I Must Confess...

Today is the first Saturday of the month, which in the world of Catholicism means time for Confession.

Confession, or Reconciliation, is one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. A person humbles himself before God and man by admitting his sins, asking for forgiveness and declaring that he wholeheartedly desires to sin no more. The priest then absolves the person of his sins, provides a penance, and blesses him before sending him on his way. Reconciliation can and should be a very liberating and deeply emotional experience.

I must admit that I've always had a love-hate relationship with Confession. Early on, after I'd made my First Confession in second grade, I looked forward to the opportunity of saying what I'd done wrong and asking for forgiveness. I vividly remember begging my mother to take me to Confession one Saturday afternoon. I simply couldn't receive Holy Eucharist the next day if I didn't confess that I'd missed Mass the week before.

Father Palermo, the founder of the church where I grew up, was a no-fuss, sometimes stern sort of priest. He wanted you to get to the point about what you did wrong and why you chose to do it. Even at the age of seven or eight, I'd feel myself sweating under the collar. Why did I choose to disobey my parents, anyway?

You could imagine how nervous I was to tell Father Palermo that I had committed one of the biggies--missing Mass! I felt that even if he were gracious enough to absolve me of this sin, I still may have the chance of landing in you-know-where.

As I knelt down in the confessional, I asked God to help me give a good Confession. Then, the door behind the small mesh screen slid open, and I could see Father Palermo's outline. Time to own up to what I'd done.

"I missed Mass last week, Father."
Father Palermo wasn't one to let you get off with just saying that. He needed to know what had possessed you to skip church.
"So, you just didn't feel like going to Mass?" he probed.
"No, father!" I said in a pleading way. "I really wanted to go."
Father Palermo pursued. He was going to find out exactly what demonic urge I'd had last Sunday!
"So then, your parents couldn't take you and you were too lazy to try to find a ride?"
"No, father! My parents went to Mass, and they would have taken me."
"Why, then, didn't you go to Mass last Sunday?" You could hear Father Palermo's frustration at not being able to solve this riddle.
"I was sick."
There was a brief pause, after which Father Palermo kind of yelled, "That's not a sin! If you're too sick to go to Mass, you don't have to confess that!"

Boy was my face red. Not only had I not committed a sin, I'd wasted the priest's time by trying to confess this! I can't remember what he said after that. I just know that I was feeling quite goofy for having confessed a non-sin.

A few years later, when I was in parochial school, we had to go to confession every first Friday of the month. At the age of nine or ten, if you're any kind of a decent kid, you don't do too much sinning. As much as I wanted to confess my sins, I was always a little disappointed that I couldn't come up with a nice list every month. I mean, you can't just confess one sin! (Look what happened when I tried to confess the sin of not going to Mass, which turned out to be perfectly non-sinful. I wasn't armed with any backup sins, and so the priest was completely baffled about why I was kneeling in the confessional.)

So I kind of cheated on my sins. Crazy, I know, but it seemed the right thing to do at the time. After all, the idea is that we should be reflecting on our lives, discovering our shortcomings and constantly improving ourselves. So I basically came up with the same three sins that I committed each month (even if I didn't actually commit one of them within a 30-day period), and I always switched them around in case the priest started to catch on to me.

Here's the problem with that approach: If we are supposed to leave confession promising to try to do better, it doesn't look too good if you come back a month later and confess the same three sins!

By this time, I had gotten myself so riled up about Confession, I would get a nervous stomach before school, and my palms would sweat profusely as I waited in church for my turn. Relief was the emotion I felt when I walked out of the confessional. Whew, made it through another one!

As I got older, Confession became more of what it was supposed to be: a very cleansing spiritual act. But fast-forward to adulthood, and Confession became nothing more than a waste of time. "Why should I confess my sins to another human being when I can talk directly to God?"

