Confession is a Gift

This week celebrates the end of the liturgical year in the Catholic Church.  As we approach the feast day of The Solemnity of Our Lord Christ the King of the Universe, it is an excellent time to prepare ourselves for Christ coming into our lives in the Advent season by taking stock of our lives.

In the Catholic Church, the sacrament of reconciliation helps believers turn towards Christ's mercy, asking Him to intercede for our sins, giving us new birth in His life and death and resurrection.  2016 has been a special year for the Church, which celebrated the Year of Mercy.

Mercy is the message and hope we have in Jesus Christ.  Sin cannot hold its ransom on us.  Death cannot conquer our souls.  We have hope in HIM.

To those struggling with Christian theology in the modern world, it can be easy to second guess this mercy.

Oftentimes in our secular worldview we fail to recognize inherent truths because they don't manifest in material matter.  It can seem paradoxical that God would create a world where sin and death would even be a problem - would an all-loving God do this?  We negotiate these questions with anger and disgust.  Why would God allow death to be part of the equation to the point He let HIS only son die on the cross - just to save humanity?  How does death save life?  How does that make Christ merciful?

We all wrestle with our questions and demand answers from God.  One answer that is absolute is that God is all loving and in that capacity HE too is all-merciful.  It is easy to discount free-will as our problem.  We prefer to blame others and to take ownership of the fact we 'are the way we are.'  We tend to forget that to live in a sin free world we could not have free-will and that makes us robots.  Love demands choice.  It is the natural law and God's nature is love.  He doesn't condemn anyone.  We condemn ourselves by refusing to take ownership of the fact we are sinners and we need love.  We need help.  Sin comes from the absence of acting on love.  Sin leads to death because it separates us from love and love is the power of life in Christ Jesus.

When we sin we actually do become robots in a way because we lack the freedom that comes from loving God.  God wants us to explore His earth, to grow, to share our trials and triumphs...He loves us - He loves even those who go against Him, because He is our Father and no matter how far a child runs from the parent - the love remains.

The question at the liturgical year - is have you heard the cry of God - yearning to be in relationship with you?  You are never too far gone to turn back to HIM.  He is waiting and anticipating your return.  He is ready to welcome you home?  Will you take the steps and say 'Jesus Christ, Have Mercy on me, a sinner?'

So many people assume God is only a judge and His mercy is just an extension of harsh judgment.  The fact God allows us to live alone, in spite of the horrid atrocities of mankind - is a sign that He has faith that we will return to Him - He is willing to be patient and to work in human hearts and hands to move His kingdom forward.  Some will fall away, but God is not silent and is not a tyrant.  He died for us on the Cross, so that we might live and have life abundantly.  Sin is missing the mark on what life is: communion with God.  Anything good comes from God.  We are created with the divine spark of life - with goodness - if we are willing to just respond to His call.

God always is forgiving us - but unless we ask for reconciliation - we won't have access to that forgiveness because we ourselves are too stubborn to accept it.  All the rules and regulations in the faith are not meant as hurdles to harm your ability to enjoy life - but are guideposts placed out of love because God understands human needs, our behavior and the consequences.  He is helping us know the way to go.

One of the blessings of the Catholic Church is the sacrament of reconciliation or Confession.

It is one of the most misunderstood sacraments because our faith teaches that we can go directly to Jesus for forgiveness of sins.  To go to a human intercessor and take their absolution seems counterintuitive, however confession is biblical and necessary to help strengthen one's faith.

An examination of conscience in reconciliation helps us face our sins and to have a person trained in doctrine and theology able to give some discernment about the sin.  The true forgiveness does not come in the absolution from human hands, but the work of Christ who is present in the confessional.

When we go to confession we have to 'face' our sins and have an ability to hand them over in a way that allows us to feel a release of the guilt.  Most humans have the psychological tendency to hold onto guilt and anxiety until we speak to another person about it.  Christ recognizes the fact that confession helps the penetient to acknowledge their sins and to receive some spiritual direction on the issue.  The priest is not the one forgiving the sin - that power alone belongs to Christ.

The scriptual basis comes from Matthew 16:19 and Matthew 18:18.
"Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on Earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on Earth shall be loosed in heaven."

The sacrament of confession offers us a door to the light of Christ, a place where we can lay down our sins and admit to them out loud without fear, but with hope.

Confession has been a blessing for me as it has helped me to better understand what sin is and how it affects my life and others.  At times I go into confession extremely guilty about something, only for the confessor to discern that my guilt is not based on real sin, but stems from my clinical depression and low self-esteem; whereas it can also lead someone who has a lot of pride to break the veil of being 'sinless' and comprehend - they are broken and in need of God's grace.

