’ve gone to confession and if it is, then to work to celebrate this sacrament in preparation for Easter. There are quite a few opportunities to celebrate the sacrament here at St. Mary’s and the Archdiocesan website (www.archmil.org) actually has a listing of the confession times at various parishes throughout the Archdiocese if you are looking for a place and time that works for you and your schedule. Imagine entering into Holy Week and the celebration of Easter without the heavy weight of sin being dragged along with us, what graces the Lord will bestow on us and what joy will fill our hearts! 

Last week we took a few moments to look at the great gift that is the Sacrament of Reconciliation and examined the parts of the celebration of the Sacrament.  This week, in our pursuit of growing in our knowledge of how to make a good confession, we are going to take a look at the preparation that should take place prior to celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  

The first thing that one has to keep in mind is the distinction of types of sin.  There are two types of sin, one is mortal sin.  Mortal sins always involve what is called “grave matter” – where the nature of the sin is such that it can actually sever our relationship with God when we have full knowledge of what we are doing and give full consent to doing it.  Mortal sins remove sanctifying grace which is given to us at Baptism and can only be restored through the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  The second type of sin is venial sin which does not involve grave matter, but which we do with knowledge and consent.  While venial sins can be forgiven in a number of ways, mortal sins can only be forgiven by confessing them.  

The second nature of sin that we have to keep in mind is that there are sins of commission and sins of omission.  Sins of commission are those that we actively do, whereas sins of omission are those we do not do.  Finally, we have to keep in mind the nature of temptations.  Temptations that come into our mind without our giving any willful assent are not sins.  Temptations, in order to become sinful, need to be given consent to in order to take on a sinful nature.  In other words, the fact that a thought may come into the mind without willing it is not a sin, however, taking that thought and continuing to think about it, to dwell on it or to plot how to carry it out moves that temptation into the nature of sin, because we have moved to the point where we “agree” to entertain it.  

Once we have an understanding of sin, we can prepare ourselves to confess that sin by doing an examination of conscience.  An examination of conscience is the time taken to take an honest look at our lives and to hold it up to the life of Christ and see where we failed to follow in the way of Our Lord.  There are numerous ways we can do this.  For some, they find a few quiet moments examining their relationships, their actions, their thoughts and their words, is a sufficient way of coming to an understanding of what needs to be confessed.  For others, it’s helpful to have a guide of some sort – this could be the Ten Commandments, or it could be an examination of conscience put together by someone else, or there are wonderful guides that can be found on the internet, especially on the website of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (www.usccb.org).  There are even phone apps that are designed to facilitate this examination! 

As we make our examination of conscience it is good to keep in mind a number of things.  The first is that honesty is important in going to confession.  Any sin that is confessed is forgiven, any sin willfully hidden is not forgiven and, in fact, we add the sin of not being honest in confession!  A sin that is forgotten is still covered under the grace of the absolution that is offered.  Secondly, we have to keep in mind that we are not quite as unique as we think we are.  Sometimes people are hesitant to be honest because they wonder what the priest will think of them – I can honestly say, that most, if not all priests, have heard most every sin under the sun and confessing it will not shock him or cause him to think less of you, but often will be a moment of grace for the priest as well, who encounters such faith in another.  Finally, invoking the aid of the Holy Spirit is essential in making a good examination of conscience, it is He who illumines our minds and hearts and helps us to see ourselves clearly and while He helps us to know our sin, that knowledge is never an end in itself, it’s always to lead us to an encounter with God’s mercy where our sin is taken away and new life begins.