Viderant Dominum

Sunday in the Octave of Easter

27 April 2014

THEY HAD SEEN THE LORD, is it any wonder that the disciples believed and spread the message of His resurrection? But what about us? Is it possible to survive on faith alone?

Newspaper reports abound this week on the falling numbers of practising Christians and, even among the ‘faithful’, a shocking number who do not profess a belief in the bodily resurrection of Christ. Is it, perhaps, a sign of the times that we need something tangible on which to anchor our beliefs?

The answer is ’no'. Human nature has always been this way. Modern minds are far from alone in their hunger for substantive evidence to justify belief, as today’s Gospel amply demonstrates. Thomas, oft dubbed the ‘doubting’ disciple, is representative of most of us at some point in our journey of faith. Indeed, his doubt of the testimony of the other disciples speaks volumes for their collective disposition post crucifixion. Unaware of the reality of the promised resurrection, they were all clearly dismayed by the death of their master; disoriented and fearful for their own lives.

How often do we find ourselves dismayed, disoriented and fearful as we walk the path of life? That is when we, like the disciples, are greeted by the words, “Peace be with you.” – for the disciples, words that ushered-in a startling and joyful new reality. But maybe for some among us, the same words ring true but somewhat stale.

Last week, in the splendour of the solemn Easter Vigil and in the grandeur of the Easter Day Mass, each of us renewed our Baptismal promises – promises that affirm a believe that Jesus, the Son of God, died on the cross, was buried and rose from the dead. We all said “I do” but how much do we believe in the reality of the resurrection? More, perhaps, than doubting Thomas? 

Seven days later and for the coming 48 Sundays before the next Easter, we will affirm the same belief in the Creed we recite. But how real is the resurrection to each of us? We are not talking about some kind of abstract resurrection followed by ghostly apparitions. We do not profess a belief in a purely spiritual resurrection, neither can we subscribe to the assertions of detractors that Jesus was just resuscitated or replaced on the cross and never died. 

No, the reality of the resurrection is the belief that a man, like us, suffered in the flesh, died and then rose – physically – as much in the flesh as when he breathed his last – and that the same will happen to our bodies, when he comes again in his glory to judge the living and the dead.

Let us ask ourselves again: is this what we truly believe? Because if it is, then this changes absolutely everything. For, if God has done this, then what may the world do to harm us, to dishearten us, to disorient us from the truth, to instil fear?

But sometimes, we allow the world to get the better of us. The unimaginable reality of Christ’s resurrection becomes dulled, rendered mundane by the trails of this life. There will be Sundays, for all of us, when the Creed is recited without heart, without the startling and joyful realisation of the disciples faced with their Risen Lord. We will forget, amidst our trials and tribulations, that Easter joy, that certain knowledge that we are unconquerable because Christ rose from the dead.

We will forget. And we will doubt. And when we do, let us not look at the locked door and hope that Jesus will appear to cast out all doubt as he did for Thomas. 

Let us instead encounter the Risen Christ in ourselves, for each of us have been baptised into his death, each of us has been anointed with his Holy Spirit, each of us has been given new birth as the sons and daughters of God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are living witness to the Risen Christ. The reality of the resurrection is in each of us. So, in times of doubt do not ask for signs from without, but instead look within. There you will see Christ Victorious because he lives in you.

For if God can raise Jesus from the dead, and in the fullness of time, raise our own corruptible bodies into incorruptible glory with him in heaven, then how should we doubt his power to guard us in this life? As the Apostle says:

“This is a cause of great joy for you, even though you may for a short time have to bear being plagued by all sorts of trails; so that, when Jesus Christ is revealed, your faith will have been tested and proved like gold – only it is more precious than gold.”

Cleave then, my brothers, to the reality of Christ’s resurrection in your lives. He is truly risen. His peace, then, be with you all days.