The act of saying a prayer of contrition - helps us to turn over our sin to God and ask for HIS divine mercy and counsel in our lives.

The confessor absolves your sins In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Anything we ask the Father in the name of the Son - Christ promises will be answered.

The confessor gives a penance to help draw us closer to Christ and to make amends for the sin as a sign of love.  This is like a husband buying a wife roses for forgetting their anniversary.  The wife might forgive the husband, but the husband wants to go the extra mile because they have such a deep love and desire to show that person they care.  Most penances are simple and designed to help the penetient draw in close to Christ's mercy.

The Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be - are three penances that help us to stay faithful, reminding us of grace and our relationship with God.


The AMAZING thing about God's grace - He never withholds it as long as we approach HIM, through Christ in faith.  Truly Christ is the king of kings.

From the Catechism:
1496 The spiritual effects of the sacrament of Penance are: 
- reconciliation with God by which the penitent recovers grace; 
- reconciliation with the Church; 
- remission of the eternal punishment incurred by mortal sins; 
- remission, at least in part, of temporal punishments resulting from sin; 
- peace and serenity of conscience, and spiritual consolation; 
- an increase of spiritual strength for the Christian battle.

Why I disagree with reincarnation

Life is a tangled web of knots, and at times we find ourselves lost in the labyrinth driven by anger, confusion, self-knowledge and bitter peace.  


Bitter peace?  It is the peace of the world - the peace that makes you think if you do x, y and z you'll end up as a to z, perfect and loved.  Bitter peace is devious because it meets you in the shadows with a false light.  It makes you question the pure light in your heart. I give the example of seeing a star in the darkness of night - dimly lighting the canopy of a stormy night.  Suddenly a flashlight turns on and you rationalize: The starlight is certainly not as powerful as the flashlight because the artificial light is so much brighter.  You are drawn light a moth to the flame - chasing after the flashlight's beam, forsaking the starlight.  

You rationalize: 'but I can see so much clearer with the flashlight and it really makes me see myself in the the best light and I can see that I have all this self-knowledge and I am really more powerful than the natural light because I have this flashlight and I can turn it on and off at call and it goes wherever I want it to.'

This false light molds this bitter peace to our fears and our shadows.  It de-humanizes by feigning humanistic approaches to life.  'Universe is power' 'I am the universe,' 'the light and dark are the same in me.'  For some the false light shines on a shadow - beckoning the person to believe that they have no freewill and destiny and fate are cosmic forces part of a pre-planned life by the cosmos.  For others it is complete free destiny and any bad influence is one's own choice in bad karma...it is a spiritual buffet where you buy the light bulb that fits your life style and when one path gives out you move onto the next spiritual path and harness power until that power gives out.  It is a web of 'occult' knowlege you have to dig to find and one maze leads to another maze, which you pursue because the light seems bright and you think this is some cosmic journey you were meant to take.

We are all guilty of this, even the most devout Christians fail in recognizing God's love and power.  We often do see faith as something we want to see in the flesh, instead of adhering to trust in God's mercy and love.  We struggle like Adam and Eve with the same question manifested in infinite ways: 'Did God really say?'  

Did God really say that He loves us?

We are battling with the devil's illusion under the curse that we are like gods and at the same time with battle our innermost demons of the shame of our sin and longing for God that we bottle up because we are ashamed.  Shame and the desire for power are almost always connected because we feel ashamed and want to ignore the pain and shame, we want to know we have some control and are not going to be condemned for our shame.

God knows that shame is a culprit of the disease of sin, it blocks us and keeps us from loving Him and loving each other and all of creation.  It blocks us from enjoying creation and engaging in life - instead we want to have a power in our life that is truly a chain that keeps us from living an empowered life.  The devil knows our weak spots and is able like a wily lawyer to wear us down with a barrage of lies mixed with a hint of truth - one hint of truth makes us start to believe the lies.  He manipulates us and knows how to coax us like a top-earning salesperson...but in this sale you go home empty and your soul will be left famished.  

God does not lie to us, nor keep what knowledge we need hidden.  He does not manipulate us, but rather scolds us in fatherly love to help us to realize how our mistakes hurt us - just like a friend telling a friend not to take drugs because they see the damaging effect.

God does not lead you astray - you can trust if he tells you not to do something it is for your good.  God does not make mistakes...we do.  God make you to be a unique person, to be deeply loved, creative, and perfected by Him in Christ.  He wants to embrace you as you are and help refine you to be your best self.  

