From the Pastor’s desk— March 17, 2024
It took 3 days for us to get our new roof. Anyone who has worked in construction, or had a new roof put on their homes knows the process well. The process is a lot like Lent, we must strip off the old to prepare for the new. Yet, even once the roof tiles are stripped off, you cannot just put on more tiles, you must put on a barrier first, then the new tiles.
Perhaps most people treat confession, penance, or reconciliation like their home roof, once every 20 or 30 years is enough. This does work for roofs on churches and houses, but not on a living temple and we are living temples. As a living temple we have two tools for taking care of our temples. One is reconciliation (confession) and the other is the examination of conscience.
Our Church, in her wisdom, asks us to go to the sacrament of reconciliation once a year as a minimum, often called the “Easter duty”, as most do this before our holiest of days, Easter. Once a year is a minimum, but many find it helpful to do this on a more regular basis from twice a year to monthly visits to the sacrament. Going much longer between intervals makes remembering sins against God and others harder, if not unrealistic.
The other tool that helps us maintain our temple in good order is what is called the “Examination of Conscience.” Examining ourselves goes back to St Paul who said, “Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord…For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment* on himself.” (I Cor 11:27,29) Such a practice was taken up by the early spiritual fathers, St. Anthony of the desert, Sts. Basil of Caesarea, Augustine of Hippo, and Bernard of Clairvaux.
St Ignatius of Loyola put the examination in his work The Spiritual Exercises, into a 5-step process that has become the most popular form of this tradition. In the first point, followers thank God for the benefits received; in the second, they ask grace to know and correct their faults; in the third, they pass in review the successive hours of the day, noting what faults they have committed in deed, word, thought, or omission; in the fourth, they ask God’s pardon; in the fifth, they consider amendment.
The examination does not reconcile sins that require penance (confession) but helps to prepare one for it while weeding out minor offenses against God on a daily basis. While others use the 10 commandments, the 7 deadly sins, or the great commandment for their examination, in every case the goal is the same as Lent and Jesus’ desire in this Sunday’s gospel, “I will draw everyone to myself.” New roofs are wonderful, but a new heart is even better!
Parochial administrator
With a heart for Mission,
Fr. Ray