We Begin Again

There is something about confession — something completely transformative — and yet so often we find ourselves going through the motions of a confession without really resolving to try to change moving forward from that moment of grace and forgiveness.

It’s not to say that we won’t fall into the same sins again, but we should never accept those sins as part of who we are and we should never give up trying to put them in the past and keep them there.

We are not our sins — not our sexual sins, our anger, our hatred or addictions — I could go on, but you get the idea. The truth is we might struggle for a lifetime with the same sins and the same root of our sins that we just can’t seem to get on top of.

Maybe these sins might seem so entrenched in who we are as a person, that we give up trying to be different, trying to fight our tendencies to do the same thing over and over again.

But there is a real possibility for drastic change with each confession.

There is real possibility that one day, you might not struggle with those sins, and you have overcome them after years of falling and confessing them and falling again. So don’t give up!

Just look at some of the greatest Saints we have in the Church. So many of them got things wrong on such colossal scale that none of us should ever think that we are too far gone.

Look at the man who aided and abetted in the killing of innocent Christians and actually hunted them down (Shout out, St. Paul!) or the man who lived with a mistress and had a child out of wedlock (Shout out, St. Augustine!) or the prostitute who racially repented and lived a life of penance for the rest of her life (Shout out, St. Mary of Egypt!). I could go on, but you get the idea: the communion of Saints is full of many, many sinners — sinners who allowed grace to change them in radical ways!

So, don’t accept mediocrity! Frankly, as fantastical as sin might be made to look in movies and social media, it’s really quite boring and monotonous and it will never, ever satisfy that deepest part of your soul that was made only for God.

None of those sins will ever satisfy that part of your soul, so you might as well give up trying those old boring sins and try something new for a change.

Strive to become a Saint — not necessarily a Saint that the world might notice, but a Saint that God might notice because your heart is good and true and loyal.

How do we become that Saint that God created us to be — the Saint He had in mind from the first moment of our conception? We have to spend time with Him.

Allow yourself to be loved by God. Allow yourself to be adored by Him. You know sometimes Adoration is a lot more of God adoring us than we are adoring Him. I can not tell you how often I get lost in my thoughts and all of a sudden an hour has gone by and I feel like I “failed” at Adoration.

But you see, I didn’t fail, because God was loving me and despite my struggle to be aware of God made Man before me, God is still working in those moments.

Spend time in God’s Word and in Adoration and in that confessional, and God will change you. Ever so slowly, He will use those moments to change our stubborn, cold hearts, to till them until a little seed of His love might take root and grow and flourish, despite our fallen humanity.

So don’t give up. Keep going to confession. Keep confessing those boring monotonous sins, and keep asking God to make you the Saint the world needs now, because the world does need Saints now, and He had created us to live in this time and this place for a good and beautiful purpose.

I hope you say, “yes” and I hope I say “yes” and when we fall, I hope you and I will have the guts, the courage to say we are sorry in confession and to begin again.

And sometimes, when we leave that confessional and enter into the silence of our souls, we just might hear the words “We Begin Again.” Not “I Begin Again” or “You Begin Again”, but “We begin again” Because you do begin again — but not just you — Jesus begins again with you.

He is there to help you fight those battles and overcomes those sins, because we can not do it alone.

So, if you’re feeling the monotony of your sin and the resistance to do the good you know God wants you to do in this world, then get yourself to confession and begin again with Him.

Happy Weekend!