1. I’ve been partaking of Hot Toddies while fighting this chest cold virus. My preferred recipe is one shot of The Famous Grouse, four whole cloves, one generous teaspoon honey, juice of half an orange, hot water to fill the mug. Medicine is delicious! We should have medicine every day!
2. Tomorrow, November 29th at 12:30pm EST the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass will be offered for all of my benefactors, supporters and those who have prayed for me. Set an alarm on your phone or some such and make a spiritual communion with Our Lord.
3. I have been taken aback (yes, jaded as I am) at how many Catholics have emailed me about the Rosary explanation piece saying that while aware of the Rosary, they never had any idea what it actually was or what it meant. Yup. THOSE, my friends, are the fruits of the Second Vatican Council. Behold the New Pentecost, the “New Springtime” in the Church, where apparently since ARSH 1968 it is always Winter and never Christmas – to quote Mr. Tumnus. Congratulations especially to the Protestant lady who emailed to report that she had prayed the First Sorrowful Mystery – just the that one mystery – on her fingers and thought about Our Lord’s Agony in the Garden while saying the ten Hail Marys. The longest journey begins with a single step.
4. May I relate an anecdote about the Sacrament of Confession? So I have been availing myself of the Sacrament of Penance frequently of late, and went yesterday with one sin that I needed to confess. I always go to confession anonymously and I don’t know the priests and the priests don’t know me, and can’t even see me because I go where they have real confessional booths with opaque grills, so please believe me when I tell you, there is no way the priest last night knew who I was. I confessed my one sin, let’s hypothetically say it was, “Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been x days since my last confession. Since my last confession I accuse myself of eating my soup with a fork one time. For this and all other sins that have escaped my memory I am heartily sorry, humbly ask pardon of God and penance and absolution of you, Father.” Do you know what the priest said back to me without skipping a beat? He said, “The internet can be a wonderful tool for education and evangelization.” Full stop. And then he addressed the sin of “eating one’s soup with a fork”, which had nothing to do with the innerwebz.
Ummmm. Okay. Where did THAT come from? I sure was happy to hear it.
Confession isn’t therapy. It is a Sacrament of the Church, and Our Lord is the Actor, just as He is the Actor in the Mass. Your best odds of physically, auricularly hearing God talk to you are in the confessional, on your knees, not looking for therapy or someone to justify your bad behavior. Just tell Our Lord out loud what evil you have done, and He may just speak back to you through the priest. In fact, it happens quite a lot. Hmmmm. Isn’t it too bad that most Novus Ordo priests and parishes make confession next-to-impossible, turn it into navel-gazing psychotherapy when they do do it, or tell people outright that it isn’t necessary at all? Isn’t it sad, and frankly evil, that most new construction Catholic churches, even the super-high dollar ones, are built WITHOUT ANY CONFESSIONALS? It’s almost as if there is some sort of conspiracy to keep people away from Our Lord in the Sacraments, or something.
The proper posture for confessing one’s sins is kneeling, not sitting on a leather sectional with one’s legs crossed in Father Jazzhands’ office as you both “dialogue about your feelings”. Confess properly and you may confidently expect little miracles.