O Felix Culpa

Vigil of the Lord’s Resurrection

19 April, 2014

O HAPPY FAULT! This night, a blessed end to a wretched story is wrought for us. It is the story of The Fall, when Adam and Eve, tempted by Satan, gained knowledge of good and evil from the tree of the forbidden fruit, and with it sin and death. Unable to taste from the tree of immortality, they and all generations after them have lived, not in God’s image of perfection but under the penalty of death.

But God did not despair of those whom, in the beginning, he had breathed life into. Through the ages he reached out to them to guide them back to Himself, sending Godly men of great holiness to prophesy the coming of One who would conquer death for all men and restore the perfection of creation, by breaking open the doors of Sheol and transforming death into eternal life.

Tonight, Christ rises from the underworld revealing the fullness of the mystery of our salvation. God has died in the flesh and Sheol cannot confine the incandesce of His glory. Adam face to face again with his Creator, not to suffer condemnation but to witness the unimaginable depths of God’s love to raise him from that fateful fall; and with him, his descents for all time.

For the God of Adam has become Adam's son. The Master of all creation has become a slave. From above the heavens He came to Earth and, suffering death, He descended even below the Earth, to rise in glory; completing the perfect sacrifice and fulfilling the eternal covenant of redemption. And all to save Adam from his fall; and with Adam, all men who seek the face of God with sincere hearts.

Rejoice, then, with me on this most sacred of nights. Rejoice that so great a fault should have wrought a far greater act of love; for what was lost to us in Adam has been regained in even more abundance in Christ Jesus risen from the dead.

O felix culpa,
quæ talem ac tantum méruit habére Redemptórem! 

O happy fault,
that earned for us so great, so glorious a Redeemer!

Quomodo Negamus Eum?

Holy Thursday 2014

HOW DO WE DENY HIM? Is it directly, like Peter’s denials? Or are our denials more insidious – professing kinship on the outside, while denying Him from within?

There are many ways that we can be identified as Christians. In Peter’s case, even his accent gave him away. For us, today, it may be as simple as turning into a church carpark, wearing a cross, saying a prayer before starting a meal, having a bumper sticker that acknowledges Jesus as Lord, abstaining from meat on Fridays, or even having a prayer card in our wallet or a bible on a coffee table. Indeed, there are many ways to identify a Christian by outward signs and symbols that exhibit our faith.

Perhaps this is why, when we read the accounts of Peter’s three denials of Christ, we are apt to think that, at least in this regard, we exceed the Prince of Apostles in steadfastness of faith. After all, which of us would wantonly deny our faith when asked? In a world where, by and large, there are no repercussions to fear for professing our beliefs, we are able to wear the badge of faith proudly on our chests.

We may not face many situations where we might be ashamed of our Lord or our faith in Him, as Peter was, but we are reminded on this Holy Day that living up to our identity as Christians means we are tasked with more than just outward symbols or even vocal declarations of faith.

The ‘Mandatum’ from which ‘Maundy Thursday’ gets its name, is a new ‘commandment’ from the mouth of the Lord Himself; a commandment that will serve as the identifier of all those who are called to follow Him: for “by this everyone will know that you are my disciples.” And that commandment is to love one another just as perfectly as Christ has loved each of us.

Christ loved us even enough to die for us. Peter, despite his denials that fateful night, was to follow in those sacred footsteps. We may not be so privileged as to be called to lay down our lives for our faith, but in order to be identified as Christians and refrain from denying our Lord in our lives, we must love, all the more, in the fashion demonstrated by our Saviour in his every action on earth.

We are called to love through service. This Maundy Thursday night, our Lord washed the feet of his disciples and calls on us to repeat this humble service, not just for those to whom it pleases us to perform it, but to the whole world. For did not Christ wash even the feet of the one who would betray him? We owe humble service to every person that God brings into our lives, for, “very truly, I tell you, whoever receives one whom I send receives me; and whoever receives me receives him who sent me.” And through his example we are taught that humility is not limited by station, nor does it devalue our station. That we are chosen by the Lord does not mean we should not humble ourselves even before those who are not redeemed by His blood, as our acts of humility do not diminish but rather enhance our state of grace before God.

