By The Work Worked

 I had been in bed for two days. I was simultaneously gripped with a pernicious anxiousness of undisclosed character while having no will to will anything. Acedia had swaddled me in its thick winter duvet and assured me he would never let me go. COVID had stuck a stick in the wheel of my five years of First Fridays and First Saturdays a couple weeks ago and reset my merit book back to zero. I hadn't confessed in two months. I felt the weight of everything stacked on my back, all the phantom fears, and the flight of joy from its perch. 

The snowfall from last night was melting a little as it hovered just above freezing and the sun was getting ready for bed. I shook myself awake and wheeled my bike out of the garage to bike the seven miles to St. H; I needed an exorcism to shake the ravens that had made a nest in me; I needed Confession.  

I arrived at the church--which looked abandoned from the busy boulevard--parked my bike and walked inside with fifteen minutes to spare. Everything was empty--the parking lot, the church, my soul. I slipped into a pew and said a quick prayer to remember my many sins and lay them bare. A single light illuminated from the confessional in the back. I entered into the confessional and closed the door behind me.

The priest had been waiting for me and for everyone. He must have been close to one hundred years old. I collapsed on the kneeler, blessed myself and sighed. He began with his script--how many times, how many years and decades, has he repeated the same words to penitents like a sacramental arcade game? I thought I was weary, how much more so this ancient priest?  It was the driest, most scripted exchange from his part, and a steady bleeding out of sinfulness from mine. 

But the funny thing? The very rote-ness of his interaction in the sacrament stirred me to tears. When I had confessed, he didn't give me counsel or talk to me. This was not animated Fr. Mike Schmitz or reaming Fr. Isaac Reyes here. This was a tired old human priest. He gave me my penance, absolved me, and asked me to pray for him as he had asked thousand of other penitents to do. Nothing different, nothing unique. He could have just as easily been praying to be let go from this life. I burst into tears. 

The power of the grace depended not on this good priest's character--whether wearied by age or buoyed by enthusiasm to save souls--and THAT was what moved me. The grace leveled me. Ex opere operato: "by the work worked."  I had encountered Christ then and there, had laid down my burdens at his feet and taken his light yoke up; I blubbered through my act of contrition because there was no illusion that this minister, this man acted in persona Christi by virtue of his apostolic office. That is the great grace of the sacrament, of all the sacraments of the Church, that do not depend on the merits of the minister. The Donatist heretics in the fourth to sixth centuries thought otherwise--that the efficacy of the sacraments depended on the moral state of the minister.  

I simultaneously trusted that I was truly forgiven of my wickedness, wiped clean even though I did not feel different; just as the priest of a hundred years did not tailor his words to my psychology or change anything to suite me. He had no personality to speak of, no originality in his words, no piercing psychological insight. He didn't speak to my heart but dispensed simply the raw, undiluted forgiveness of Jesus Christ that has been entrusted to him in his apostolic priesthood. He just did what he had been doing year after scripted year, decade after scripted decade--forgiving sins in persona Christi by the book. By the work worked. 

Shaken, Not Affirmed

About fifteen years ago I was driving to work and came inches from being sideswiped at an intersection. I'm sure my Guardian Angel was working a double that day. When I got into my office it took me an hour or so to calm down--I was visibly shook up from almost being T-boned; my day could have looked very different were something not have stopped me at that intersection before pulling out. Death smelled my cologne, but I was still here. Everything seemed brighter that day.

It occurred to me  that I can't for the life of me remember the last time I came out of Mass feeling that way. And that's an indictment, not a positive. I have never heard a homily from the pulpit that stayed with me, that I couldn't shake, that kept me up at night. Most of what we hear every Sunday and Holy Day is safely forgettable. Why waste your time reading an easily forgettable book; you want one that you throw across the room. 

I don't know why that is apart from the fact that it is easier to deliver middle-road sermons--just enough to make us pause for a moment while still allowing us off the hook so that we don't have to actually change when we leave Mass, all the while avoiding any blow back from parishioners that might not like what you have to say.  

I remember a friend and fellow member of our parish telling me he went to a retreat that Fr. Isaac Mary Relyea was doing at the local Society chapel. He went because his wife told him he should go. He hadn't been to Confession in over thirty years, and yet the opportunity presented itself at this retreat and he moseyed into the confessional. Fr. Isaac reemed him a new one--and it was precisely what he needed to be awoken from his self-assured slumber. He's straight on the narrow now. He got shaken, not affirmed.

