Contemplate Jesus Christ crucified

This is my first post for the month of September! For what it's worth, I intended differently. I am beginning to really see and feel the benefit of less is more when it comes to blogging. I don't mind divulging that I currently find life a bit exhausting.

In one his often amazing daily homilies, which he delivers during the daily Mass he celebrates at the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta at the Vatican, Pope Francis yesterday said, “the privileged place for an encounter with Christ are our sins. If a Christian is incapable of seeing his sins and his salvation in the blood of Christ, he has only gone half-way. He is a tepid Christian."

By Matthias Grunewald

I am privileged to teach the faith to a lot of people. In discussing the Sacrament of Penance, it is always worth noting that confession is not where we go to admit defeat, but where we go to claim our victory, won for us by our magnificent Savior.

Our Friday traditio, off their album Redemption Songs, is Jars of Clay (a personal favorite) singing the hymn "O Come and Mourn With Me Awhile," which is fitting fare for a penitential day.

O break, O break hard heart of mine
My weak self-love and guilty pride
His Pilate and His Judas were
Jesus our Lord is Crucified

Another hymn covered on Redemption Songs is "Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder," which features these beautiful words:

Let us love and sing and wonder
Let us praise the Savior's name
He has hushed the law's loud thunder
He has quenched Mount Sinai's flame
He has washed us with His blood

Don't forget the week after next are the fall Ember Days (Wednesday, Friday, Saturday), after the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, which falls on a Sunday this year and trumps the Twenty-fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time