The call to love as He has loved is a call to love who He loved, in witness to our faith. To do less would be a denial of our faith, a denial of the Lord Himself. And who did Jesus love in the world? Of course he loved those closest to Him, even when they misunderstood Him, let Him down, betrayed Him, denied Him, and deserted Him. But it was not just those closest to Him that Jesus loved. (How easy a mandate would it be to just love our families, friends, and fellow believers?) No, Jesus loved the sinner and the outcast; the poor and the sick; the Roman and the Samaritan; and those who despised and rejected Him. If we cannot demonstrate the love of God to even the least of these people, then we do not bear the mark of Christ that identifies us, through our actions of love, as His own. And such a denial is far worse than Peter’s denials, for which he wept bitterly and regretted, even unto laying his own life down in the name of His Lord.

Tonight then, my brothers, as we watch and pray with Christ in Gethsemane and await His handing-over to those that would take His life most cruelly, let us think about how we have responded to the challenges of our faith. Have we stood up in loving action to prove that the religious symbols we outwardly bear are genuine reflections of inner faith and an eagerness to embrace the mandatum novum to love one another as He has loved us? May we, as did the Prince of Apostles, weep bitterly for the times that we have denied our Lord in the people we have treated with anything less than Christ-like humility and love. And through our tears of remorse may we ever more readily appreciate our Blessed Lord’s love for us in bearing the cross for our sakes, and commit ourselves to being a vessel of that love in the world.

Non Cognoverunt Eam

Holy Week 2014

THEY DID NOT KNOW IT, but this was going to be one bad week.

The Christian faithful and non-believers alike often question the variances in the accounts of Jesus’ passion and death as written in the four canonical gospels. Those that seek to undermine the Christian faith label them ‘inconsistencies', which call into question the veracity of the written accounts and aim to discredit the historical authenticity of Jesus’ last days on earth. Believers, also, often wonder why the four accounts of Christ’s Passion are occasionally different in the details. Although, for us, faith unites these discordances in the sure belief that Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead to bring us salvation.

The truth is not, as our detractors would like us to believe, that the gospel writers are unreliable at best and fabricators of works of total fiction at worst. If the early Fathers of the Church had wanted to propagate a lie about the death and resurrection of Jesus, how difficult would it be to make sure all the stories were the same in every detail? After all, it is these same Church Fathers who formed the New Testament as we know it today.

Indeed, the differences in the details of Jesus’ death and resurrection are our guarantee of authenticity because they reflect one of the fundamental facts about Christianity as a new religion in fulfilment of Judaism: No one was expecting it to happen this way.

The gospel accounts are recollections that are endeavouring to make sense of the life, ministry, and death of Jesus in the context of His resurrection. If the disciples had understood the plan from the start, no doubt their recollection of events would be precise to every detail that points to Jesus being, in fact, true God made man, born to live and die among and for His creation so that those formed by God’s Word could achieve the status of Sons of God, capable of for all eternity gazing upon the glory of God in His heavenly kingdom.

Rewind to the Passover of AD33. The disciples had no idea of the events they were about to be caught up in. For all the miracles, the teachings, the words of Jesus – both veiled and direct – about Himself and His mission, and despite the abundant vault of Hebraic prophecies about the Messiah, none of them knew that they walked by the side of God Himself or could conceive of God’s plan to unite all men to Himself through such a shameful death. 

The disciples believed that their master was the Messiah, the chosen one of God; and their concept of the Messiah was already radically different from what most of the Jews were expecting. The vast majority of Jews were expecting a warrior-messiah, who would free them from Roman occupation. The disciples, on the other hand, believed that their master was a more pacifistic messiah, somewhat religio-political, sent to renew Judaism from within. They were not expecting, nor would they have believed the messianic story which was just about to unfold in the death of Jesus.

