Confession

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I


 I remember when I was growing up every month or so on a Saturday morning the family made a trip to the Church to go to Confession. There in this dark room with the jumble we would kneel and go through our list that we had prepared the day before with promptings from my Mum and Dad and my Brother. 

It was not my favourite activity that we had as a family. It was a little like going to the dentist but less pleasant. It certainly was not a relationship between my self and the person of Jesus. This has in my experience been the same kind of feelings that many others have had about their first experiences of Confession. 

It all changed for me when I went to confession not behind the grill but face to face. At that time the name changed to the sacrament of Reconciliation. Both these things helped me to realise that the sacrament was not about lists and trying to remember what I did or did not do it was about a relationship with the person of Jesus. At about this time I also discovered the picture by Rembrandt the return of the prodigal Son. I began too realise that the sacrament was not one of being told of but a sacrament of relationship and deeping relationship with the person of Jesus. 

Mark in his Gospel Narrative today helps us to realise that when John proclaimed this basic message that this is what we needed we need forgiveness of Sins and a deepening relationship with the person of Jesus. That the problems of life are because we need to be forgiven and turn back to God. 

And yet the sacrament of reconciliation is for many of us the mist under used sacrament. It is a sacrament of healing and redemption. I often tell people that the thing that we need to do before anything else is to remember that Jesus never tires of us returning back to him. The sacrament is one of God’s love for us it is a conversation with Jesus and through this we hear the wonderful words of forgiveness.  


Advent is a great time to rediscovered this sacrament if you have been away from it for a long time it is a good chance to enter into a deeper relationship with the person of Jesus in this most wonderful sacrament. So if you have been away for a long time, if you want to go beefier Christmas take the courage to do so. You don’t need to come with a list, just come as you are thats all Jesus wants us to do he longs for us to come to listen and to be forgiven because we are his children he loves us and we belong to him.

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