The devil makes you question yourself.  The devil makes you feel lack and hunger for material instead of spiritual things.  The evil fruits he feeds are envy and jealousy and greed.  The devil makes you think you can be satisfied if you 'only knew x y and z...' and provides you with false truths of supposed hidden knowledge to pervert what knowledge really is - knowledge is God's love - God's peace which does not seek to destroy a soul.  The devil makes you think that if you delve into 'occult' knowledge you will become more loved, more powerful, more beautiful, more one with the universe and you don't need God to get there.  When that doesn't satisfy you, then he makes you think that you are just karma and cannot be redeemed and have to relive a thousand lifetimes before dying to be absorbed by the universe....the occult teachings are all over the place.  Some have tinges of truth, but are saturated with poison.  Unfortunately most delve into the mysticism with good hearts, hoping to find God and by the time the recognize the dangers of the occult they are consumed by it.  Not all knowledge is power.

I have always been very intuitive and empathic.  I know this is a part of how God made me.  Discernment is a gift as is prophecy.  However the devil wants to corrupt the gifts God gives us.  He wants to trick us into worshipping these gifts instead of turning them over into humble service for God.

I will admit because of my intuition and empath abilities at one point I was led to do some crystal therapy.  I went in believe it was something harmless as long as I kept my intention on Jesus Christ and my faith in God.  Not once during the process did a I renounce God or the Holy Trinity.  I simply believed that utilizing this 'energy' would help clear up some negative energy I had absorbed from abuse.  I did what is known as a 'chakra' cleansing with crystals and prayed the rosary and said the prayer of St. Michael.

I won't go into details, but the experience was not a good one.  I know that Christ interceded for me and I felt St. Michael's protection but Christ showed me why doing any sort of 'energy work' is not a good idea.  I had been to communion that day and believe that Christ interceded because he saw how distressed I was and in need of healing, but he also wanted to show me that this energy cleansing is dangerous and opens doors to things we don't need to open.

There is a lot of information in the universe, a lot of unknown things, but God has revealed what we need to know for this life in scripture, in Christ and in His creation, the sacraments of the church and lifes of the saints.  We don't need to eat certain fruits because the knowledge is tainted and will lead us away from ourselves and who we are in God, all why fooling us into thinking that we are on a deep spiritual journey.

I was first opened up to the occult when my aunt became a Hindu, which broke my grandmother's heart.  My family is very strong in the Christian faith and a love of God.  My aunt told me her original purpose was a desire for love and self-fulfillment after some heartbreak.  She has come back the church and is active in the Lutheran Church now - she found her way back by God's grace and now is a staunch defender of the Christian faith and the dangers of Eastern mysticism and pagan practices.  

Last year I had a friend who was a Christian with intuitive abilities tell me that reincarnation is true because he saw past lives.  I told him that I disagreed.  Right before my confirmation into the Catholic Church we had a falling out because He told me that he was losing faith and belittled and degraded me for being so blind to the other 'spiritual realities' out there and cited how Egyptians worshipped other gods.  I am open and respectful to others beliefs but I had to put an end to being driven down with this beating up of my faith in Christ and his focus on reincarnation. 

Unfortunately the pain of having someone I trusted really belittle me and the chakra cleansing mistake made me feel confused.  During this time I saw a snake by the door to my church, just as I was praying to God about how I could not bear for these falsehoods to be true because I recognized how important my life is as an individual and my need for a personal and loving God (Christ) in my own life and the life of this world. 

I am analyzer so I started to research and to pray.  We all at some point have joked or thought 'wouldn't it be interesting to live another life?' but the truth is we need to recognize our individual worth in this world and in the universe - not as some cosmic force, but as a soul - loved and created by a living God who has plans for us because He knows the desires of our heart - not the impure desires that we get tangled in, but our deepest desires - Love and hope for a future in living peace.

We spend a great deal of our lives trying to be other people and beating ourselves up for how we look and our lack of abilities - to the oppositie end of the spectrum where we also allow shame to give us tunnel vision to think that we are self-important apart from God's grace and that we are all powerful in our own right.

God wants to empower us - but without God we are dust - this is not a condemnation - but a fact.  A lake is not a lake without water.  God is the living water for our soul.  We see this biologically in the fact we are born from parents and have ancestors - all creation in this world comes from God's will for life in grace.

Many Eastern religions believe that we have to be reincarnated because we have so much karma from this life that we have to face that karma in the next life, learning lessons and taking on that shame and karma as a scapegoat, each lifetime learning a little more until we reach Nirvana - a state of simply ceasing to exist and being one who is absorbed by the universe.