In the car on the way home from a friend's house today I had the scriptures on audio as I do when I'm driving. I was listening to the Letter to the Hebrews and the Lord spoke thus,

 

For whom the Lord loveth, he chastiseth; and he scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

Persevere under discipline. God dealeth with you as with his sons; for what son is there, whom the father doth not correct?

But if you be without chastisement, whereof all are made partakers, then are you bastards, and not sons.

Moreover we have had fathers of our flesh, for instructors, and we reverenced them: shall we not much more obey the Father of spirits, and live?

And they indeed for a few days, according to their own pleasure, instructed us: but he, for our profit, that we might receive his sanctification.

Now all chastisement for the present indeed seemeth not to bring with it joy, but sorrow: but afterwards it will yield, to them that are exercised by it, the most peaceable fruit of justice.

Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees,

And make straight steps with your feet: that no one, halting, may go out of the way; but rather be healed. 

(Heb 12:7-13, DRV)

And verses 26-28 (in the KJV version, which is all the library had for the NT):

Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.

And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.

Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:

When Christ expired, the temple was shaken and torn in two. This is what should happen to our souls and consciences at the Holy Sacrifice, by the nature of the sacrifice and the Word, but also by the sermon from the pulpit which is usually nothing but a wasted opportunity to burn and sear the sheep. 

Priests typically see their flock for an hour once a week, and they have ten minutes within that hour to reset a wayward trajectory--and 99% of the time, they let it fall fallow. They let the hands of the parishioners stay comfortably in the lap, rather than shake them so that their hands drop and their knees go feeble (v. 12). Without chastisement, you have no true father--you are a bastard (v. 8). 

I don't care what it is, use it--the sin of contraception, fornication, co-habitation, presumption, receiving Communion in a state of mortal sin, lack of Confession, gossip--there's no shortage of comfortable sins 90% of Catholics are sitting like babies in a warm pool in. Most of your flock are affirmed and gently cajoled and asleep at the wheel careening off a spiritual cliff getting ready to be ejected from the mouth of the Lord (Rev 3:16). For God's sake, use that ten minutes to shake and beat them like a true father. If they are walking out the same way they came in, you are not doing your job, or at least not all of it. 

I make the analogy that since so many people are blind and asleep, you need to throw cold water in their face to shock them, then split em open. When the temple is torn in two, lob the seed of the Gospel in with the might of your arm so that it drops down in a deep recess. When they come to and are sewn back up by the world, that seed is going to sprout from somewhere deep--it may not be that day or that year, but when God calls it forth. Your job is not to sprout the seed--it's to rototill with your sermon, split the earth and sow in the furrow. 

Be a father; don't tell them what they want to hear, or what won't rock the boat, or what will keep the donations flowing. Split them open, shake the hell out of them, let them leave. We get enough affirmation from the world, we don't need it from the pulpit. You shake them now so that they will not be shaken later. For the Lord will remove those things that are shaken, that those things that can not be shaken will remain (Heb 12:27). 

Blood On Our Hands: Preparing For Your First Confession

This afternoon I met a friend for coffee. At almost fifty years old, he is preparing to enter the Church at the Easter Vigil. Thanks be to God. 

We spoke for about two hours at a wrought-iron cafe table under a charcoal November sky, chilled to the bone and nursing our Americanos. We discussed a lot, but most of the conversation revolved around our past lives. Though those pasts are different in some of the details, there is a lot of overlap because we both know the bitter dregs of the flesh, the darkness of our own depravity and the specter of tempting death with the way we lived our lives as dumb and blind sinners. That we were spared when other people in our paths succumbed to overdoses, suicides, prison time, and the weighted blanket of mortal sin was a mystery for us both. I have to believe we were ransomed from the miry pit for a purpose, and that that forgiveness came at a heavy cost--the price of blood. That we should spend our lives in penance and gratefulness for a new lease on life is a given. 

The difference is, I made my first (general) Confession over twenty five years ago, and my friend is preparing to make his now. He feels the weight of his past life and the consequences of certain choices, and is understandably a bit nervous, because "there's a lot." 

When children are preparing for their first Penance, it can be a rather commonplace affair. "I was mean to my brother," or "I took something that wasn't mine." I wish I had their general innocence, but we have to play the cards we're dealt, make restitution as best we can, and trust the power of absolution that makes the crimson stain of sin white as snow by Christ's sacrifice and his desire to reconcile us to himself. He takes our shaking hands, red with the blood of our brethren, into his own, and we can see the lines of our palms again as he speaks those coveted words, "I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit..."

