Misconceptions about Christianity that even Christians have about their faith

This week’s reflection is partly influenced by a rather interesting article I came across a few weeks ago entitled ‘Seven lies about Christianity which Christians believe’ by an author named Stephen Mattson.  I have taken liberty to augment some of his very valid points, and to add in a few more of mine, which I have gleaned from my limited experience in active pastoral ministry. 

1.    Christianity gives you an edge over others in life.  No it doesn’t actually.  Especially if how you define success and personal progress is determined by worldly standards.  Unless you have new eyes and a new mind given by the grace of God to see all this as ‘rubbish’ as St Paul puts it, you will see yourself being overtaken by your worldly colleagues and friends, and wonder why your steadfast faith is not giving you the ‘success’ you thought God would have blessed you with.  One only needs to read Psalm 72/73 to see this reality.  It’s not that God doesn’t want you do succeed in life, but having a Christian mind entails that we have different aims and goals in life.  And that is where the real edge over others is!

2.    Being a baptized Christian will make me happy everyday.  Connected very much with the first point, this ‘misconception’ plagues just about every RCIA Neophyte at some time of his or her new life in Christ.  The ‘high’ that one experienced at baptism may be wonderful, but the reality is that there will have to be a ‘grounding’ when one faces the world of lived challenges and daily struggles.  The mindful Christian who is aware of his identity in Christ will realise that living out his Christian calling to the full will entail days of darkness, unknowing and a willingness to enter into the suffering of Christ.  In my own experience of my current illness, one of the more ‘disturbing’ comments I have come across is that as a priest, I should be the last one to become so ill with a blood cancer.  These well meaning comments belie the misconception that priests doing the work of God in active ministry should be well protected from any harm, illness or suffering, and be happy all the time.  Truth is, God had never promised us any rose garden, and even if he did, the rose garden is always full of thorns anyway.

3.    All Christians know how to be good people and the Church is where I can find the best of them.  The hard and sad truth is that oftentimes, it is just the opposite.  There are plenty of examples of baptized Catholics who scandalize others by their selfish, unthinking and unenlightened ways.  Bad behavior is a blanket statement that covers a multitude of transgressions from reserving seats at Masses, treating the Church pews like a picnic ground, using the phone to message or to play games during the Eucharist, habitually coming late for every Mass no matter what the time of the celebration to parking inconsiderately at lots meant specifically for handicapped worshippers even though no one in the car is handicapped.  And don't even start talking about the states of undress in Church that affects the holiness of everyone around, exposing body parts that even the sunshine should not be falling on, what more our eyes.  Of course this means that there are baptized Christians who have lost consciousness about how their behavior affects and influences their fellow Christians.  We just need to be aware that not just the world, but the Church too, is filled with broken people, and there is a need to pray for all – for them to be truly touched by God’s love, and for us to be patient with the deep and inner conversion that all of us require.  For those who are waiting for the perfect Church to exist before entering to worship, my response is "you're going to wait till Kingdom come", and I am not speaking figuratively here.  A Church that is perfect is not going to need God's mercy and compassion and forgiveness.  And if you think that the church is full of hypocrites, the reality is twofold - yes it is, and yes, we can always accommodate another one, so come right in!

4.    Once I am baptized, I am on the way to heaven.  Yes and no.  Yes it sets the movement of our souls towards our heavenly home in the eternal life of the Trinity, but it is not to be taken for granted that there would be no change in direction and our final destination in God.  It requires necessarily that we respond individually on not just a daily but moment-by-moment basis of what this being ‘in tune with God’ means and requires of us.  If we think that being baptized gives us carte blanche to live a carefree and unaccountable life, and assume that God’s infinite mercy will get us squeezing past the proverbial pearly gates, we have, as they say in teen speak, SO got it wrong.  We may be on our way to heaven, but this road can have lots of bandits and robbers who will waylay us.  As long as we are not going to steadfastly set our sights on Christ and his Kingdom, we will find ourselves making the wrong choices in life.

