"Miserere Mei Deus"

I made it to Friday. I hope to did too. At least for me, this week that is no small achievement. Because I haven't had a chance to post, there is a lot on my mind. The foremost thing on my mind today is Lent. The holy season begins on Ash Wednesday, which this year falls on 14 February- the liturgical memorial of Saints Cyril and Methodius, brothers who evangelized the Slavic peoples. In other words, at least on the Church's calendar during when Ash Wednesday does not fall on this date, it is not St. Valentine's day.

I am often asked, "What are you reading for Lent?"

This year I am re-reading the Gospel According to St. Mark several times. Each time I am going to read a different English version. These will include the New American Bible, the Revised Standard Version, the Jerusalem Bible, the New Revised Standard Version, the King James Version, David Bentley Hart's New Testament: A Translation, and Eugene Peterson's The Message. For at least one of these readings, I am using Rowan Williams's Meeting God in Mark: Reflections for the Season of Lent.

Since this year marks the fortieth anniversary of its initial publication, I am re-reading Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline. I am supplementing that with Renovaré resources, especially Nathan Foster's podcasts on the disciplines.

Finally, I am reading Rowan William's Being Christian: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer.

I would encourage everyone reading this to read Pope Francis's Message for Lent before Wednesday (it's short).

Since there are 4 days before our Lenten journey gets underway, it's a good time to bring up fasting and its importance for the spiritual life. How about this year we not and avoid and evade fasting? I mean true fasting, not "fasting" from this, that, or the other thing but actual fasting from food. Fasting is a spiritual discipline taught by the Lord himself to his disciples and proven by disciples over the course of the Church's pilgrimage through time.

I am convinced that it is fasting that connects prayer to alms-giving. It is practicing these disciplines together and along with frequent reception of the sacraments of Penance and Eucharist that we give ourselves spiritual support and succor as we seek to make progress on all those other sinful and unhealthy things that beset us. In his Lenten message for this year Pope Francis wrote:

Fasting weakens our tendency to violence; it disarms us and becomes an important opportunity for growth. On the one hand, it allows us to experience what the destitute and the starving have to endure. On the other hand, it expresses our own spiritual hunger and thirst for life in God. Fasting wakes us up. It makes us more attentive to God and our neighbour. It revives our desire to obey God, who alone is capable of satisfying our hunger

Sadly, I've already seen a few, but, as Lent approaches, I expect to see more well-intentioned Catholics posting no need to fast memes and quotes saying things like - "It's better to hug your dog with great affection than to fast from food." In an effort to help with discernment, I think it is important to consider that many of these quotes by well-known spiritual masters and saints of the past date from a time when observant Catholics were obligated to fast a lot, some might say excessively. But in an age when virtually nobody fasts and the major concern of far too many Catholics going into Ash Wednesday, at least by many in wealthy countries where over-eating is a daily occurrence, is "How much can I eat and still be considered to be fasting?", such things strike me as spiritually ill-advised.

I love my dog, by-the-way. I hug her everyday. I will likely hug her on Ash Wednesday. One effect of fasting, of choosing to go without, is that it makes me more thankful for what I have and more conscious of what others don't. Fasting strengthens my commit to work for justice.

Not being a fan of or a participant in pre-Lenten excesses, like various kinds of Mardi Gras celebrations (we do make pancakes on Shrove Tuesday- the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday), on this final Friday before Lent, which is a penitential day normatively observed by Roman Catholics by abstaining from the meat of warm-blooded animals, our traditio is the King's Chapel Choir singing Psalm 51. This Psalm is often called by its Latin name Miserere (Mei Deus). The Latin title is simply the opening words of the Psalm, or, more accurately, the beginning words of the Psalm's third verse. This is the first Psalm for Morning Prayer each Friday, regardless of the week of the psalter (it is a four-week cycle). For me and many people who pray what are known as the hinge hours of the Liturgy of the Hours (i.e., Morning and Evening Prayer), it is the first Psalm we pray during Lent due to the fact that the Psalms and Canticles for Morning Prayer are taken from Friday, Week III, of the psalter:

I will rise when Christ heals me

Readings: Job 7:1-4.6-7; Ps 147:1-6; 1 Cor 9:16-19.22-23; Mark 1:29-39

Weeks during which I take my spiritual discipline seriously, I practice lectio divina with the readings for the coming Sunday. I find this beneficial both personally and as a preacher. This past week I managed to do this. Of course, at the center of the Bible and of each Sunday's readings one finds the Gospels. In our Gospel for this Sunday, Jesus is clearly presented as a healer of body and soul. It seems to me that Christians in who live in advanced societies are somewhat uncomfortable with Jesus being portrayed as such, at least as strongly as the Gospel of Mark portrays it.

Our first reading, which marks a rare occasion on which we read from the Book of Job in the three-year Sunday lectionary cycle, occurs after Job has been afflicted and has been upbraided by his friend Eliphaz, who wants to know what Job has done to earn God's wrath. Of course, Job, who is a just man, has done nothing to deserve what happened to him. In a very human, which is not to say sinful or disgraceful, manner Job rues his life. It's interesting that the lectionary reading is Job 7:1-4 and, skipping verse 5, 6-7. Once this gap is noticed, the question it prompts is almost inevitable. What does verse 5 say? It says: "My flesh is clothed with worms and scabs my skin cracks and festers." Apparently, this is too grotesque to proclaim in the liturgy. As a result of the state in which he finds himself, Job looks forward to death with no hope. The conclusion of the passage: "Remember that my life is like the wind my eye will not see happiness again."

If I had to venture a guess, very few Catholic preachers dealt with the reading from Job at all, or, if they did, they did so in a cursory manner. This is sad because Job's words are words with which many people are familiar. Life is often difficult in a variety of ways. I think we make a mistake in rushing too quickly past suffering, misery and their effects. In a rush to reach Easter, you can't leap Good Friday in a single bound, nor should you want to, which is not the same as saying you need to go out and find ways to suffer. Don't worry, if it hasn't already, life will cause you to suffer. Rushing too quickly past pain, suffering and misery, I believe, truncates and attenuates the power of the Gospel, the power of which lies in experience, not words.

Paul, too, in our second reading from 1 Corinthians, is complaining. Among other things, he trying to make sense of the suffering he endured while proclaiming, or endeavoring to proclaim, the Gospel. I don't mind sharing at this point that the phrase on which I meditated from the Job was "When shall I rise?" It's important, however, to put the phrase in context. In the context of the passage and even the verse (verse 4) in itself, the phrase is not a metaphysical question: "When I lie down I say, 'When shall I arise?' then the night drags on; I am filled with restlessness until the dawn." It is about making it through a long night of suffering. In the reading from Paul's letter I found something of an answer to the question "When shall I rise?" I shall rise when I do everything for the sake of the Gospel. Doing everything for the sake of the Gospel means living selflessly as a sacrifice for others without complaining, seeing it as a blessing, the lifting of a burden, not an imposition of one. At least for me, self is the biggest burden I carry.

Healing Peter's mother-in-law, by John Bridges, 19th century

I will rise when Jesus heals me.

Living for the sake of the Gospel requires me to be a man of prayer, which, in turn, requires me to go to deserted places. A deserted place is a place devoid of people. In our Gospel, Jesus has spent the day not merely surrounded by people but engulfed by humanity. While Mark gives some indication that not everyone was healed, he gives no indication that Jesus turned anyone away. I think it's fair to say, for Jesus, it was an exhausting day. Nonetheless, the Lord arose before the dawn the next day in order to go to an empty place and pray. We also learn in very clear terms that Peter was married.