We begin Holy Week with the disciples on quite a high note, as their master is hailed “Son of David” and the one who “comes in the name of the Lord”. They couldn’t really have asked for a better reception. They were fearing that the Jewish authorities might try to arrest Jesus as soon as He set foot in Jerusalem, for some of the really amazing miracles he had performed in the weeks prior and the way Jesus had confronted the Pharisees about, among other issues, breaking the law of rest on the Sabbath. So, they were most pleased by the turnout of the crowd of supporters who gathered to greet Jesus, and they hoped that this would stop the religious authorities from doing anything too drastic. And so the disciples busied themselves with preparations for the Passover Feast without much of a care in the world.

Everything was looking rosy until Jesus started doing things to sabotage Himself. It started with the (quite violent) clearing of the Temple – sending the money-changers and pigeon-sellers packing. Jesus seemed different, agitated almost. The next day, when Jesus was on his way back to the Temple, he cursed a fig tree because he couldn’t find any fruit on it. The tree instantly withered. It was the first time Jesus had done something like this – using His miraculous powers for no observable benefit. Something was definitely troubling him.

In these days, the disciples witnessed a Jesus who was far more harsh in his dealings with the chief priests, elders, Sadducees and Pharisees; far more direct in his assertion of His status and impending death; far more prolific in his teaching and provocative in his speech, as if there was some great urgency to his message.

Today, the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of Holy Week might seem a bit uneventful compared to the Thursday and Friday, but in AD33 they were a frenzy of activity that left the disciples worried and not quite sure what to think. 

Is it any wonder that they so vehemently denied Jesus’ accusation that one of them would betray him? They could be pretty certain that the Jewish authorities would now arrest Jesus, but this is something that Jesus seemed, Himself, to provoke. The disciples didn’t want it to happen and didn’t want to be blamed for it either.

Is it any wonder that they fell asleep when Jesus prayed at Gethsemane? They had no idea what Jesus was going through; that he was knowingly facing an imminent death, a death He Himself had engineered so as to fulfil the will of the Father. 

The disciples were troubled, confused, mentally exhausted and spiritually ignorant of their master’s true identity and purpose. Is it any wonder, then, that they dispersed into hiding and deserted their master when he was arrested and the crowds rose up to condemn him to the most horrifying and shameful public execution?

Brothers, we are indeed fortunate that we are living today, when the full revelation of Christ’s life, death and resurrection can be laid so clearly before us. We know the whole story. What is left for us but to believe, even in this most improbable of stories: that God would humble Himself not only to live among us as a man like us, but to accept with such deep love for us the scorn of the world, being despised, rejected, tormented, tortured and murdered, at the hands of men whom He Himself had created?

In the words of the Apostle Paul:

“The Jews demand miracles and the Greeks look for wisdom, but we are preaching a crucified Christ; to the Jews an obstacle they cannot get over, to the pagans madness, but to those who have been called, whether they are Jews or Greeks, a Christ who is the power and wisdom of God.”
[1Cor.1:22-24]

As we are called, so let us witness, this Holy Week, the folly of the Cross: this ultimate contradiction that through submitting to the seeming failure of a humiliating death, God has gained for us the ultimate victory.

Flevit Super Illam

Palm Sunday of the Passion of Our Lord

13 April 2014

HE WEPT OVER IT; the city of Jerusalem and its people, who had suffered so much and had cried out to God for deliverance and the fulfilment of God’s Holy Covenant with his people. He wept because their cries had melted the very heart of God –HIS heart – overflowing with such love and compassion that God would do the unimaginable; the impossible in the eyes of men; the only thing that would once and for all time unite God and man, restoring the perfection of creation.

It is often asked why, on Palm Sunday, we have to listen to both the Gospel account of Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem and, in addition, to a full reading of one of the accounts of the Passion of our Lord. Are we not jumping the gun a bit by not allowing ourselves to bask in the glory of Christ with the great crowds of people who came out to greet him that day?