5.    Only our separated brethren need to read the Bible whilst we Catholics only need to ‘attend’ Masses.  A huge misconception, this one.  In fact, we need to have a good balance of both, as one without the other makes us ending up like a twin-engine plane flying on one of its engines only.  The Eucharist is supported, enriched and enlivened by the Word of God that precedes it.  But oftentimes, the excerpt that is proclaimed at Mass is so short and truncated that we don’t get a full picture of the entire account, giving us a deeper understanding of how God was speaking and working in the lives of the people concerned.  When we understand this, we can apply it to our lives in a much more meaningful way, and allow the Scripture to become a real and living word in our lives.  We only give ourselves a small peek into the richness of the Word of God if we are only going to rely on the readings proclaimed at the Eucharistic celebrations, and much less if we are only at Mass once a week on Sundays.

6.    Receiving blessings is not only good, but can assure us of a peaceful life, or worse, that it brings ‘luck’.  Indeed, the reception of blessings is a good thing, as all blessings impart an audible and often, a physical reminder of God’s love for us.  But that’s only half the truth.  The other half is actually just as if not more important.  We have to respond to this blessing that is bestowed upon us as well, in various ways.  For example, asking a priest to go to the home to have it blessed is a good and noble thing to do as a Catholic family.  But more important is the necessity to live out this blessing as a family, and to be blessing to one another within the family.  Fr Ronald Rolheiser in one of his books made a very meaningful reflection on what a house blessing essential is.  He said that when we bless a house, we also allow the house to ‘bless us’.  What this means is that the blessed house gives us a safe and loving environment to be a family in, to live out our daily struggles in, to fight in, to cry in, to argue in, and to pray in.  But nowadays, it is not uncommon for a member of the household to ask that the priest come to bless the house when no one is at home, reducing the act of the blessing to a rather superstitious act of making sure that the house is ‘clean’ than that the entire family experiences the love and presence of God when every member of the family is present and praying together with the priest at the blessing. 

7.    Once I am a Catholic Christian, I will have all the answers that I need in life.  This has to be one of the more common misconceptions that many Neophytes, and perhaps even long baptized Catholics have.  God never promised us omniscience.  Only he is omniscient.  When we are baptized, we enter into the mystery of Christ’s life, which actually had more questions than answers.  If that was for Christ, what more for us, who are not of two natures?  What we are given is a grace at baptism to enable us to enter deeper and deeper into mystery, and to be able to hold on to opposites and seeming paradoxes of life.  You will most probably not be given the proof you have always wanted of God’s existence in the way that you have always wanted.  You will not be able to understand the weakened and often unpredictable human condition that causes us as much happiness as it may cause stress and confusion.  But if we are faithful in prayer and daily contemplation, we will be able to open our hearts to the mystery of God hidden in our adversaries as well as our loved ones.  We will probably die having more questions than answers to our deepest and most longing questions, but we will also be able to say with a certain peace in our hearts ‘it is alright, because God is mystery as well’. 

8.    Evangelisation is only for the select few.  This is a misunderstanding of our basic Christian calling that either leads to a cop out or is caused by a cop out for many.  To spread the Gospel is every baptized person’s duty as a child of God.  To do it specifically in a way that is full of hardship and requiring one to pluck oneself out of one’s community to move elsewhere is something that is a vocation within a vocation, and it is not for everybody.  But make no mistake – that is only one way of evangelization.  We need to make Christ known and loved to the world around us who have yet to know and love him.  We just have to be creative in the ways that we do this so that our Christianity is more encouraging and engaging than it is off-putting and reeking of a false sense of superiority.  We need to take full advantage of the situations we are in to bring Christ up as a sign in our lives.  One very current example would be to wish your friends and relatives a blessed and holy Christmas right up to the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, which takes place in January, rather than the non-descript salutation of ‘seasons’ greetings’ or worse, ‘compliments of the season’.  Let the recipient of your blessed Christmas ask you why you still use the word ‘Christmas’ when Dec 25 is over, and use that as a Launchpad to share with them how we Catholics actually celebrate Christmas with a Christmas season that begins from Christmas, and why we end it with the Baptism of the Lord.  And if  you are still not sure, there’s always Google, isn’t there?  But don’t take everything you read on the internet as gospel truth.  Make sure you do sufficient and reliable research as well.