My friend is not alone in his apprehension. For converts to the Faith, it can be intimidating not only to recall our sins--some of which may be grave--and their consequences, but to actually disclose them to another human being. And so I thought I would highlight some of the thoughts I shared with my friend for the benefit of others who may have been away from the Church and the Sacrament for months, years, or even decades, as well as for those converts coming into the Church in a few months and preparing to make their first (General) Confession.

Know you are a marked man

For the sinner turning back to God, Satan will use any means necessary to detour you on your return to the home of grace. He may throw physical or material setbacks in your path (mechanical problems, spousal feuds, health issues, etc) to keep your focus from the spiritual war being waged for your soul and your upcoming appointment with the priest. He may fill you with doubt (that you can ever be forgiven), that your sins are so great that you will scandalize your confessor. He may run scenarios through your head--the attraction of the wide road of turning back to your former, comfortable way of life, the friends you may lose, the (imagined) look of horror on the priest's face. He will use whatever it takes to keep you running from the daylight. He may have you marked, but the devil is on a short leash; he can only tempt you to doubt, despair, or fear which are mirages and distortions of truth. 

You should expect such things not as an aberration, but a means of disarmament. "Dearly beloved, think not strange the burning heat which is to try you, as if some new thing happened to you; But if you partake of the sufferings of Christ, rejoice that when his glory shall be revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy" (1 Pt 4:12-13). Were your soul to have no value, he would not bother. But because you seek the mantle of Christ, he knows he will soon lose a client unless he takes action. So, know that you are marked for destruction, but that God guards the steps of his faithful ones (1 Sam 2:9).

A spiritual colonoscopy

"The penitent man will pass," as Indiana Jones recited in The Last Crusade. Humility and contrition bring the sinner to his knees where he finds the key to the jail cell on the floor at his feet. But there is still a long corridor to walk to daylight. 

“Who can discern his errors?" King David prays, "Forgive my hidden faults. Keep your servant also from wilful sins; may they not rule over me. Then will I be blameless, innocent of great transgression" (Ps 19:12-14).

To prepare an audit for what may be a long and sordid past, it would be good to spend at least a few days in intentional prayer, alone, aided by fasting. Ask for the grace to have your hidden faults revealed, a grace God will grant the humble and contrite. Employ a good and thorough Examination of Conscience. Though not necessary, from a pragmatic standpoint it can be helpful to write down one's sins, as far back as memory allows, to make sure every crevice is cleaned, every stubborn nook searched and scrubbed, to get it all out and down on paper. Keep the paper safe from view; bring some matches or a lighter with you; for when you emerge from the confessional on that fateful day of forgiveness, you can burn that sheet. Let the flames that consume it be a reminder that your soul was spared from the flames of Hell by the blood of Christ.

Withhold nothing

Confession is our opportunity--maybe for the first time in our lives--to be radically honest with ourselves, another man, and God. You do no favors keeping anything intentionally hidden, and fool no one, for the LORD sees the hidden deeds of men. In fact, were one to do so, their absolution would be nullified. 

"Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD.” And you forgave the guilt of my sin" (Ps 32:5).

If you unintentionally miss something in your examination of conscience, do not let scrupulosity rob you of the joy of forgiveness, for scrupulosity is a tool of the Devil. When we beg, "For these sins and all the sins I cannot remember, I humbly beg pardon, penance, and absolution," we trust that the Lord forgives even those sins we were not aware of in ignorance, as long as we do not intentionally leave them out of our confession. 

Feel the burn of shame

When I made a General Confession a few years ago, there were sins that surfaced from my past that literally burned my tongue as I confessed them out loud. This is the savage beauty of the Sacrament--that we must confess with our mouths, protected by the Seal of the confessional, in which we can get a taste of the effect of sin physically. We can feel disgusted with ourselves, and may shed tears of contrition in the process--this is healing, because these feelings do not back into a dead end, but open up into the expansiveness lightness of our final home, which is Heaven. The festering scabs of shame are bound and treated with the balm of mercy. 

