A good confession

There's this funny notion that people have about God. This idea that if God is real, than it is up to God to show himself to man. As if the perogative somehow fell on Him. I actually had a friends who demanded a very particular sign of God, for proof of Gods existence, and when he didn't get that sign, he decided that therefore God must not be real.

Have you ever thought about this? First of all, if you don't believe in God and don't think he's real, then fine. Pray that God will reveal Himself to you, and see what happens. But don't 'demand'.

Imagine for a moment if you were God. You created a good and beautiful universe, and then you put your prime creation into the universe. And you loved this prime creation, and used many different ways to show this creation that you loved it. And then one day the creation demands of you that you prove that you exist. What?

Now wait a minute! God is existence- by His very nature! You can't ask whether God exists any more than you can ask whether existence exists! But more than that, you only exist because God holds you in existence. If God so chose, you could stop existing altogether- even your history could be erased, so no one would have any memory that you ever existed. God could go back in time and prevent you from getting conceived- who the heck then are you to demand that God prove himself? God is also all meaning, all joy, all love. People say "I refuse to believe in God until I receive irrefutable proof of His existence". By what right? Who gave you the right to choose for or against God?

As if God, the author of existence, owes you anything what so ever!

So why then does God bother to reveal Himself at all?

Because He loves us. That's what people do when they are in love. They reveal themselves to the other. They want to be known, understood by the other. And you've probably heard before that God does not force Himself on us. He does not force us to love Him, because that would not be love. Love has to be free or it is something else.

Then why do we force God to love us? Now, you might object that God is love, and therefore he has no choice anyway. True enough. However, by the nature of love, you cannot demand that he love you, any more than you can demand any person love you or open up to you. You can only indicate your openness, that you are ready to receive them and love them, and then wait to see what they will choose.

So yes, pray that God will reveal Himself to you, but pray with a disposition that is ready to love, and not with the arrogance of thinking that you can in some way push God around!

So, supposing God does reveal Himself to you... Then what? It's very possible that God has revealed Himself to you in the past already, that you already know Him at some level. Just as God has revealed himself to you out of love, now it's your turn to reveal yourself to God. Just as you want God to show you that he's real, God wants you to show Him that you are real.

But, you say, God sees all. How could he possibly ask us to reveal ourselves?

Always remember that love takes place in the will. Yes, God can see you- he sees every talent, every strength, every weakness, every sin, every secret....

The question is, when you are with Him, are you real? Do you let Him see all of these things? When you pray, do you kind of pretend to have some sort of piety or eloquence that you don't really have? Get real! And especially when you consider your sins- when you go to confession....

The point of the sacrament of confession is that it forces us to get real. A lot of people ask why we don't go straight to God with our sins. Jesus implemented the sacrament of reconciliation when He said to His apostles"Whosoevers sins you forgive, they are forgiven them, and who's sins you retain they are retained." He did it so that we would have to admit to another person what we did- we can't just kind of shrug off our sins without recognizing them. Say "God will forgive me" and not really repent. Confession forces us to acknowledge our sins and to say that we will repent from them- that we will try not to do it again. Just by doing this, this affects our will. It strengthens our commitment and our resolve, and gets us the graces we need to live up to what we said.

But what most people do when they go to confession is they kind of rattle off a few sins in a kind of vague manner. Often your confession when you're in grade 4 stays the same when you're in grade 12 and then as an adult. "I was mean, I was lazy, I didn't control my anger."

Now let's be honest- isn't there a bit more to it than that? Haven't our sins sort of matured?

But maybe now the stuff is too embarrassing. You may say 'love is openness, true, but I would never open up to my boyfriend or girlfriend and tell them all the sins I have committed. So why do I have to do it to God?"

First off, every sin you commit, you commit against God,. Secondly, God sees all your sins. On Team we have a little practice where if someone offends another Team Member, we have to go to that Team member and say "Will you forgive me for...." and that person has to say "I forgive you." You can't just leave it at 'sorry', 'it's OK". What this does is makes each person acknowledge that there was a real and genuine sin, and each person has to actually choose to recognize it and try to change it.

So with God. If you have not been to confession in a long time, or you have not made a good confession in a long time, where you admit exactly what it is that you did, then it is time for you to do that. It is time to get really honest and real with God.

There is this funny idea with God that we should first clean house, before he comes over. You know, first get rid of all of our sins, so that we're ready to talk to God. That would be like if house cleaners were coming, and you thought "I better make sure the house is clean for them!" Or better yet, if you thought you better get over your illness before you visit a doctor.

Jesus compared himself to a doctor, and said "Healthy people don't need a doctor, it is the sick that need him!". What's the point of going to s doctor if you're not going to let him know in what ways you are sick? If you're going to try to hide the symptoms?

We do this with God. We go to God and don't let him see some parts of us, because they are too dark, too dirty, too disgusting. Those are the very parts God wants to work in!

St Therese of Lisieux said we should offer ourselves, our whole selves, to God- even our sinful places! Let God see that stuff, and let God love us in our sinfulness. This is not the place that we should hide from God!

So my challenge to you then is to do an examination of conscience- a real, deep examination, digging up all the darkest and most embarrassing muck- and bring that stuff before God. If you have a sliver and don't deal with it, it could get infected. If you have a wound that is not treated, it could fester- this dirty mucky disgustingness that you think will go away if you ignore it is going to grown and start seeping into other parts of your life. If you have past sexual sins and you don't deal with them, this will affect future romantic relationships.

After thinking about all this stuff, don't wallow in it. I'm not saying that we should wallow around, getting all dark and depressed because we can't stand our own sinfulness. We open it up and give it to God. The bible says that God wants to purify us like Gold that is purified in fire. So it might hurt a bit to look at this stuff and show it to god, but what you do then is let God untwist it and restore you to your original purity and dignity.

Obviously the most concrete way to do this is by going to confession. We won't have a lot of time for confession this weekend, but at some point, maybe next weekend get there! If you need to call your priest and say "Priest! I got some dark, dirty, ugly garbage that I need your help to deal with, let's bring it!" and make an appointment for confession- do it!

Then when your done, and you do your act of contrition, you promise God that you are going to try not to sin like that anymore- mean it. Be determined not to sink back into the grossness!

(Close in prayer)

Holy God,

We pray that you would reveal our sinfulness to us, so that we can see it, and root it out, and deal with it. We pray for mercy, God, because we know we have sinned. We pray for the grace to be able to choose what is right. We thank you that you love us so much that you don't want us to stay in our sins, but you want to heal us and to make us whole. Do it.

We pray all this in Jesus name,

Amen.