Making good on our deal

3^rd Week of Lent (W)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
NDS, NOLA

Back in the Dark Ages, music-lovers could join the Columbia House Record Club. Join up to buy just one cassette tape for $9.99 and you would receive ten free cassettes of your choosing! Sounds like a great deal. . .until you realize that ninety percent of their stock consisted of third-rate 70's disco bands and glam hair bands from the 80's. Of course, I signed up. Many, many times. Each month – for years – I'd receive a catalog in the mail with a reminder that I had to buy just one more cassette to fulfill my obligation. Just one more. On occasion I'd break down and buy something. Hoobastanks' They Sure Don't Make Basketball Shorts Like They Used To, or Twisted Sisters' Love is for Suckers. Anything to stop the catalogs. Anything to get out from under the obligation. I discovered, however, that once you're member of the Columbia House Record Club, you are always a member. The catalogs don't stop. The pre-paid return envelopes don't stop. The glitter-glam bad hair guitar bands haunt your dreams. Forever. You make a deal under legal obligation, and there's no one to save you. 

 

The Jews made a deal with some legal obligations – though none of these involved monthly catalogs. As time moved away from the Original Deal, the terms of the contract began to grow, layer upon layer; the obligations piled up and the procedures for meeting one's obligations became more intricate. Underneath the desiccated barnacles of interpretation, application, amendment, and nuance the heart of the Original Deal still beat. Love God. Love self. Love neighbor. In order to expose the still beating heart of the Original Deal, God sent His only Son to become one of us, to assume – as his own – our inability to carry out of our end of the bargain, and to teach us how to live freely as children of the Original Deal Maker. In other words, Christ came to fulfill the terms of our deal, to meet all of our obligations under the Law. He did not accomplish this feat of mercy by sweeping away the Original Deal. He did it by bringing together in one divine person the perfection of God and the imperfections of man; by dying so that our imperfections might be made perfect; and by rising back to the Father, carrying with him everything that makes us prone to the sickness of sin and the permanency of death. The Law he fulfilled remains. 

 

The Original Deal still stands. Love God. Love self. Love neighbor. And do so knowing that your failures have already been forgiven.

Follow HancAquam or Subscribe ----->

Confession Advice

NB. A repost by request. . .

1).  Confession is all about receiving the forgiveness we have all already been given.   We cannot earn forgiveness by works, attitude, or even confession itself; if we could, it would be a wage not a grace (i.e. a gift).

2).  Penance is not a punishment for sin.  Completing the penance you've been given is a sign that you have received God's forgiveness and resolved not to sin again.  This is why I always assign sin-appropriate psalms as penance.

3).  Priests rarely remember the sins of individual penitents.  Some believe that this is a grace from God given so that the confessor is spared the difficulty of carrying around the memories of sin.  Sounds good to me.  Frankly, I think the explanation is more mundane: priests have heard it all and sin is boring.

4). Explaining your sins in the confessional is unnecessary and time-consuming.  Just say what you did and leave it at that.  If more info is needed, your confessor will ask.  Explanations generally come across as attempts to excuse the sin.

5).  Ask for counsel if you need it.  Most experienced confessors will know when counsel is needed, but it never hurts to ask.  Just keep in mind that there are others waiting to confess!

6).  This is your confession, so stick to your sins.  You cannot confess for your kids, your spouse, your neighbors, etc.  And please avoid using your confession time to complain about your kids, your spouse, your neighbors, etc.

7).  Faithfully assisting at Mass (actually participating) absolves venial sins.  Why else would we recite the Confiteor and the celebrant pray for our absolution?

8).  If you are unsure about whether or not X is a sin, ask.  Remember:  mortal sins are acts of disobedience that "kill charity" in your heart.  You cannot sin mortally through accident or ignorance. Don't turn a venial sin into a mortal "just in case."  

9).  Keep your eye on the clock and the line.  Make a thorough confession but balance your thoroughness with economy.  Others are waiting.  One way to do this (if there's a long line) is to stick to your mortal sins and save the venial sins for Mass.

10).  Tell your confessor that you will pray for him. . .and then go out there and pray for him! 

________________________
 
Follow HancAquam or Subscribe ----->

Coffee Cup Browsing

Time to shake up the judges! 

More bad news for the Church of Climate Change. . .Pope Gore unavailable for comment.

Snowflakes take classes on how to be adults. Geez. I had my first job at 15.

Victims can sue San Jose for not protecting them from "protesters." Discovery should be very interesting.

If B.O. had issued Trump's travel ban, would it be constitutional? Of course it would.

The infantilization of academia continues. . .OUCH! 

______________________________________

Follow HancAquam or Subscribe ----->