His disciples, perhaps awakening and realizing he was gone, "pursued" or "hunted" for him. I am no expert in Koine Greek, but I like the term "pursued," preferring it to other English words one might employ in translation. They pursued Jesus. They found Jesus. What did they tell him? "Everyone is looking for you." But he did not say, "Okay, let's go back to Capernaum." They left and went to other Galilean towns and villages.

We have a tendency in our spiritual lives to want to go back to those "good times," times when prayer seemed easy, answers immediate and generous, etc. Because it is part of life, in the spiritual life there is no going back. Jesus calls us ever forward. It seems to me that this truth is a source of tension in the Church at present. As the barque of Peter sails over the ocean of time it is not unusual to encounter choppy waters and even gale force storms but we're always headed for the farthest shore despite the temptation to head back.

I realize this a bit disjointed but I think sometimes writing and sharing unvarnished thoughts can be useful.

Solemnity of the Presentation, Candlemas, Christ our Light

Yesterday being Friday and the first Friday of the second month of 2018, I had planned to post a traditio. But life supersedes blogging. Actually, I posted more in January than I thought I would, even though I missed posting thoughts on the Sunday readings last week. Nonetheless, yesterday we did celebrate the Solemnity of the Presentation of the Lord. Since it was a solemnity that fell on a Friday, I enjoyed a Philly cheese steak sandwich for lunch. I also unapologetically ate a lovely potato, cheese, and sausage dish for supper.

The Presentation of the Lord is the Church's commemoration of that day when Mary and Joseph brought the infant Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem in order to fulfill all the Law of Moses required with regard to a firstborn son. This is set forth in St. Luke's Gospel (2:22-38). This marked the beginning of Jesus's perfect fulfillment of the Law, doing is his own person what Israel, throughout her history, was unwilling and incapable of doing on her own.

Traditionally, the Solemnity of the Presentation of the Lord, which marks the outer most boundary of Christmas, has also been known as Candlemas. Because of this, part of the observance of this solemnity has consisted and still consists in many places of blessing candles brought to Mass by the faithful. In our day, the age of electric lights, these blessed candles are used for devotional purposes in our homes. Like holy water and blessed salt, these blessed candles are sacramentals. According to the Second Vatican Council, sacramentals "are sacred signs which bear a resemblance to the sacraments: they signify effects, particularly of a spiritual kind, which are obtained through the Church's intercession" (Dogmatic Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, sec. 60-61). By means of sacramentals, Christians "are disposed to receive the chief effects of the sacraments" (Ibid). I don't mind sharing that I brought home a blessed candle for use when I am depressed and/or feeling anxious.

It is in the context of this lengthy pericope in the second chapter of St. Luke's Gospel, that Simeon, who, along with the prophetess Anna (she receives short shrift) recognizes in the baby Jesus the fulfillment of their hope, that of their people, and, indeed, the whole world, filled with the Holy Spirit, like so many in Luke's Gospel and its sequel, the Acts of the Apostles, sings what subsequent tradition knows as the Nunc Dimittis (Luke 2:29-32). Nunc Dimittis are simply the Latin words for the beginning of this hymn: "Now you [may] dismiss..." Along with the Blessed Virgin's Magnificat (Luke 1:46-56) and the canticle of Zechariah, known as the Benedictus (Luke 1:67-79), the Nunc Dimittis is one of the three so-called "Evangelical Canticles" given us in the first two chapters of St. Luke's Gospel.

These three canticles are occupy a central place in the liturgical prayer life of the Western Church. Each is recited every day in the Church's prayer, known as the Liturgy of the Hours. The Benedictus and Magnificat are part of what are known as the "hinge" offices of the Liturgy of the Hours. These hinge offices are Morning and Evening Prayer. Traditionally, Morning and Evening Prayer are known as Lauds and Vespers, respectively. The Nunc Dimittis is part of Night Prayer, known also as Compline, which, along with the Office of Readings, constitutes the second tier of the Liturgy of the Hours, after the hinge hours.