Of course, this list is not exhaustive, nor is it meant to be.  Hopefully, it becomes fodder for thought as we enter into a new year and close this one with its abundance of memories, good and bad, joyful and sad, bright and dark.  As we welcome the Lord into our hearts anew at Christmas on Wednesday, we cast one eye on his second coming with a renewed vision of our faith in him and the ways that we have lived as Christians and as Church.  May we all look at our challenges as stepping-stones towards greater holiness and may each step we take move us closer to the sainthood that all of us share as our one deepest longing. 

The basis of true Christian joy

Yes, it is indeed a time for joy as Christmas draws near.  This joyful atmosphere is felt and encountered almost worldwide.  In places that eschew anything spiritual for the ‘season’, the joy that is promoted and celebrated can dwell primarily on the mood or feeling that is being created, either by the weather (where cold Winters can engender sentiments of a Christmassy feel) or other artificial or worldly enhancements, accessories and trimmings.  It would take a stoic of great resolve to walk through any shopping street or mall at this time of the year and think that nothing special is happening in town.  I am, of course, not speaking from experience this year as I am still keeping well away from crowds as my low immunity can cause me to catch just about anything airborne.

Even Liturgically, the Church has a specific week in Advent that speaks of joy.  This week, we enter into Gaudete or Joyful Sunday, which is the third week in Advent.  However, is this joy that the Church celebrates the same as the secular joy that the world promotes and ‘sells’ at this time of the year?  If not, then what is it about our Christian definition of joy that sets us apart from the joy that women and men without faith seek and perhaps even promote in life?  This is appropriate fodder for reflection this week.

The joy that we speak of and celebrate is very intrinsically connected with the hope that we have.  Our Christian hope is not a pie-in-the-sky hope.  Hope, as our Catechism teaches us, is one of the Theological Virtues which adapt man’s faculties for participation in the divine nature.  These are virtues which relate us directly with God, and set our sights and minds towards our shared heavenly (and saintly) goal in life. with the other two Theological Virtues being Faith and Charity.  What starts us all on this movement toward divinity is thus our baptism in Christ, where by God’s grace, our souls are ordered and disposed to live in relationship with the Holy Trinity. 

When this is the basis of deep and abiding Christian joy, and we are in a living awareness of how our basis of our joy founded on the hope of an eventual heavenly life, it should reconfigure and redefine what drives, dictates and motivates our daily lives.  In other words, when we are constantly bearing in mind our ultimate goal in life (which is full life in the Trinity), we are given eyes to see anew just how short-lived and temporary the joys that the world gives us are.  Put bluntly, the Christian knows that at the ‘end of the day’, all earthly joys, yes, even the joys of family life and spousal relationships, pale in comparison to that eternal joy that awaits us, and that everything literally dies.  All things material that we strive for on this earth, all positions of power and fame, all yearnings for success and glory, will come to an end when we die.  This does not mean, however, that we Christians are walking pessimists.  In fact, the reality is just the opposite, where we Christians are ever the optimists in the face of any adversity, troubles and sufferings.  Moreover, we are stewards of our given gifts and talents to influence, mould and transform the world so that our Christianity flavours it to bring the Kingdom of God to its fruition.  Yet, we are reminded that this world as we know it is not something that lasts, and that there is certain transience to everything that belongs to this world.

Where is the joy in this?  - Precisely in the realization that all our strivings and pains and struggles in this life will also come to an end.  This is the hidden and paradoxical joy that our faith gives us in the face of each of our own individual complexities of life.   But when one’s definition of joy is only something that is based on a mere good feeling, or a success in life that is largely material and ego-based, one becomes blinkered from seeing that one is living an ‘either-or’ life, where it’s either joyful or sad.  Most of us live this way, and this leads us to having erratic mood swings.  But in a true Christ-like non-dualistic life, where it’s a ‘both-and’ and not ‘either-or’, one’s life joys are no longer based on only success or glories, but one dares to even see failures, sickness, weakness, illness and yes, even death, as moments that give us a doorway towards eternity, our lasting joy, because even these moments do not last forever, and it is very often when we are really in the doldrums of life that we truly begin to look up to what really speaks to the soul.  I have often wondered if the Liturgical colour of the third Sunday of Advent, which is Rose, was chosen because the Rose colour’s base is red, which is symbolic of suffering, martyrdom and life. 

