I don't need to tell my sins to a priest!
Two responses to my last post on the Mass mentioned the sacrament of confession. When composing the post, it did occur to me to mention this sacrament but, given my desire to be somewhat brief, I thought it might be helpful to offer a reflection on confession in a stand-alone post. Saint Augustine, I believe, offered the following remarkable description of the sinner as one who is curvatus in se : turned in on oneself. When we sin, we don't do grave damage to God. Rather, we do terrible damage to ourselves insofar as, through sin, we cut ourselves off from the source of light and life. Humans are like gym socks. Much is expected from them and both are prone to get dirty. Proper care of gym socks involves frequent laundering in order to make sure they last, to ward off athlete's foot and other maladies, and as a courtesy to one's neighbors (as one who's going to teach high school boys after gym class, trust me that we're going to be having a conversation about ...