It is from the words of the Nunc Dimittis that Candlemas comes to be:

Now, Master, you may let your servant go
in peace, according to your word,
for my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you prepared in sight of all the peoples,
light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and glory for your people Israel (italicizing and emboldening emphasis mine)

Simeon, who, with Anna, was among the most of Israelites, recognized that God's salvation, while from the Jews, extends to everyone. In the words of the hymn by Rev. F. Pratt Green: "Christ is the world's light, Christ and none other; born in our darkness, he became our brother."

Our very late Friday traditio, therefore, is not difficult to guess. It is a choral version of the Nunc Dimittis, composed by Gustav Holst and sung by the Exeter Cathedral Choir:

"Where is the harmony...sweet harmony?"

At the expense of appearing to be a bit out-of-line, in light of a recently publicized letter signed by more than a dozen faith leaders here in Utah calling on the Utah Legislature, which is currently meeting in its annual legislative session, to pass hate crime legislation, I have to state that I am not in favor of hate crime laws. Why? Because they strike me as too 1984-ish. Frankly, I am alarmed at the prospect of the state establishing thought crimes.

According to Bob Mims, religion reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune, Senate Bill 86, sponsored by Sen. Daniel Thatcher, a Republican from West Valley City, "punishment for a class A misdemeanor could be meted out at a harsher, third-degree-felony level if the crime targeted a person based on 'ancestry, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, national origin, race, religion or sexual orientation.'"

Do I like hate? Of course not. I hate hate. But I love haters. I don't mind saying that I often find Jesus's command to love haters the most difficult thing about being a Christian (see Matt 5:43-47). It's a command I often fail to heed. Hate is ugly and sometimes leads haters to engage in illegal behavior such as vandalism and/or assault, even murder. The Tribune provided the full text of the letter on the same webpage as Mims's article. To wit: all of the examples given in the letter are already illegal acts. Making a bomb threat, for example, is illegal. Is it worse to threaten a building full of worshipers than, say, a building full of federal employees? Is it worse to threaten a Catholic school than a public school full of children whose religions run the gamut from devoutly Islamic, to Jewish, to Hindu, to Protestant, to Mormon, to Catholic, to to children being raised with no religion?

Will such hate crime laws have a deterrent effect? This is an important question not least of which is because many people who favor hate crime legislation oppose the death penalty. I oppose the death penalty. Opponents of the death penalty, such as myself, frequently argue, based on the available evidence, that the prospect of receiving the death penalty does not deter violent crime. Can hate crime laws be shown to have a deterrent effect on alleged hate crimes, an deterrent effect over and above existing laws?

What Alasdair MacIntyre identified in his landmark book After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory as "emotivism" strikes me as the driving force behind such laws. I know my stance on this will not be popular with some people who read my blog. Opposing hate crime laws means having to endure the accusation that I think crimes against certain groups are alright. To be clear: such crimes are not alright, which is why such acts are already illegal, usually felonies. I am in favor existing laws that protect persons and property. Equality under the law, like the presumption of innocence, is fundamental to a free society.

Prudence, a virtue I sometimes lack, prohibits me from being too critical of the letter but I found its invocation of the death of Mormon church founder Joseph Smith, Jr. and his brother Hyrum more than a little historically dubious, but that is another issue for (perhaps) another day. It bears noting that the Mormon church was not signatory to the letter. Whether the Mormon church not being a signatory to the letter means it does not support SB86 or whether it is simply due to the recent leadership transition necessitated by the passing of church president, Thomas S. Monson, I do not know.

Does my criticism of the letter's use of the killing of the Smiths as an example as to why such laws are needed mean I don't think Mormons should be protected under the law? Of course not! They should be; Catholics should be; atheists should be; Jews should be; Muslims should be; Wiccans should be; homosexual people should be; transgendered people should be. All people by virtue of being human should be protected under our laws. A just society demands such universal protection. But nobody should be "more equal" than anyone else. If you assault me, you already commit a crime, even if you assault me for being an annoying Catholic cleric.

