Bulletin for March 24

Dear friends in Christ,

On this 3rd Sunday of Lent we hear what I would call a “cryptic” parable about a fig tree that won’t blossom. The orchard owner is of the mind to cut it down, but the gardener succeeds in buying more time for the fruit to show forth. If not, then he’ll relent to his master’s wish and cut it down. Strange isn’t it? (If you are attending the 9 a.m. Mass today with our RCIA catechumens, you’ll hear a different passage from St. John about the woman at the well.)

The parable of the fig tree and the patient gardener is not a reminder to plant your spring vegetables. No, it’s a reminder to get the garden of our heart in order. These Lenten days are the time to turn back to God, to repent of our sins, and to trim away anything that is keeping us from blooming as we should. The message is clear, however: don’t delay for the master desires that we show forth the fruit of His love in our lives.

Next Tuesday, April 2, we’ll celebrate our annual Lenten Reconciliation Service at 6:30 p.m. We’ll have multiple priests here to celebrate the sacrament, and I encourage you to take advantage of this time to come to confession. Please do not wait until the last week of Lent as that’s when the lines are the longest and we inevitably are unable to get to all requests at that time. Plan now and come celebrate the Lord’s mercy. If it has been awhile since your last confession (even if it has been a long, long time!), please come. Don’t let anything hold you back from the grace that awaits you. It’s time to trim your fig tree, so to speak!

I found the following article from the Archdiocese of Washington D.C. website on “the why” about confession and thought it was appropriate in advance of our service next week. The priests who will be here next Tuesday will be happy to assist you with the “how to” part of going to confession. All you need to do is come! It reads as follows:

“When you meet up with someone about whom you care deeply, be it your spouse, a family member, or a good friend, what do you typically do when you spend time together? It can be any number of things: you may watch a sporting event or have dinner together or simply have a great conversation. But inevitably, we discover over time that the most important aspect of any valuable relationship is simply spending time together. As a relationship grows and deepens, what we actually do with someone else can often take a back seat to just being with them. At the same time, as we grow more comfortable with the other person, we become more ourselves and worry less about revealing our faults and weaknesses in their presence – because we know we are loved by them even with our imperfections.

This is exactly the kind of relationship that Jesus wants us to have with him. He desires for us to come and spend time with him, to simply be in his presence. This is the foundation of any good relationship! He invites us – actually, we could say that he begs us – to come and spend time with him, so that we may come to know his love for us.

The best part about his invitation is that he already knows us even better than we know ourselves. In his book ‘In the Presence of Our Lord,’ Fr. Benedict Groeschel describes very well what it is like to be before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Fr. Groeschel says that before the tabernacle, before Our Lord, he feels at home as in no other place. He says, ‘My sins, my defects, my quirks, are all known to Him. There is no secret, nothing to be embarrassed about, no place to hide. I believe (difficult as that may be at times) that He does in fact love me.
. . . With all my failings I have never been afraid to come to Him. In fact, I have run to Him and He has been there for me.”

As Fr. Groeschel tells us, realizing that Jesus already knows us so completely should make us feel comfortable in his presence. This is because Our Lord loves us – not in spite of our faults and weaknesses – but with them, as we are. ... Jesus has also loved us first and continues to do so. He is the one who reaches out to us first in so many ways. We simply must respond to his invitation.

Like every relationship, our relationship with God is not always easy. Fortunately we can count on the fact that God is always faithful and always wants the best for us. When we fall away from God and act contrary to the teachings of his Church, we harm our relationship with both God and with his Church. When our relationship with God – which is the most important relationship we have – isn’t right, then it affects our other relationships as well. Every sin we commit, while it injures our relationship with God, necessarily also affects our relationship with others too, and harms our communion with the Church.

Fortunately, the Lord Jesus has provided a very easy remedy to heal our relationship not only with him but also with his Church – namely, the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Through the priest, the Church forgives sins in the name of Jesus. When you make a sincere confession, you receive the forgiveness of Jesus! His forgiveness heals you and restores your relationship not only with him, but also with his Church and its members.

I know from my own experience that many Catholics do not frequent the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and sometimes it is out of a sense of fear. But just as you have nothing to fear in encountering Jesus in the Eucharist, there is nothing to fear in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, either. Jesus comes to you in the person of the priest, full of compassion for you. He wants nothing more than to take away the burden of your sins. Make no mistake – sin puts a burden on us. When we have sinned and have not been to confession, we can sometimes literally feel weighed down, or heavy. It is also harder to act with love toward our loved ones and friends, much less to be charitable to our enemies! But Jesus is more powerful than sin, and through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, he wants to remove this burden, wipe the slate clean and give us a new beginning.

The Sacrament of Reconciliation is also importantly a sacrament of healing. We are all wounded by our own sins, by the guilt we have from the hurts we have inflicted on others, and by our own lack of forgiveness of hurts inflicted upon us by others. Jesus wants to heal these wounds, to take away or alleviate the pain that they cause. But he will not force us to come to him; he respects our own free will and wants us to seek forgiveness, which can be difficult. Yet all it takes is just a contrite heart and an honest confession, and Jesus stands ready to console us.”

Peace,
Fr. Sean