"Instead of your shame there shall be a double portion; instead of dishonor they shall rejoice in their lot; therefore in their land they shall possess a double portion; they shall have everlasting joy" (Is 61:7)

Number and kind (but don't go down rabbit holes)

The Church teaches that mortal sin must be confessed "number and kind;" essentially, what and how many times. This can potentially be overwhelming to enumerate, but do your best to be accurate without getting worked up about it. A contrite heart the Lord will not spurn, but the emotions may or may not track with that depending on your personality--if you do not shed tears, that does not mean you are not contrite, and vice versa. Likewise, you don't need to go into great detail (unless the priest appropriately guides you to clarify something), but do so enough to take accountability for it and what is necessary and no more. Remember Mary Magdalene, whose love for the Lord was intensified because of her great sin which was forgiven. 

"And where sin abounded, grace did more abound" (Rom 5:20)

Neither embellish nor minimize

We are prone to self-deception; Confession is no exception. We should not make ourselves out to be a greater sinner than we are, nor try to minimize what we have done. There is no need to embellish, but one should be truthful. Sin should sear our conscience and cut us to the heart, not puff us up in a depraved pride at how bad we've been. We are putting on the "new man," not holding on to our old shell of sin. Metanoia--turning away from sin--is the proper posture of the penitent. Do not plan to go back to the pigsty, like a dog to his vomit. 

"For the sake of your name, LORD, forgive my iniquity, though it is great" (Ps 25:11).

Trust in the mercy of God, and resolve to sin no more

When you have finished enumerating and confessing your sins (which may take some considerable time), you will be assigned a penance by the priest, perhaps (or perhaps not) given some counsel, and then will make an Act of Contrition before the words of absolution by the priest are spoken over you. "O My God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee, and I detest all my sins because of thy just punishment. Most of all, because they offend Thee, my God, Who art all-good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to sin no more, and to avoid the near occasion of sin. Amen."

Should you be insincere at this point, and act in presumption that you will return straight away to earn the wages of death in sin (thinking "I can just confess again"), it is akin to one who eats and drinks condemnation upon himself in an unworthy Communion. You should resolve, to the best of your ability, to turn away from the life of sin and never look back. As Christians, we realize that we will fall again, sometimes splendidly so, and that Christ is always there waiting to welcome us back when we are contrite and sorrowful. But this is different from smug presumption, which is worthy of condemnation.  "A just man falls seven times and rises again" (Prov 24:16)

The words of absolution may move you to powerful emotion--the crushing weight of guilt bearing down on your conscience lifted once and for all by Christ--or it may not. But know, and trust in faith, that you are truly forgiven. For the priest acts in persona Christi, and has the authority given to him by Christ himself (through his Apostles) to bind and loose. He has cast your sins into the deepest ocean and plants a "no fishing" sign there. Go in peace....your sins have been forgiven.

"As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us" (Ps 103:12)

Penance and Restitution

You broke the window and the landowner has accepted your apology and forgiven you for your recklessness. But the window is still broken. Sin disrupts the fabric of society, introduces disorder into the world. We can never atone for sin on our own or by the blood of animals, but we can and should attempt to make restitution for those we have harmed by our sin when at all possible. Not only that, but for the baptized (who are not being washed clean of Original and personal sin for the first time) who have been forgiven, penance is our thanksgiving for that grace that we undertake in gratefulness. To the degree it costs us (in comfort, or satiety) in this life and brings us closer in conformity to Christ, it is to that degree that we seek to be free of our disordered attachments which puts something between us and Christ. We do our time here so we do not have to do it after death in Purgatory. Even small penances done hidden and in great love have merit. We do not "earn" our way into Heaven, and cannot atone for sin on our own. But penance is necessary in this life, to a greater or lesser degree according to our sins, if we want to conform ourselves to the selfless abandonment of the Christ we follow to Calvary.

"Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing" (Mt 5:25-26). 

One final note--the new penitent can sometimes feel fear and anxiety that he will die unconfessed if it is still some months away. I have to believe that a humble and contrite heart God will not spurn. And if he is motivated by perfect contrition and the earnest desire to confess sacramentally, even should he die before having the opportunity, that desire merits the Paradise St. Dismas was welcomed into. For God desires that none are lost, but that all should be brought to repentance. 

Keep my friend in your prayers. We were both ransomed from a heavy sentence.