Now, I find my attitude changing yet again. I realize the wonderful power of Reconciliation, and I understand bringing your faults before a priest, who is given the power by God to forgive you. Nevertheless, I often find myself steering clear of the confessional for months at a time before finally realizing that I need to go. Then I either spend a half-hour memorizing my sins like I'm going to recite the Gettysburg address verbatim, or I just wing it, dashing into the confessional to blurt out my wrong-doings as they pop into my head.

Both of these methods appear to be incorrect. There's nothing natural or thoughtful about memorization, and doing it on the fly often leads to omission.

Today, I am working on reflection to experience Confession in a meaningful way. Looking over the Ten Commandments is a great starting point. I'm also searching for guidelines on how to make a good act of Confession. American Catholic, a website created by St. Anthony Messenger Press and Franciscan Communications, is a nice resource. There is a thorough section on the seven sacraments and articles on what's necessary to make a good Confession. See

If you have any other resources, please share. Here's to rediscovering the true meaning of Reconciliation.

When the Cat's Away, the Mouse Won't Sin

My husband is at a conference in Chicago for two days. This is only the fourth time in our ten-year marriage that he has gone somewhere on his own. I miss him, but I love this time!

For some reason, I feel that I'm a better person when he's away. Isn't that silly? There are no doubt some people who feel that when the mouse is away, the cat will play. Not me. I'm not interested in jacking up the credit card balance or having a wild party in my house (which actually can't be done with three small children around). In fact, I feel the need to be even more responsible, which, I guess, also makes me feel like I'm less likely to do something wrong.

Maybe everyone can relate to this a bit. Whether it's your spouse, your parent, your boss or someone else closely connected to your life, you feel like you almost always have to be "on" in order to please this person. And always being "on" has a tendency to make some of us mess up a little. For me, it's a constant feeling that I've got to be doing everything "right" all the time. It's not that my husband demands this--not at all. But as the wife, the mom, the cleaner of the house, I feel a heavy sense of obligation. And when I mess up an obligation, I have a tendency to go overboard to try to rectify the situation or, worse yet, cover it up.

This can lead to lying (for instance, saying you turned in the taxes, when in fact they're stuffed in the back of your file cabinet), cheating (perhaps taking $30 out of the bank instead of $20, with the unspoken promise that you will make up the difference in a few days), concealing things that shouldn't be concealed (like an overdue credit card statement) and other incorrect behavior. And it's a snowball effect; you cover up one thing, and then you have to cover up something else that comes along after it.

Today, while my husband is in Chicago, I'm living life as usual. I got two kids on the bus, took the littlest one to pre-school, went to the grocery store, and now I'm doing my work. Still, I don't feel like I'm "on." The pressure is off, which for some reason, makes it easier for me to be better at most things. Go figure!

Selfless Saints--Is it even possible?

What is a saint? One of the last definitions for saint in the dictionary reads: "one eminent for piety or virture."

To me, a saint is someone who thinks only of God and others and who works to help those in need without concern for him/herself.

Based on those standards, I am not a saint.

I think about myself constantly! "When am I going to find time to finish my articles?" Why aren't I as thin as I want to be?" "Who's going to help me with these kids so I can get some rest?" Even when I'm doing for others, I find myself concentrating on me. "I'm not volunteering enough." "I'm volunteering too much." I get sick of myself sometimes!

There is only one hour of the week where I truly find myself leaning toward selflessness. That's when I'm delivering Meals on Wheels. Oh sure, I grouse every Tuesday at 11 when I know I need to get ready to pick up the meals. "I shouldn't be doing this; I should be working," I'm likely to moan. But as soon as I'm on my way with two boxes filled with food, I get lost in the mission. To bring a smile to someone's face. To chat with someone who maybe hasn't spoken to anyone in awhile. Just to allow someone time to relax and not have to prepare a meal. It makes me feel good. And suddenly, an hour passes by and I realize I have not thought about myself!