Does knowing this make our lives as Christ’s disciples complex and complicated?  Only if we think that we need to keep thinking about this as we live our lives.  It’s just too artificial for one to do this all the time, and frankly speaking, it can be tiring.  But if we were to, as it were, re-calibrate our hearts and minds for a moment or two each day, to re-set our targets on what really lasts, what really matters to our innermost being, in other words to pray, we can live in a dimension of joy that transcends even the most painful and seeming joy-less situations that we find ourselves is.  We will be able to say to ourselves, even in the face of seeming disaster and strife, that ‘it is alright’.  We will be able to have that confidence to see that the world is a good place despite the many sufferings that we see around us.  That peace that we find prevailing in our hearts will be the joy that is based on our lasting hope in God. 

There have been many people who have commended me on the way I have handled my illness this past year (it was on December last year when I first started getting the daily fevers of unknown origin), leading me to discover that I had cancer.  This confidence and hope that I have is not my doing.  Purely a gift and a grace from God, it is also attributed in a large part to this hidden joy based on my hope in God – that no matter what happens, our hope in God’s ultimate promises of eternal life remain.  If my joy only comes from a hope for a cure, the joy would only be temporary and short-lived. 

There’s an Italian phrase that is used in theology that bespeaks of what is ‘already and not yet’ – gia e non ancora.  Literally, it is used to describe the Kingdom of God as we know it.  It is here, but not fully realized yet.  We see glimpses of it, we experience moments of it, but never it its entirety and while we are alive, never in its fullness.  But we have tasting portions of it when we live out and experience the Theological Virtues.

But when my joy is based on eternity’s hope, there is joy in a ‘gia e ancora’ way.  I am given a broader horizon to appreciate the world and all it has to offer, in terms of both success and failure; glory and shame; wealth and poverty; health and illness, and perhaps most importantly, life and death. 

When the Lord is our integrity, our world is ordered.

Singapore held its annual marathon last weekend.  But apart from its usual hype and hoopla surrounding this well publicized event, something rather strange and awkward made the news as well.  A participant was caught cheating in the race, and it was revealed that he took some other mode of transport by-passing the various check-points and turned up at the finishing line in a time that was way ahead even of the fastest runners around.  His photo was taken (as would be anyone who breasts the finish line) and his stunt was splashed on the front page of the local newspaper.  Needless to say, this story raised the ire of many.  Apparently, all this pastry chef wanted was the finisher’s T-Shirt and the medal.  The vitriol that came from the public came fast a furious.  There were various points of discontent, anger and incredulity - from feeling sad for this person for having to stoop so low just for a T-Shirt and a medal, to the real hard-core marathoners who voiced that this person really doesn’t understand the meaning of a marathon and what it takes to be a marathoner.  But underlying it all was a general pervasive view that there was no integrity in this act.  Some were quoted as saying that if he could cheat so blatantly in such a public event, what was to prevent him from cutting corners in his work and use ingredients that are cheap and perhaps dangerous to the customer’s health?  My brother, ever the wordsmith, had a field day naming some baked items he may put up from now on – Cheat Cake (cheese cake), Cheat and Ham Buns, and pies baked with Short Cut pastry (short crust pastry). 