The Novus Ordo May One Day Save Your Life

 One of the struggles I have as a traditionally-minded Catholic is to be on guard as David was when he prayed, “Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults. Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then will I be blameless, innocent of great transgression" (Ps 19:12-14). Catholics who have such dispositions towards Tradition may find themselves on the high ground in some areas, while completely blindsided by others. I think this is especially the case when it comes to a critical spirit, and pride--dangerous and pernicious sins that burr into the crevices of our spirit and make a home without us even realizing it. 

While I believe the Holy Father's inquisition against Traditionalists is unjust and targeted, it is similar to the way stereotypes operate--there is always a degree of truth in the broad-brushing. Are Traditionalists one-hundred percent "Triumphalist, self-absorbed, Promethean neo-Pelagians?" as Pope Francis has uncharitably referred to them? Of course not. Are there degrees and elements of this in many of them? For sure. Are traditionalists greater saints than the rest of us? God only knows.

I find myself slipping into this kind of subtle nose-snubbing, sometimes without even realizing it, separating traditional Priests and congregants from N.O. priests and congregants in a kind of unconscious "A-list" and "B-list", Marines vs. Army, etc. I think part of that is that I am using the wrong canon (ruler) to measure with. While I believe that the Extraordinary Form is as a matter of objectivity more beautiful, more reverent, and more fitting liturgy for worship than the Ordinary Form, this is not a silver bullet for transforming oneself or one's family into saints on it's own. The canon in this sense for us should not be "which liturgy is more reverent" or "which group of congregants has it right," but "to what degree am I being made holy myself?" 

I have written before about various reasons why, were push come to shove as it relates to the implementation of Traditionis Custodes, assisting at the SSPX is off the table for us. This is a personal decision that every individual and head of household needs to discern for themselves, what line they will and will not cross were the Latin Mass to be taken from them. I have wrestled a lot with this, and do not take these matters lightly. While educating myself on the history, their canonical status and Archbishop Lefebvre himself, I have grown more sympathetic and understanding towards the Society. 

But there are still elements which give me pause, despite those who seem to gloss over such issues. I've already written about the marriage issue here. But there is another more general disposition being that many Society priests will provide council against attendance at the New Mass, even when there is no traditional Mass available:

"When it comes to attendance at the Novus Ordo Mass, SSPX priests do not hesitate to tell faithful that they should not attend that Mass under any circumstances, even on a Sunday and in a place where no traditional Mass is available. It is a very clear and straightforward matter. 

The purpose of attending Mass is to give glory to God and to sanctify one’s soul. But we hold that the New Mass is not pleasing to God and so dishonors Him. As such, to attend the Novus Ordo Mass is to go against the very purpose for going to Mass. Instead of honoring God by attending Mass, one is dishonoring God by doing so. "

If one takes this matter of not fulfilling their Sunday obligation lightly, they should prayerfully reconsider what is at stake here. For this counsel no longer becomes one of preference or objective reverence, but elevates a beautiful and reverent illicit Mass above a potentially banal and unedifying Mass which is nevertheless both valid and licit. In other words, in the example of when one is traveling, there is no excuse to forgo Sunday Mass even when there is no Traditional Latin Mass and the Novus Ordo is the only option. Canon 844.2 states:

§2. Whenever necessity requires it or true spiritual advantage suggests it, and provided that danger of error or of indifferentism is avoided, the Christian faithful for whom it is physically or morally impossible to approach a Catholic minister are permitted to receive the sacraments of penance, Eucharist, and anointing of the sick from non-Catholic ministers in whose Churches these sacraments are valid.

There is no doubt or argument that the sacrament of Holy Eucharist is valid when confected in Society chapels. There is also no doubt that whenever necessity requires it, the Church permits the faithful to receive these valid Sacraments. I think the issue here is the license the faithful take with "as true spiritual advantage suggests." That is, the argument being made is that the Novus Ordo is so egregiously offensive to God and so spiritually damaging to the formation of faith, that this constitutes justification for the regularization outside of emergency situations to take refuge in a SSPX chapel. In other words, the exception is now made the norm. In my own humble opinion, this is a tenuous reasoning that carries with it spiritual perils that may not be immediately apparent.  

Society priests were truly worthy of admiration during COVID when chapels were kept open as some diocesan churches shuttered in response to the virus; they recognized the "essential nature" of spiritual nourishment, whereas many diocesan parishes may have regarded it otherwise. Of course, this statement is easy to make in retrospect, when the reality is that two years ago was that no one really knew the degree of threat which the virus posed and how it was transmitted; pastors were making best judgments with limited information. To that end, a little grace would go a long way.