The answer can be found in Luke's account of Jesus' approach towards Jerusalem from the top of the Mount of Olives. There were already crowds acclaiming Him and throwing their cloaks down in the path of the donkey that carried Him. But Jesus paused as the city of Jerusalem came into sight in front of him. He paused to look at the city. And He wept.

We need to appreciate today's feast through the eyes of Christ, not through the eyes of the excitable crowds known for their desperate expectation of an imminent saviour; nor through the eyes of the disciples hoping that their master would at last gain the status they believed he deserved. 

What do we see, then, through the tears in Christ's eyes? Remember that these are the eyes of the all-knowing God and at the same time the eyes of an all-feeling man. 

The prophetic vision of the destruction of Jerusalem that follows and would be fulfilled in less than 40 years, is a pitiful allegory for the relationship between God and the Israelites, His chosen people. The eyes of God looking over His Holy City see with pain how His chosen people will continue to misinterpret His Holy Covenant. They will reject even His only begotten Son and will rise up in defense of an earthly city made of stone and mud while turning away from their true inheritance – the heavenly city of Jerusalem, the Kingdom of God Itself. 

The tears of Christ the man, inseparable from the Godhead, tell us of the huge physical and emotional burden borne, the real and painful sacrifice which every action in the life of Jesus leads to and facilitates. When Jesus returns to the Mount of Olives later in the week and prays in the Garden of Gethsemane, we see an echo of those tears shed today. Tears of a man betrayed, abandoned, mocked, tortured, crucified and killed mercilessly, of his own volition, but not for his own sake.

So let us begin Holy Week as we mean to go on. Let us not just observe but, rather, live Holy Week as a perfect witness to the sacrifice that brought about our salvation. May we see with His eyes, through His tears, and weep with Him not just for the Jerusalem of AD33 but for the people of God in our time who continue to reject the loving sacrifice of God for mankind.

As Jesus rides into Jerusalem today, He is not rejoicing with the crowds but fulfilling God’s plan as revealed through the prophets, to live among and die for each and every one of us – no matter how we in our own lives betray Him, abandon Him, mock Him, torture Him and crucify Him – so that we may be redeemed by His Blood, spared the just punishment for our many sins, and share in the glory of His resurrection.

The palms that  you are holding in your hands today, many of you will fold into crosses. That is the true meaning of Palm Sunday; that is why we need to stand through the reading of the Passion – Because today begins the unfolding of the most sacred mystery of our salvation: that God, to Whom all glory in heaven and on earth belongs, would humble himself to death, even death on a cross … so that you may be saved.

Walk, then, with Him, that you may bear witness, in your life, to the love of Christ.

Ut Peccatis Mortui

5th Sunday of Lent

05 April 2014

TO DIE TO SIN, and fear, and doubt is to rise through Christ; with Christ; in Christ. For through Christ our sins are forgiven; with Christ we need not fear the sting of death; and in Christ our faith finds the fruits of eternal life.

Resurrection, as a concept, was not foreign to the Jews of Christ’s time. Our first reading from the prophet Ezekiel speaks to us of the physical resurrection of the body when God will open the graves of His people and put His Spirit in them, that they shall live. The hope of resurrection is acknowledged also by Martha in today’s Gospel account when she responds to Jesus’ assertion that her brother, Lazarus, would "rise again”.

Concept and reality, however, are very different. And none in the Gospel account, except the Lord, would have even imagined that the four-days-dead Lazarus would walk himself out of his tomb; not Jesus’ disciples, not his close friends Martha and Mary. To all present at this ultimate miracle, and even to the Jewish authorities who would hear about it, the bodily resurrection of the dead was not to be a reality today and certainly not at the hands of a man, even if some had acknowledged him a prophet, a messiah, or a man of great holiness. Resurrection was for them in the domain of God alone and for a specific time when God would bring the Israelites into His eternal glory in the heavenly Jerusalem. And it is because resurrection was such a distant and intangible concept that the seeming finality of death causes such pain to those remaining in life.