Yes, integrity seems to be something that so many struggle with.  It is a very loaded word that implies that a person who has integrity really knows what to do in all aspects of life, and does not cut corners, who stands for truth and justice, and does not bow to the pressures of those who have bad or evil intentions in their endeavours.  Even inanimate objects are said to have integrity when their structure is sound, solid, wholesome and strong, and do not give way to the pressures of nature and physics.  An interesting article in the local paper yesterday made mention about how integrity in people is a rare find because true integrity has to be found in all levels for someone to be a person of integrity, not only when others are looking, but moreso when no one is looking.  It is false integrity if one is only honest in one’s dealings with one’s clients at work and with one’s taxes, but on the side, has a mistress and treats one’s employed helper at home like a slave and is cruel mean to them.  Indeed, true and complete integrity is not only a wonderful virtue, but it is also something that is a rare as the Kohinoor diamond.

What is it that spurs one to live in a fully integrated state in life?  Is it just a personal conviction that one should be living right, not just for oneself but for the good of society?  If so, then it is a purely subjective thing, and we run into all sorts of slippery slope situations because our human condition is so clever to justify our actions, even the questionably moral ones.  What is the gauge or standard to be judged by?  The writer of yesterday’s article in our local paper seemed to leave this rather open-ended perhaps because this paper is a secular paper and (for obvious Singapore reasons) cannot be seen to be promoting any religious ideas or views.

For us Christians, our integrity has not only a focal point, but also a common starting point – Jesus Christ.  His is the ‘Gold Standard’, which we who are baptized in him are called to follow and imitate. In all aspects in life, this God-Man perfected the ways of being human, and showed that it is possible to live an upright, moral and virtuous life, only by the grace of God.  The integrated man par excellence, Jesus,  calls all to ‘follow him’ so that the Kingdom of God can be manifest here on earth.   

But is this clarion call by Our Lord really heeded by his baptized followers with all seriousness and whole-heartedness?  Granted, it his is a tough act to follow, especially when we do not depend on the grace of God, but only on our own ‘moral compass’, which can go haywire at times.  Besides, the ways of the world seem to be tugging at us from different directions in situations that sometimes catch us off-guard.  I am only too well aware that it can be spiritually and even mentally taxing to be kept all the time on one’s toes to ensure that evil and sin is kept at arm’s length.  Humbling us, Prov. 24:16 reminds us that even the just man sins seven times a day.  What more the unjust or unenlightened one?

It is into this messy, sin-filled and weakened world that God chose to enter to ‘save’ us from ourselves.  This is what the essence of salvation is.  The life that Jesus came to give us is a life that allows us to live in tandem and in harmony with God’s own life.  It truly integrates us with God and if we truly understand and appreciate this, we can also understand why St Athanasius said, “God became man so that man can become god”.  Choosing anything lesser as our life’s aim and quest is then not only a foolish choice, but a choice that denies our fullest potential as the children of God. 

As the days leading to Christmas draw near, Christmas cribs can be seen in various places, from shopping malls to the gathering spaces in Churches.  Come Christmas, the figurine of the baby Jesus will be inevitably placed in a central place within that crib.  I’ve always noticed that the scale of the newborn figurine is always out of proportion compared to the other figurines in the crib.  Check it out for yourselves.  Scale-wise, the figure of the newborn is often akin to the size of a toddler.  But the general sentiment upon seeing this scene is often that of pity and regret – that this baby is a 'poor thing', and that this family really had it tough.  I guess as far as sentiments are concerned, these ‘sentimental feelings’ are understandable.

However, what most of us do not realise is that what happened in the incarnation is that God looked at the world and saw just how broken, sin-filled and disintegrated we human beings were, and declared –"this is a poor world and the people are truly 'poor things'.  I want to love them into becoming whole and to show them the way to Me.  In my Son, I will show them a true and fully integrated way of living, tough though the challenges may be.  My grace will be sufficient for them".

When we pause to think about it seriously, we have so much to be thankful for in this incredible act of mercy in the Incarnation.  But we hardly do that enough.  We are so caught up in the demands of our daily lives, and are only attentive to this call to perfection (be holy a I am holy – Lev. 11:44 and 1 Pet. 1:16) for an hour on Sundays when we turn up at the Eucharist, if at all.  And if we are not attentive to the goings on and the words of the Liturgy, more is lost on us and our faith becomes a mere name-tag that we wear than something that we live by and aim for. 

