Hector Molina. May 24, 2013
My son Joshua recently celebrated his first Penance in
anticipation of his first Holy Communion. He is the first of our five children
to do so. Needless to say, it was a very special day for him and our family. My wife and I have done our best to
help him and his sibling to understand the beauty, meaning, and power of the
sacraments, and whenever possible have used everyday examples and metaphors to
help illustrate this for him.
Recently, while watching some television, we happened upon
the popular television program “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”. It is a show
that features a team of homebuilders and designers that respond to requests
from individuals from throughout the country whose homes are in severe
disrepair and are need of an “extreme makeover”. I took the occasion to point
out to my children that this program is a great metaphor for the Sacrament of
Penance, which is ordered toward the spiritual renewal and “makeover” of the
soul wounded by sin.
LOOK WITHIN
Does not the Church exhort us to take stock of our lives,
to look within our souls in order to survey the many areas that have been
damaged and wounded by sin? In this day and age, this practice of examining
one’s conscience is discouraged to say the least. We are so consumed with the
external dimensions of our lives that we easily ignore the internal and tend to
neglect that which is most important, namely the condition of our souls.
In order to remedy this, The Church instructs us to get in
the habit of taking a moral inventory of our lives and to prayerfully consider
the damage caused by our sins.
THE DANGER OF DENIAL
Another major obstacle that we face in our modern day
culture is what Venerable Pope Pius XII described as the “sin of the century”.
Namely, “the loss of the sense of sin.” And because we have done away with sin
through denial and moral relativism, we have conveniently absolved ourselves of
any guilt.
The Servant of God Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen put it best
when he said,
There was a time
when Catholics were the only ones who believed in the Immaculate Conception.
Nowadays, it seems that everyone believes that he or she has been immaculately conceived.
CONFESSION IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL
We are all sinners, each and every one of us. And as such,
we must acknowledge that we have offended God both by what we have done (sins
of commission) and also by what we have failed to do (sins of omission). It is
sin that wounds and destroys the life of grace in us. Sin alienates us from
God, from our neighbor and from our very selves. Sin disfigures our soul and
enslaves us. (see John 8:34)
The Good News is that Jesus came to set us free from the
bondage of sin death. The Good News is that the
“Ultimate Design Team” (The Most Holy Trinity) is standing at the door of our
hearts and is knocking. (see Rev. 3:20) The Good Lord wants to give us a new
heart and a new spirit (see Ez. 36:26) and accomplishes this spiritual makeover
most powerfully through the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
TEAR DOWN IN ORDER TO BUILD UP
On the Television show, some of the most exciting footage is
captured when the large bulldozers tear the entire house down in a matter of
mere minutes. First they must tear down, in order to build up. When we confess
our sins with true sorrow and contrition and invite the Lord into our hearts,
his grace and mercy are able to uproot and tear down the walls of sin and
disobedience.
Once the old house is torn down, the process of building
begins. They make sure that the new house is built on a solid foundation. In
the gospels, Jesus reminds us of this important principle:
Every one then who
hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his
house upon the rock; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew
and beat upon that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on
the rock. - Matt. 7:24-25
St. Paul describes the glorious reality of whose lives are
built on the solid foundation of Jesus Christ.
So whoever is in
Christ is a new creaton: the old things have passed away; behold, new things
have come. And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through
Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation. - 2 Cor. 5:17-?19
When a person repents of their sins and accepts the grace
and mercy of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament, he or she becomes a new creation
and experiences a spiritual “makeover” in their souls. The old things do indeed
pass away; and the new things do come.
The smile that was on my son's face when he emerged from the
confessional bore witness of this fact. For this I am truly grateful.