God holds you in Confession: Homily for Tuesday, March 5, 2024

In Confession, we come with the Church. The entire people of God comes before us, represented in the priest who celebrates the sacrament. But even more important, when we come to the sacrament of confession, our loving God holds us for we are beloved daughters and sons of his.

Readings for Today. Listen to our other podcasts.

In the sacrament of Confession, God holds you as a beloved child.

God holds you in Confession

Azariah is in a pretty bad spot. So are his companions. The king is demanding that they forsake their religion, essentially to worship him. And on one hand, we could argue, well, if you still believe in your heart, what’s the big deal? Save your life. Why does it matter?

But the reality is that when we’re beginning or willing to make even the smallest shortcut, it gets a little easier the next time when it’s bigger. And before we know it, we can in fact forsake something that’s significant to us. He’s desperate. And what he’s really asking God for in this first prayer that we hear is mercy.

This is the time when they are placed in the fiery furnace and they come out alive and unharmed. And Nebuchadnezzar is convinced. The idea was that they would be convinced about Nebuchadnezzar, but Nebuchadnezzar is the one who’s convinced about God.

Both readings (today) have to do with our reliance on the mercy of God. The Church from really its earliest days recognized that the forgiveness of sins is something that is a difficult endeavor. When we’re harmed, it’s not easy to forgive the sins of those who harm us, especially if the harm is deep and significant. In fact, we can go our whole lives with the kind of trauma that comes from not being able to forgive something significant that’s happened.

But the gospel makes a very definite connection. The gospel’s connection is that our ability to forgive is connected to our ability to receive forgiveness. Now, sometimes, and I think maybe most of the time, at least it’s kind of the way that I see it, I can think that I can’t be forgiven unless I forgive others.

But it can look the other way, too. I cannot forgive others unless I know I am forgiven. And I think it’s for that reason that the Church really developed the practice for centuries now of sacramental confession. I can tell you, as I mentioned on Sunday in my homily, confession is a big thing. I can tell you that in my previous assignment, I heard confessions almost every single day because people knew their lives were broken and they knew that they needed God’s forgiveness.

And I think when we can come before our God, we recognize some things in sacramental confession, that we cannot recognize on our own. One, there is healing in the telling. There’s something about speaking our sinfulness out loud that is deeper than just simply leaving it between God and I.

Secondly, when we come to the sacrament of confession, it is also the case that we come with the Church. The entire people of God comes before us, represented in the priest who celebrates the sacrament. But even more important, when we come to the sacrament of confession, we are held by our loving God. We are reminded that we are beloved daughters and sons of his.

Today, we celebrate today the healing and reconciliation service at 11 a.m. I’ll be available for confessions this evening at 7 p.m. and every Saturday at 4 p.m. Think about coming to the sacrament of confession so that you might not only know you are forgiven, but that you might be open to the grace of God to forgive those who have harmed you as

holds — Photo by Nacevski Nikola on Pexels.com

On the friar, you can listen to our homilies (based on the readings of the day) and reflections. You can also ask us to pray for you or to pray for others. You can subscribe to our website to be informed whenever we publish an update.