This second week of Advent the spirit of the Liturgy is to ask that Christ move us into action so that we can prepare ourselves for his coming not only as a sentiment at Christmas looking back at his birth in Bethlehem, but more importantly, for his second coming.  The word ‘action’ is pregnant with images of a courageously lived Christian life, fully integrated, leading us to mission and evangelization.  Are we attentive at each moment of our lives to live out the calling of our baptism?  This is the indeed the basis of our shared integrity.  Apart from this, we will all be falling apart. 

Revisiting the Sacrament of Reconciliation this Advent

As we enter into the Liturgical season of Advent, preparing us for Christmas, those of us who are practicing our faith with some degree of regularity will also know that toward the end of Advent, here in Singapore there is also what is known as the Penitential Services in which the priests of the various districts will come together as a team to ‘hear the confessions’ of the parishioners who will gather in church at a given afternoon or evening.  For the reader who may not be familiar with Roman Catholic terminology, "Confession, Sacrament of Penance, Sacrament of Reconciliation and Penitential Service" are synonyms.  

There are many negative feelings that surround this event, and they come from both the penitents and the confessors, and I hardly think that there has ever been a place where these feelings were aired freely and honestly.  For about three years now, I have been absent from this event as I had been away on study leave, and this year, I have to remove myself from the community for health reasons.  For each of my readers of this weekly blog who do participate in this bi-annual event (the other being in Lent), this entry is meant to encourage you to approach this celebration (yes, it is one, even if it may not feel like one) with a newness – and that it will truly begin to make a change in your life, at sin, at God’s infinite mercy, and most of all, at how you will approach this Sacrament.

One of the first things that I often have heard about not just the Sacrament of Reconciliation, but also the penitential services is that many people do not like them.  Just from an ego standpoint, I can fully understand this.  No one likes to admit that they had made a stupid mistake in life.  Our ‘natural’ (read sinful) tendency has always been to justify and make all sorts of good excuses for our sins and transgressions, or to do the Eve thing – blame it on the other person.  What really happens in the confessional is a full reversal of this.  In a contrite confession where one is touched by the grace of God, one comes clean and removes all excuses and justifications, and dares to blame no one but oneself for having sinned in small or great ways.  It kills the ego, and it humbles the spirit.  Yes, it is not a good feeling, but no one who has truly done this can ever tell me that there is not a complete lifting up of a terrible burden after one has made this kind of honest confession and received an absolution thereafter.  Remember, though each Sacrament of the Church is a real encounter with Christ, it is principally NOT about feelings.  What is essential is the reality of what is happening, and what is celebrated and participated in.  If we only get caught up with our feelings, we may be worshipping ourselves rather than God.

The other gripe I have often heard about the penitential services is that many priests in their instructions before the service begins, remind penitents to be brief and to-the-point.  This is something which I think has resulted not only in a Catch-22 for the penitent, but for the celebrant as well. 

My overseas reader may not be aware that at one such penitential service, as many as 1500 people can gather for this Sacrament in one parish.  Even when all the priests of the district do turn up to ensure that there are enough confession points, there will be a ratio of about one priest to sixty to eighty penitents.  Much as we want to ensure that every penitent who turns up gets to have his or her sins forgiven, it can often take on the unfortunate flavor of a factory line.  How does one adequately ensure that there is still the element of a ‘celebration’ of renewed life and a soul that is reconciled with God?  It is a tough call.

I would like to also ask my readers for some empathy for the priests who turn up assiduously for these services.  These services last for about an entire week in the various parishes in the districts, one day after another, one parish after another.  As a penitent, you may not realize it, but it is physically quite an exhausting thing to really pay attention and give one’s whole self to the penitent for an extended period of time.  This is not at all a complaint.  I am sure that my brother priests are happy to avail of themselves in this way for the benefit of your souls and your spiritual welfare, but it is a physically exhausting activity.  Of course, if one were to only listen passively and let one’s mind wander, one could sit there for hours and not get tired.  But every priest knows that if it took so much for the penitent to get to that point to want to make his or her peace with God and one’s fellow human being, that one just cannot be passive and inattentive when one is helping one to a healing of one’s soul by the grace of God.  One has to listen with empathy, patience, love and most of all, with charity in one’s heart.  This takes energy.