The Lord ensures two deaths in this Gospel account. First, the death of Lazarus. We are told that the Lord waited two days before acting on the message that his friend was gravely ill. Is it not odd that Jesus wanted to be sure of Lazarus’ death before embarking to Bethany? Martha and Mary certainly thought so. Is it not odd that the Lord told his disciples that he was glad for their sakes that He had not been with Lazarus before his death in order to heal him? In this instance, the disciples did not find it odd that Jesus didn’t want to go to Lazarus’ side. In fact they found it odd that he would want to travel there at all, and urged Him to let Lazarus sleep and not go to Bethany because to be so close to Jerusalem would put their master’s life in mortal danger from the Jewish authorities, for whom Jesus was a marked man. But the Lord went to the tomb of his friend precisely to ensure a second death: His own.

More than a foreshadowing of His own resurrection, the raising of Lazarus from the dead is the means by which Christ offers Himself to be crucified. More than an act of love for his friends Martha and Mary, the raising of Lazarus from the dead is accomplished for the glory of God and as a manifestation not of Jesus’ earthly affection for one man and his two sisters, but the truly Divine love of the Son of God for all men. 

And more than an affirmation of the value of mortal life, the raising of Lazarus from the dead is an affirmation of the necessity of death, to sin, to doubt and to the fear of death itself. It is for this that Jesus wept as Mary took Him to the tomb of her brother. It was not because he was sad at the death of his friend or His failure to heal him as he had the blind man. Jesus wept for the pervasive power that death had on the minds of those around him, those that had been taught, through the prophets, about the resurrection but could not grasp it, and needed God Himself to come among them, to live and die to prove that God’s Holy Covenant, his promise to His people, was not set in life and bound by death but transcends the earthly city of Jerusalem to the eternal city of God.

We must not, then, my brothers, be as the disciples who feared for Jesus’ life and preferred him to stay in safety, away from Jerusalem. We must not be as Martha and Mary, who in their hearts wished that Jesus had arrived in time to heal their brother. We need not be as the crowds outside Lazarus’ tomb who wondered if Jesus mourned the loss of His friend and speculated about whether He was unable to save him from death.

We, who in these days ahead of us, will witness Christ’s passion, death and resurrection, as a direct result of his action to raise Lazarus from death, should rather rejoice in this manifestation of God’s power and love in Bethany today: A love that conquers death, not just for one man, but for all who, in Christ, earnestly receive His Spirit that gives life to our mortal bodies.

May our journey with our Lord to Jerusalem permit us to share, through His passion and death – with His ultimate act of love –  in His resurrection. Amen.

Convertere ad Dominum

Lent 2014

RETURN TO THE LORD! Not for fear of judgement and hell, but because no one loves you more. 

The overwhelming call of the season of Lent is for conversion of spirit and for repentance and return to God. This period of Lent, leading up to the Triduum and celebration of Easter has a great pull for those who have lapsed from the faith. More so than at Christmas, where the secular overtones have already drowned the Gloria of the angel choirs, the final days of Lent and the unfolding of the paschal mystery of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection, tug at the heart strings of anyone who was once a witness to these holiest of days but has since turned away from the presence of Christ in their lives. And I speak from experience; the experience of being 15 years away from the faith. The yearning never leaves us completely, no matter how far we stray, even to taking refuge in other religions; the Lord never strays from us.

But returning isn’t easy. Burdened with sin and self loathing we forget that the Lord is unconditional love and compassion. We look to God as judge and rightly think that we can never be worthy, but we forget that God loves us even as we are today, blackened by sin and regret, confused and disoriented on life’s path, and doubtful of and hesitant to reach out to grasp the Lord’s forgiving hands that promise to pull us into his embrace.