As Senator Thatcher's bill makes clear, all offenses that would be subject to hate crime penalties are already illegal and, therefore, carry criminal penalties. It is often the case that perpetrators of these kinds of crimes can be subject to civil litigation too. At least in my view, the culture of encounter that Pope Francis is calling on Catholics to create is not fostered by hate crimes legislation and will not be brought about by the state, only by people committed to peace, love, and understanding enough to act. In terms of what government can do, I think restorative justice proceedings in cases that racial, religious, or other kinds of similar animosity may have played a role might prove effective at healing such rifts within our communities.

I recently watched an episode of Sarah Silverman's I Love You America, one in which she interviewed former white supremacist, Christian Picciolini. In the episode, Picciolini averred - "The secret to stopping people from becoming extremists is to understand that in most cases they're not monsters, they're broken human beings doing monstrous things." I think this episode of Silverman's program provides a great catechetical lesson on fostering a culture of encounter. In that same vein, I think people who sponsor and advocate for hate crime laws are well-intentioned. I am not completely closed-minded about this but I have yet to be presented with an argument for hate crime laws that refutes the concerns I have expressed. I agree with the end supporters of hate crime laws are trying to achieve, I just disagree with this means of trying to achieve it.

While it is a repeat from about a year ago, our Friday traditio is Nick Lowe's "What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love, and Understanding?" The last time this was our traditio it was performed by Elvis Costello. For today we'll let Nick take it away:

Year B Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Jon 3:1-5.10; Ps 25:4-9; 1 Cor 7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20

In our Psalm response, we implored the Lord to teach us his ways, which indicates we want to learn his ways in order to be his disciples and participate in his mission of reconciling the world to the Father.

If Lent is the time we devote each year to preparing for Easter, then this relatively brief period of Ordinary Time after Christmas is this time during which we prepare for Lent. Each Lent the Lord invites his Church to learn his ways by practicing them and not merely thinking or talking about them.

Our Gospel today is St. Mark’s account of the beginning of Jesus’s public ministry. It’s important to be reminded that the beginning of the Lord’s public ministry was preceded by his baptism by John in the Jordan (Mark 1:9) and by spending forty days “in the desert” being “tempted by Satan” (Mark 1:13).

According to Mark, Jesus began his public ministry with these words: “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). There are two things that bear noting about the Lord’s proclamation. First, he is the kingdom in person. This reality was captured well by the great third-century theologian and Scripture scholar, Origen, with his use of the Greek word autobasileia, which translates into English as “the kingdom in person.” Wherever Jesus is, there is God's kingdom. The second aspect of the Lord’s proclamation that requires some attention is the final sentence: “Repent, and believe in the Gospel.”

Translating Jesus’s words about repenting and believing in a very literal way it would be rendered be-you-repenting and be-you-believing. This, in turn, tells us two things: that repenting and believing are on-going activities; it also indicates that repenting comes before believing. Most of the time we think of believing as acquiring a certain degree of knowledge, learning the Lord’s ways through study and instruction. Then on the basis of this understanding we set about, with God’s help, to reshape our lives. It was St. Anselm of Canterbury who averred, “I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand” (Proslogion, sec. 1).

Metanoia is the Greek word translated as “Repent” in our Gospel reading. When we hear the word “Repent” we usually understand this to mean something like expressing sorrow for one's sins. But metanoia means to change one’s mind, to be converted, to be transformed from within. You are not transformed merely by thinking good thoughts, or having orthodox beliefs – though orthodoxy, or correct belief, ought to lead to orthopraxis, correct behavior, but, sadly, too often it does not. What transforms or converts you is what you do, how you act. You learn to be Jesus’s disciple by doing, like an apprentice.