New Age practicioners try to meld reincarnation with Christianity in several ways (THESE ARE FALSE TEACHINGS BY NEW AGE PRACTICIONERS AND NOT IN ACCORDANCE WITH SCRIPTURE AND DOCTRINE)
- they say that Christ was a 'god' one of many incarnations of the one God and He was an ascended master who leads us to a better path.  His death on the cross was to teach us about karma and our role in alleviating our karma while also empowering us to recognize our true state as gods.
-they claim that Christ died to forgive us from sin but Christ is so loving that he wants us to have multiple lives to learn from our mistakes before ascending to heaven and that way the penalty is not paid by the cross as much as our getting out of 'jail' quicker by following His teachings.
-they claim that reincarnation is in the bible and it was silenced by the early church to secure power for the elite.  THIS is a FALSEHOOD!  Reincarnation is not scripturally and the body of text for the bible is the most comprehensive in the number of copies and accuracies in all of religious texts along with the Hebrew scriptures.  I will add more about this in a future blog, but it is very important to recognize this is a false teaching to lure you astray from trusting in God's WORD.  
-the FALSEHOODS go on and on.

One person to be particularly leery of is Doreen Virtue - who claims to speak with angels.  I was hookwinked by her for a week or so - she is good at lying - but then I started reading her books and recognized - she is an occult practitiioner.  If you want to ask for intercession from an angel - then ask Christ to send angels to guard you or say the prayer of St. Michael which is authorized by the Catholic Church.  


Scriptural context: 
Hebrews 9:27 tells us:



While some debate that the early church silenced reincarnation teachings based on the Roman desire to have power over the people, this makes no sense from a historical standpoint.
For one, Christian teaching empowers individuals outside of family ties, caste systems and other social norms that dictated Roman and world society.  Christian allows for more openness in society and values individual personhood, something that would have been inflammatory towards the Roman Empire.  If anything Rome had ever reason to deny Christianity and it actively fought to eradicate it - but even in persecution the church grew.  That goes completely against the sentiment of 'huge coverups to control the people.'  I will detail this in a future entry


If reincarnation is true then we have so distinct personhood and nothing really has a divine purpose, even though proponents say that we are 'divine' - the goals is to suffer and suffer until you reach a place where you so renounce life you become one with the universe - so you as a person die in each life, your karma moves on and any part of you eventually just becomes part of the universe.  This is a rather joyless existence, without hope and we do not have any assurance of have reconciliation with family and friends in death.  While we cannot feel that we are so self-important that we have 'godly power' in this flesh - we cannot forget that we are unique and loved by God, just as we are and He is building us up in ourselves to HIMSELF in Christ.

It means that everything in this life has no value really - it is just a circular cycle. Practictioners of Hinduism and Eastern mysticism might disagree but this is a structual belief in Eastern religions. They claim they have 330 million gods that are all one God, just different incarnations and Jesus is an incarnation - but when Hindus who are converting to Christianity tell their family they choose to worship Christ as their only God they are scolded because 'what if that one god doesn't help you?'  If all of the 330 gods in Hinduism are one god manifested in different forms then shouldn't any god you worship in that religion satisfy your need since they have the same root source?  I feel that the fruits of Hindu practices speak for themselves when they ostracize their family for worshiping Christ because in their practices they have so many 'gods' then why would they have an issue with it?  Christ can be recognized as the true God by the very fact so many oppose Him.  It sounds counterintuitive but why would a religion with so many gods hate Jesus so much.  The darkness likes to hide in the darkness and often the darkness is so used to artificial light it cannot perceive the true light of God when it is present.

The truth is without God, becoming incarnate in Christ (his only son - God from God, light from light) we would have no hope.  Reincarnation cannot satisfy the need for real healing.  We are sinners - we are living in a fallen world...no matter how many lifetimes we have we won't become sinless and we won't learn lessons without remembering the mistakes we made from supposed 'past lives.'  Christ alone is the only one who can supply the need.  Unless God HIMSELF has come down in the flesh and taken up a sinless life and life and is risen then we have no hope of real healing and cleansing.  God alone is pure enough to wash us clean.

I have really spend a lot of time in prayer and heartache over pondering this.  I discovered how each of us is unique in debating this and inquiring and the real loss of power is our shame of thinking we cannot just ask God to forgive us and to accept His love.  If we accept we are loved and there is purpose in love for love - then we can find peace even in hardship.  Because love is sufficient enough and if we have love then we feel our personhood is full of that love - we change out of love not to impress or for personal power - but for the sake of love.  

Christ laid his life down for the sake of love.  His is the true light in the world, even if our stubborness and sin blinds us to HIS light.  He is there and while a flashlight's batteries die, Christ is a light that is, was and always will be.