The Musical 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 ...

A friend wrote me this evening asking about confession. The conversation began: ummm, okay. what can you tell me about confession? I mean, I've been to confession and stuff before, but I feel that I don't go enough, as it is a sacrament and all, and all sacraments are important, but I don't really know what to say when I'm in there, and, well, you probably get the picture Unfortunately, I do get the picture. Only too well: to be honest, I hate going to Confession. To be fair, I don't take exception to it as a sacrament - it's just that my ego can't stand having to admit my faults and failings! Posed over AOL Instant Messenger, my response as I gave it to him is more disjointed than I would want to reproduce here, so I'd like to offer a few thoughts on how I approach this sacrament. Keep in mind that the sacrament of confession is one of healing. It is a chance for us to pose to ourselves the question, " Self (or, if your name is not Self, insert y...