The Lord’s way is the way of loving others by selflessly serving them. Our first reading today is one of the very few times we hear a passage from the Book of Jonah proclaimed during Sunday Mass. In the context of the narrative, our reading occurs after Jonah is delivered to the seashore nearest Nineveh by the “great fish” (Jonah 2:1). His unconventional delivery was necessitated by Jonah’s refusal to obey God’s call to go to this large pagan city and call them to repentance.

It’s important to recognize that God’s call for Jonah to go to Nineveh is analogous to God calling a Jewish prophet to go to Berlin in the mid-1930s and call on Nazi Germany to repent. Recognizing this is important to understanding not only why Jonah initially refused to go but why he booked passage on a boat headed in the opposite direction. Though none too happy about it, he went and called the Ninevites to repentance. It was not only to his surprise but to his great chagrin that the people of Nineveh heeded his message and repented. The Book of Jonah is not an historical book, it is a comedy, it’s a joke. The punchline is: the Ninevites converted but the prophet who called on them to do so did not.

Nineveh responded to Jonah’s proclamation by putting on sackcloth and by fasting. Along with prayer and alms-giving, which mainly consists of selflessly serving others, not just chucking your spare change into a cup, fasting is one of the Lord’s ways we need to learn. How rarely we fast! But fasting is what connects prayer to alms-giving.

Lent begins with a fast. Receiving ashes on our foreheads is our way of symbolically putting on sackcloth. It may surprise many people that Ash Wednesday is not a holy day of obligation. In other words, the Church does not obligate you to attend Mass on this day, but the Church does obligate you to fast, at least if you are 18-59 years of age. But people who are at least 14 are obligated to abstain from meat. And people who are 60 or older and are able, are encouraged to fast and or abstain. Too often the first question we ask about the two days per year the Church obligates us to fast (i.e., Ash Wednesday and Good Friday) is, “How much food can I eat and still consider myself to be fasting?” This is not repenting and believing, it’s not only wanting to have your cake and eat it but to have it frosted with some kind of imputed holiness, magically granted that requires nothing from you.

For Christians, it is always the end of the world until the end of the world. In our New Testament reading from St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle tells the Church to live in a peculiar and self-denying manner because “the world in its present form is passing away.” We must never lose sight of the fact that the mission of the Church, the work of God’s people, is to hasten the passing of the world in its present form, preparing the way for God’s kingdom.

That Jesus issued his call to the two pairs of brothers in today’s Gospel with great urgency is revealed by their immediate and decisive response. They grasped that the moment they heard the Lord call was their time of fulfillment, not the next day, the next week, or in five minutes. Jesus calls you today with no less urgency.

"We'll find another end" - Dolores O'Riordan requiscat in pace

I have to admit I was kinda proud of myself for having this week's Friday traditio all thought out. You, see last Saturday marked the 50th anniversary of Johnny Cash's famous Folsom Prison concert. I had planned to pay tribute to the Man in Black this week. But on Monday I learned of the sudden death of Dolores O'Riordan, the Irish singer who is most famous for fronting a band I like very much: Cranberries.

O'Riordan was only 46 at the time of her passing. She died alone in her London hotel room. Apparently, she was in London doing some recording. Her battles with depression and bi-polar disorder which, at least to some extent, arose from the trauma she experienced as the result of being sexually abused as a child. After a suicide attempt in 2013, she was more open about the abuse she suffered. There can be little doubt her speaking out was an attempt to exorcise the demons her abuse inflicted on her. If you're interested in what her speaking out consisted of, you can look at this article: "Cranberries’ Dolores O’Riordan Suffered Horrific Sexual Abuse: 'I Buried It.'" By all accounts, she continued to experience mental health problems. Additionally, she suffered from various physical maladies. While the cause of her death is currently unknown there are a lot of markers suggesting she may have taken her own life. No matter the cause, she died too young.