We place obstacles in the path towards our return to God, some to trip ourselves, others to block progress completely. We condition ourselves into believing that we cannot reach Him and should not even begin the futile journey. We judge God’s love by the code of human conduct; how, when I don’t even love myself, shall God love me? And then we number our sins and think, how, when I wouldn’t even forgive myself, shall God forgive me? And thus we shrink from the presence of God.

What we do not appreciate is that there is no path, no journey, no obstacle, no obstruction, no distance. All we need do is to turn – where we are standing – to face the One who has always been with us, even when our souls felt furthest from his grace. Turn, turn now; He is there, He never left you, He never stopped loving you, He never stopped waiting for your return.

This is the message of Lent: to turn and see God in the wilderness of our broken lives; to know that His love and compassion is not dependent on our worthiness but solely on our ability to see Him and believe.

And there is no better place to turn and meet Christ than in that much feared, instrument of torture, the confessional. Nothing strikes fear in the lapsed catholic like this little wooden cubical. But nowhere will you encounter the loving mercy of Christ more intimately than inside it. If only you would make it more about Him than you.

My own approach to the confessional after 15 years in the darkness of my life turned from Christ was terrifying. I made a tentative return to the Church, attending Mass (although not approaching communion), periods of adoration of Blessed Sacrament, and praying the Divine Office. I resisted the Sacrament of Reconciliation for a long while, fearing judgement, fearing the shame of confessing so many years of so many sins, fearing that I could not and should not be forgiven, fearing that I could not make a full and accurate confession of my many faults before God.

I resisted for as long as I could, until the pain of not being able to receive the Lord in communion gave way to a deep yearning to be reconciled. Even then, I spent days preparing my confessional ‘speech’, working through the ‘perfect confession’ in my mind even as I sat next in line to the confessional. I knew exactly what I wanted to say and took a deep breath before entering the dim light within … it was going to be a long one.

Then in the almost haunting silence of the chamber, as I knelt before the lattice grille and looked up at the crucifix hanging above, my eyes welled up with tears. I wasn’t sobbing and everything else about me seemed normal except for the streams running down my face. I broke the silence the way I had been taught as I child, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been 15 years since my last confession…”

“Welcome home, my child” came the gentle response and it was then that the sobbing started. I couldn’t get an intelligible word out of my mouth. The priest continued, “Don’t be afraid. The Lord is here and he welcomes you home.” I could not regain control of my emotions and I continued sobbing, struggling to speak. “Fall into Christ’s embrace. Listen to His heart that beats for you and let go of all that troubles your soul. What is it your soul aches to say to your Lord?”

My well prepared and memorised speech left me, “I need the Lord’s forgiveness for so much, too much that I have done” is all that I managed to squeak through by rasping breath. “Your Lord forgave you the instant you turned to him. Your tears are a reflection of the Lord’s own tears. Yours are of sorrow, but His are for joy because the son he had lost has come home. Now when you are ready, pray the Act of Contrition in front of you so that I can give you Christ’s absolution.”

I received Holy Communion for the first time in 15 years that day, and have never felt more loved by God.

I later asked my spiritual director whether I had made a valid confession that day, since I didn’t even get started on my prepared script of sins. He reminded me of the parable of the prodigal son, who returned with a prepared speech 'I have sinned against you and against God…’ but was cut short by the embrace of his all-forgiving father. “You met Christ Himself in the confessional that day. Be at peace and rejoice that Our Blessed Lord has called you home to Himself. I think that the woman who shed tears and wiped Jesus' feet with them, could repeat the same words to you that she heard from the Lord, 'MANY sins are forgiven her, since she has LOVED MUCH’.”

Return, then, to the Lord, all you who have been called by the Lord. Turn to face him and witness a love that will envelop all your fears, your guilt, your doubt, your troubles, and turn them into the pure joy of being the beloved of God.