The Value of a Good Confession...

Yesterday, before the 4:30 Holy Mass, I went to Confession.
You know that feeling you get when, just before you enter the Confessional, your stomach turns upside-down and you think to yourself, 'What am I going to say? How will I word my sins? How do I tell Our Lord how sorry I am?'
And then, just as the priest is blessing you, all the worries disappear and everything you wanted to say just comes spilling out...
I always tell Friend to stay close by while I confess my sins and I also pray to the Holy Spirit to 'put the words into my mouth' so I know for sure that the Confession I am about to make will be pleasing to Almighty God ~ after all, isn't the Holy Spirit, the Third Person, the One prompting me what to say?! So, how could it be anything less than pleasing, right?
A couple of weeks ago, I bought ~ or rather, I won on eBay ~ a small but powerful prayer book, dedicated to St. Therese, the Little Flower, which contains many prayers that were written by the Saint herself. There are many devotions in this little book, which holds so many graces for its small size...and there are also several pages dedicated to an Examination of Conscience. I imagine that this is similar to the one that she must have used before making her own Confessions, but I cannot imagine that her sins were anything too great...
His Excellency, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen once said that 'hearing a nun's Confession was like being stoned to death with popcorn...' and I would be very much surprised to learn that St. Therese had anything more serious to admit to than exactly what he meant!!!
Now yours truly, on the other hand, is no Saint. I was sitting there, reading through these pages, and thinking to myself, there are so many things in there that, sadly, I can relate to. I won't go into detail here (personal, y'know...LOL) but I do know that, over the years, I have tried to be a better person than I ever was before. And each time I go to Confession, I make that same resolution over and over...and over and over and over...
I once wrote in my other Blog about starting over; I used the comparison to a butterfly, just emerging from its cocoon. As it struggles to reveal itself to the world, it has to fight to release itself from the bondage that holds it close...and that is like our sins. As it emerges, finally, it will sit there, basking in the sun to dry its wings...and that is like our Confession ~ as we bask in the forgiveness of God, allowing Him to remove all stain from our souls. Finally, this now-beautiful creature, which was once so earth-bound and ordinary, takes its flight ~ just like our souls when we are free from all stain of sin and the bondage that held us to it! We take our flight to God, finally able to show His power and glory, in the beauty of our lily-white souls!
As I sat there, during the Holy Mass, I imagined my soul to be like that...pure and unsullied in God's eyes, forgiven of all sin, ready to take its flight to Him if I were to die at that very moment!
When I first registered in this parish, I was told by more than one of the priests there that they expect their parishioners to attend Confession often ~ monthly at the very least! Of course, no one can dictate to anyone else how to get this done, but they certainly expect us to try...I have been trying to get there as often as I possibly can, and I do see improvement! It's a wonderful, free-ing feeling to know that one's sins are erased, never more to darken the doorstep of the soul...And whenever I find myself in the Confessional, I imagine that the priest is Our Lord Himself, telling me what He thinks I need to hear at that moment, listening to what I have to say for myself (which, I can promise, is never good enough) and forgiving me anyway.
Fr. Marek, who heard my Confession yesterday, gave me a simple talk about the nature of holiness...how it is not the destination, but the journey. When a person strives to be holy, there is trial and error ~ much error, to be sure ~ and again, trial. We go along on the way, we come up against temptation, we fall. We pick ourselves up, dust off the sin, try again. If we are lucky, sometimes we will defeat the devils plaguing us...we will overcome Satan and his cohorts! We will grow in the grace of God, pleasing Him more than anything else we could possibly do at that time! When we are tempted to sin, Our Lord is right there beside us, giving us what strength we need to resist...and to say a final 'NO!' And how pleasing it must be to Him when we are victorious!
How badly I want to please Him in this way! I can think of no other accomplishment in my life that I would want more than to please Him in my trying, even tho' I fall many times over, but picking up after myself, and trying again, and again, and again...
How grateful I am to Him that He would, in His mercy and kindness to me, institute this Sacrament of Confession ~ making it possible for me to keep trying, no matter how many times or how badly I have offended Him ~ and that makes it possible for a humble sinner like myself to finally someday take my flight to Heaven...