Dolores O'Riordan 1971-2018

In Spanish, the language from which the word is taken, her name, "Dolores," means "sorrows." The horrific sexual abuse she suffered at such a young age certainly caused her plenty of sorrow, too much. Her mother is a devout Catholic. O'Riordan was raised a practicing Catholic. To my knowledge, throughout most of her life, she identified herself as a Christian, albeit she was usually careful to put some distance between herself and the Catholic Church. I do not know why she felt the need to do that but I don't think she ever trashed the Church, not that it would bother me if she had. Sometimes, based on their experiences with the Church, it is very understandable to me why some people speak very critically of the Church. After all, the Church has inflicted sorrows on people. People who speak out are doing the Church a favor.

Frankly, in a world so badly in need of a punk rock revolution, the last people we can afford to lose are bona fide punks like Dolores O'Riordan.

O'Riordan has twice been featured as our Friday traditio: on 22 December 2007 singing the Ave Maria at the Vatican and again on 9 September 2011 singing one of the Cranberries' most popular songs, "Linger," with Simon LeBon, the lead singer of the British band Duran Duran. When she sang at the Vatican Christmas concert in 1995 (she sang at it again in 2013), along with her Mom she met Pope John Paul II. After meeting him she said: "I was chuffed [means very pleased] to see the inside [of the Vatican] and to meet [the Pope], who was lovely, very saintly. I was mad about him. I thought he really cared about the poor and he loved to meet the people. I saw him when he came to Limerick when I was a kid, so it was pretty mind-blowing to take my mum out to meet him."

Dolores Eileen O'Riordan rest in peace. I pray your sorrows are at an end. She and her husband divorced in 2014. Together they had 3 children. I also pray for her children who must be bereft.

Our Friday traditio is the Cranberries with "I Can't Be With You," a song off their second studio album No Need to Argue. It's a song of lament and longing and so one to which we can all relate. Her vocal stylings are very Celtic and so resonate with me deeply. I love that her Irish accent is ever-present in her music. It's one of the many things that makes her music her present to us:

Back in 2012, the Cranberries did one of NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts. It is 19 minutes and 31 seconds and worth every second of your time. This up-close performance crackles with the requisite Celtic spirit. You can watch and listen to it here.

The Sacrament of Penance

The Scripture reading for Friday in Week II of the Liturgy of the Hours is Ephesians 2:13-16:

But now in the Anointed One Jesus you who were once far away have come to be near, through the blood of the Anointed. For he is himself our peace, who has made the two into one and shattered the interposing wall of partition - the enmity - in his flesh, Having abolished the Law consisting in commandments and ordinances, that in himself he might fashion the two into a single new human being, making peace, And might by the cross reconcile the two to God in one body, killing enmity in himself ¹

This is a Scripture passage well-suited for Friday, which, unless a solemnity falls on that day of the week or we are within one of the celebratory octaves, is a day of penance. Being reconciled to God through Christ by the power of their Spirit is fundamental to Christianity. Of course, there is no shortage of atonement theories that seek to explain just how Christ's atonement works.

This week I was asked to provide a relatively brief overview of the Roman Catholic "take" on confession. What I provided is by no means comprehensive or exhaustive. In fact, it does not go into the Sacrament of Penance very deeply at all, but that was not what I was requested to provide. I don't mind saying that I am a regular penitent most of the time. But now and again I experience periods when, for any variety of reasons, not least among which is my on-going struggle with depression and the resultant spiritual affliction of acedia, I find it difficult to go to confession. In fact, I have not been to confession since the beginning of the new liturgical year.

Writing about confession this week was a grace because it convicted me that it is time for me to g. So this coming Tuesday afternoon I have an appointment with my regular confessor. As I have done for all my years of blogging, as well as in my preaching and teaching, I urge you, dear reader, to have regular and fairly frequent recourse to this wonderful, life-giving, sacrament. The Sacrament of Penance, through which we are time again reconciled to God and each other, was the first gift our resurrected Lord gave to his Bride, the Church.