And yet, some saw this valiant witness of the SSPX during this time and took up a home there. Some (as one young father I am loosely acquainted with) even seemed to adopt a semi-Donatist mindset of regarding Novus Ordo priests who shut down churches and withheld sacraments during this period as apostates.  

All this being said, it is wishful thinking that the New Mass (which comprises over 98.5% of Masses celebrated in the United States) will go by the wayside. The reality on the ground is, most of your sacramental exposure--for better or for worse--will be proxy to a so-called "Novus Ordo priest."

I wrote in The Hunger Years that,

"A time is coming when people will seek absolution for their sins and find, not a priest unwilling to open the door, but no priest at all. A time is coming when people will notice they are hungry for the Eucharist, for the Holy Mass, for a blessing—the very things we take for granted today—and they will go away hungry because there is no priest to feed them. Faithful Catholics will want to have their children baptized, want to get married, and will find waiting lists months long. The churches they knew from their youth will be museums. Those in mortal sin will beg for a priest to hear their confession and will not be able to find one. Those possessed by demons will have no recourse, and exorcists will be so overwhelmed they will have no choice but to turn people away.

We are entering the mission era of the Church in the United States. You would be wise to prepare yourself now with spiritual food for the journey, with the Eucharist, daily Mass, Confession—because the hunger years are around the corner. Avoid mortal sin like the plague. Fast and pray for the Lord to call up mighty warrior priests who are not afraid to go into the fray. Get your own house in order so you can evangelize as a living example to others. Be open to life and welcoming of children. Instruct them well and be intentional about passing on the Faith and living it out. Encourage your sons to become priests if it is God’s will for them. Catholicism is not like other Christian denominations. No priests means no Mass. No Mass means no Eucharist. No Eucharist means no life within you."

When I get kind of liturgically and spiritually snobby without realizing it, I'm sometimes reminded that the vast majority of people in need of grace do not have ideological dogs in the fight. For some, they may have been away from the Church for decades and are just one confession away from salvation. For others, they may be Christians of a another denomination and have an insatiable appetite for the Lord's flesh and blood. Others may be on their deathbed and desire the grace of Extreme Unction to find a final resting place. Or, they might simply be like my Latin Mass attending friend who was going through a hard time in her life. I curtly tried to spare her one night when she asked where she could attend Mass in our area on a Tuesday, but was humbled at her response; "No TLM tonight; just the Novus Ordo," I said. She told me plainly in response, "Friend, I need Jesus."

There is an incredibly moving scene in Padre Pio: Miracle Man (1:47-1:51 for the particular scene) in which Padre Pio faces his Vatican persecutor during his final hours and illuminates the priest to a memory in which he closes the door on a soldier seeking absolution; the priest acted in fear and dereliction of duty, and the soldier was killed, unconfessed. The hardened priest is filled with shame, yet Padre Pio reassures him, "I absolved him for you," (by way of the miracle of bilocation). Not only that, but the saintly Padre Pio humbles himself before this priest to seek absolution at his hands in his final hours of life. Two priests--one saint, one sinner--embracing through the grace of the Sacrament.

I am relying on grace to preserve my family should our diocesan Latin Mass no longer be an option in the future, and I pray for discernment. It is not easy, nor is it easy to defer in a spirit of obedience our preferences when we are more inclined to dig our heels in in a spirit of defiance. I don't know what the right answer is, and continue to wrestle with it. But I do believe that God is faithful and will not abandon those who seek him with a pure heart. He will give us the grace we need on the day we need it, the way He provided daily manna for the wandering Israelites, even if it doesn't come in the form we expect. If we have the gift of the liturgy in the Extraordinary Form, thanks be to God. If God provides grace by way of the Novus Ordo, I do not want to spurn that grace. 

Take my life, Lord. Take my preferences and melt them in the refining fire of your love. Take my pride and my understanding and purify it for your glory. Take the impurities in my intentions and siphon them out, so that I am left with nothing but a contrite soul wholly dependent on you to live. Filter out a critical spirit and supplant it with pure gratefulness. Give me no more than my daily bread, that I may not curse you in hunger, nor forget you in satiation. Do not abandon me to the netherworld, but unite me with your servant so that I may pray, "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me" (Ps 51:10).  

"It's Been God All Along"

 I have always told the Lord, "If I have brought but one person to you, I will die happy." All glory to God, I think I can say that has happened, though I was only about one percent of the equation.. 