I wonder if the penitent ever thanks any priest after the absolution is given.  It’s not that we want to be thanked.  That’s not the point.  A couple of blog entries back, I made an honest appeal to really pray for priests who are jaded and who may be minimalists.  There may be a reason for them to have come to this point in their ministry.  They have not had much affirmation in their lives.  So, perhaps this year, when you do turn up for this penitential service at Advent, and see a very exhausted looking priest sitting in front of you, make a special effort to really thank him for his availability and his work, or you can really surprise him by giving him a hand written note of thanks, where he can see that you truly mean the words that come from your heart.  Just make sure that you do not choose your ‘favourite’ priest to do this to.  I am certain that in the next confession that he turns up for, he will do so with a certain newness of heart.  Another thing to never ever do is to give the confessor any monetary form of thanks as payment for the Sacrament.  Sacraments must never be linked with money.  You’ll only be committing a sin right after having had your sins forgiven!

Having shared these few points, what remains are just reminders that all of us sinners should remember when approaching the mercy of God and the God of mercies in the confession.

-       Do your self-examination well.  Many of us do not benefit much from the Sacrament because we may have been superficial about our sins and transgressions.  One of the most courageous things to do before any penitential service of confession is to ask your nearest and dearest about what your sins are.  Ask your spouse or your children, and you may be surprised at what they reveal.  Those may be your real issues that need reconciliation that you have been blinded to.

-       When in a long line waiting for your turn, pray instead of getting impatient and agitated.  The person in front of you and the many in the church may harbour deep fears, nervousness and perhaps even embarrassment about what they are going to confess.  Pray for all of them.  The physical gathering of so many Catholics should be a visible sign that we are a community who not only are fallen, but also a community that strongly believes that God is merciful, loving and compassionate.  This shared belief has caused us to turn up to be reconciled with God and with one another. 

-       If this particular Rite seems to make you more impatient and irritated each time you come for it, perhaps you need to celebrate it in the ordinary way instead.  Make an appointment with a priest a few weeks before this onslaught of confessions and turn up in his office (or confessional) where he can be much more available to you, and where there will be no pressure to ‘finish the line’ of penitents behind you.  I have personally heard so many heartfelt confessions in the privacy of my office as compared to the encounters I have had in the confessional. 

-       Finally, frequency helps remove fear and changes our approach toward this encounter of love and mercy.  One of the best things that we can do for ourselves is not to just resort to these penitential services for the spiritual health of our souls.  Just going to confession twice a year is like taking a bath or washing something that gets filthy just twice a year.  But that’s negatively put.  It is also akin to meeting God at his most merciful twice a year.  How can we be witnesses to God’s mercy if we only encounter this kind of amazing grace only twice in 365 days when we sin almost daily?  How can one 'sing a new song unto the Lord' about his wondrous mercy if one only wants to joyfully encounter his forgiveness at best bi-annually?  What really happens in the Confessional is that evil and sin and the devil are trumped by goodness, mercy and God's forgiveness.  Sin has lost its foothold on us and we make small progressive steps toward the Kingdom of God and turn our backs to evil and sin.  Frequent practices of such Rites and Rituals have the purpose of leading us to that place of nakedness and vulnerability where our ego identities fall away and our explanations hardly mean anything, where superiority and rights matter no longer.  That is when God can really get through to us, and as Franciscan Richard Rohr puts it, the "Trinitarian Flow" comes alive in us and God has the best chance. Psalm 5 reminds us that God is not a God who loves evil.  By our confession to want to break from sin, we are declaring boldly that we are on the side of God.  We hardly think in these terms.  Little wonder then that we hardly share actively with our fellow pilgrims about the healing mercy of God. 

May you have a most hopeful Advent in anticipation of Christ’s coming at Christmas.  God love you.