Below is what I provided about the Sacrament of Penance:

____________________________________________________________________________________

The Sacrament of Penance, more popularly known as "confession," is how Catholics receive forgiveness for post-baptismal sins, especially so-called mortal, grave, or serious sins [the terms "mortal," "grave," and "serious" are used synonymously]. The Sacrament of Penance, in a sense, is an extension of the Sacrament of Baptism. This is depicted beautifully in The Cathedral of the Madeleine. When you enter the Cathedral through the main doors, you encounter the baptismal font. The font consists of an upper basin and a lower font. If you look down into the lower font, where adults are baptized at the Easter Vigil, you will see the floor of the font is shaped like a cross. If you visually follow the cross to the East and West walls, you see it is aligned with the confessionals.

Under normal circumstances (i.e., the person has regular access to the Sacrament of Penance), a Catholic who is conscious of having committed a serious sin(s) should refrain from receiving Holy Communion until the sin(s) has been confessed, absolved and the penance completed. Prior to going to confession, Catholics are urged to prayerfully examine their consciences. There are many aids available to assist Catholics in their examination. A so-called “good confession” is one in which the penitent confesses all the sins he has committed since his last confession.

It is important to note that confession is just that, confession, or self-accusation. It is not an interrogation. In asking questions of a penitent during confession, priests are to act with prudence and discretion.²

Christ atoned for our sins. Hence, penances are not assigned in order to do what Christ has done for you. Penances are not punishments but are given in order to help one grow in love of God and neighbor. While a penance may be related to the sin, like being told to do something nice for your spouse to whom you said ugly things in a fit of anger, very often it consists of saying prayers, like three Hail Marys and an Our Father. I don’t mind saying that at end of a confession I made shortly after last Easter, my penance was to reflect on a particular passage of the Exsultet, an ancient hymn sung by a deacon at the beginning of the Easter Vigil.

Catholics are no longer required to go to confession prior to each Holy Communion. At a minimum, Catholics are obligated to go confession at least once a year. If it’s been longer than a year since one’s last confession that should be confessed. I think most of us in ministry encourage people to go with more frequently than once a year and with some regularity. The sacrament is initiated by the penitent, who usually says while crossing himself- "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been [however long] since my last confession."

For Roman Catholics, the Scripture passage the constitutes the basis of the Sacrament of Penance more than James 5:16, which urges Christian to confess their sins to each other, is John 20:21-23. In this passage Jesus, appearing to his disciples after his resurrection, breathes on them, giving them the Holy Spirit, and tells them, "Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained."

A priest may never violate the seal of the confessional. "The sacramental seal is inviolable; therefore it is absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason."³ Further, "A confessor is prohibited completely from using knowledge acquired from confession to the detriment of the penitent even when any danger of revelation is excluded" and "A person who has been placed in authority cannot use in any manner for external governance the knowledge about sins which he has received in confession at any time."⁴

If someone confesses a crime during a sacramental confession, the priest hearing the confession may encourage the person to turn himself in. The priest may even make turning himself in the penance. If someone confesses an intention to commit a crime, the priest may and probably should try to dissuade the penitent from carrying out the crime, but he may not divulge what he was told during a confession. If a priest divulges what he heard in a confession, he incurs automatic excommunication.⁵

One does not go to confession to find out whether or not God will forgive him. Christians are always already forgiven by virtue of Christ’s atonement. So why go to confession? If nothing else, confessing one’s sins, receiving absolution, and making satisfaction (i.e., completing one’s assigned penance) is something you experience firsthand, not just a mental transaction that leaves you wondering whether or not you’re forgiven. In essence, we don’t go to confession to admit our failures. We go to confession to claim our victory in Christ.

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1 Ephesians 2:13-16 from David Bentley Hart's The New Testament: A Translation (New Haven: Yale University Press), 382.^↩
2 Code of Canon Law, Canon 979.^↩
3 Code of Canon Law, Canon 983 §1^↩
4 Code of Canon Law, Canon 984 §1-§2^↩
5 Code of Canon Law, Canon 1388 §1^↩