A few years ago a friend from high school--I will call her Kay--reached out to me via Messenger. Though I couldn't find the original message, I remember that this friend was being drawn back to the Church and had reached out, I think, because she knew so few Catholics. 

I always knew her as an extremely perceptive and intuitive person, but I hadn't seen her since high school. She was living in a metropolitan area on the West Coast now, married with two children. She had been taking her kids to a Protestant church, but kept being drawn to Catholic churches, especially those with Latin Masses, and adoration chapels. In an email exchange we had a few years ago, she tenderly noted that she could not bring herself to go in, but lingered outside the doorway. "No words really to describe the experience."

For me, there is honestly nothing more moving than to see a soul being stirred by grace, but especially when it's someone you know. I have had people and friends I've tried to share the Gospel with who I thought were open to it; not in an aggressive way, but just by planting seeds, and it can be deflating when they never seem to sprout. But Kay was different. I didn't really do anything or play much of a part, besides maybe offering some material to read by way of my blog. Rather, I just had the good grace to witness the Holy Spirit nudging and moving her to come home. A true privilege worth living for. 

Her last Confession was also her first, some 30+ years ago. She shared in that email from a few years ago that, 

"My Confession is scheduled for Thursday morning. I feel like I’m standing in two worlds. Just recently I found Flannery O’Connor’s quote “Grace changes us and the change is painful.” I had no idea. My whole life I’ve walked through the world seeing “meaning” and “beauty” everywhere I looked, and now I know it’s been God all along."

I hope she will forgive me for sharing that, but it gives me hope; we are being ransomed, all of us, in dribs and drabs. The days of the mass conversions of St. Francis Xavier are not so common in our culture today. Maybe souls escaping the Titanic of our culture and finding their way to shore on life rafts, or pulled upon rescue boats, is as much as we can hope for. I take to heart St. Paul's words to "become all things to all people...so that I may save some." (1 Cor 9:22)

But again, it has little to do with me or you except that we are foot soldiers, pencils, instruments in God's hands to sow the seed. We have little capability to make it rain, shine the sun, pollinate the buds. The best we can do is labor, scatter, till, and fertilize. The rest is grace. But isn't it a wonderful thing to see a flower bud, a tree bear fruit, in its due season? It is a miracle of nature. 

We can never force or manipulate grace, however. God is loving but wholly sovereign, and the Holy Spirit is like the wind that blows where it wishes (Jn 3:8). The featherweight pods of grace are carried across the fields, floating until they rest on a tender heart. But a heart cannot be rushed or hurried along. It reminds me of a passage from Nikos Kazantzakis' Zorba the Greek, 

"I recalled one dawn when I had chanced upon a butterfly’s cocoon in a pine tree at the very moment when the husk was breaking and the inner soul was preparing to emerge. I kept waiting and waiting; it was slow and I was in a hurry. Leaning over it, I began to warm it with my breath. I kept warming it impatiently until the miracle commenced to unfold before my eyes at an unnatural speed. The husk opened completely; the butterfly came out. But never shall I forget my horror: its wings remained curled inward, not unfolded. The whole of its minuscule body shook as it struggled to spread the wings outward. But it could not. As for me, I struggled to aid it with my breath. In vain. What it needed was to ripen and unfold patiently in sunlight. Now it was too late. My breath had forced the butterfly to emerge ahead of time, crumpled and premature. It came out undeveloped, shook desperately, and soon died in my palm.

This butterfly’s fluffy corpse is, I believe, the greatest weight I carry on my conscience. What I understood deeply on that day was this: to hasten eternal rules is a mortal sin. One’s duty is confidently to follow nature’s everlasting rhythm."

When I think of my friend Kay, I think of the mercy and goodness of God first and foremost, and then the privilege of witnessing grace working to flower faith in its due season in my friend's heart. Her marriage and her relationship, in her words, has completely transformed. Meaning and beauty is everywhere, but now with the eyes of Christ the Divine Artist, my friend's heart has been able to fully bloom and recognize the threads in the tapestry of her life. A contrite heart, O Lord, you will not spurn.

When I think of my friend, I breathe a sigh, because I can go to my eternal rest a sated man, can enjoy a happy death. Because the Lord has done great things for us, and we are glad (Ps 126:3). As she noted, it's been God all along. I was just glad I was able to be gifted a ticket to the show.