Imagine being selfless 24 hours a day.... Is that even doable? For some people it might be. And you have to wonder: Were they born with that gift, or do they work hard every single day to put others ahead of themselves? If I concentrated more on not thinking about myself and instead searched for ways to help someone else, would this eventually become a natural reaction?

Maybe I'll take it an hour at a time. First, Meals on Wheels. Then maybe an hour a week where I play with the kids or prepare dinner and clean up without whining about how tired or stressed or overweight or overworked I am. Two hours a week of selflessness. Sounds simple enough, right?

Do I Have to Confess My Goofy Mistakes?

I often confuse my silly errors with sins, as if accidentally breaking a glass or throwing away your child's artwork is strictly forbidden in the Ten Commandments. It just always seems to me that saints would be smart enough not to do dumb things. If you're really connected with God and yourself, then you wouldn't drive into the garage with the car hatch open.

This is the problem with studying good people from long ago. We hear about their good deeds and perhaps about their sinful lives before they found faith, but we never get a sense if they were accident-prone, forgetful or clumsy. Did Noah have to turn the ark around because he forgot to load a few animals? Is St. Anthony the patron saint of lost items because he could never find his Bible? Did Martin Luther accidentally put a huge hole in the church door while trying to nail his 95 Theses? I would love to know if Jesus ever ruined a perfectly good chair or table that he was building.

Perhaps the reason we don't know these things is because they don't matter. Clumsy does not equal sinful. Being absent-minded does not mean that you're also mean-spirited, greedy or distrustful. You can do good things while doing a few goofy things at the same time!

I tried to remember this last evening when I basically ruined a game that my husband had since he was ten years old. It is a manual tabletop basketball game. You push down on little levers to release a ping pong-like ball from various holes. The goal is to get the ball into a little mesh net attached to a think wire resembling a hoop.

My son lost the ping pong ball, and, I, wanting to be helpful, searched the house for a replacement. I returned with a small bouncy ball, which I wasn't sure would work but suggested he give it a try. "It works okay," he replied, and started to play his game. I went back to cleaning the kitchen.

Ten minutes later, my husband gasped in only a way that could mean something was broken. "What are you doing?" he yelled to Dominic. "You can't use that heavy ball with this game!" The relatively hefty bouncy ball had pulled the frail wire hoop out of its holes.

I ran into the TV room to find my son near tears. Disappointing his father hurts him more than just about anything else. "It wasn't his fault," I blurted. "I gave him the bouncy ball. It's my fault." Now the blame had been shifted to the right person, but it didn't stop my husband from being angry or my son from being sad. Both went to bed unhappy last night.

I was left feeling less than adequate. Perhaps if I had stopped to think things through for a few minutes, I would have suggested that Dominic ask his father what he should do. My goal was to help. Obviously, it was a goal unfulfilled.

I felt guilty, but I was determined not to feel like a bad person. It's hard, though. You wonder if you're too distracted with day-to-day issues and too burdened with self-imposed deadlines to think clearly and wisely. Is my need to help everyone as much as I can actually keeping me from doing things the right way?

In hindsight, I think we can determine that I'm not a bad person. We can also conclude that I don't fully understand why heavy objects should not be thrown at thin, delicate objects! It hurts to make mistakes, but it should hurt more to offend God. This is something I need to keep in mind.

The Road to Sainthood: The Journey Begins

"We are all called to be saints." I honestly don't remember hearing that until five or six years ago. I grew up believing I was as far away from being a saint as the Cleveland Indians of the 1970s and 80s were from winning a pennant. But that was the "Catholic guilt" era. The attitude is kinder and gentler these days, and thank heaven for that. It gives someone like me a lot of hope.

Not that I've been an awful person for the last 44 years. Most of the time, I'm pretty good, I think. But I haven't always taken the right path although I knew exactly which way I should have gone, I'm plagued by childish tendencies that can get me into as much trouble now as they did then, and I sometimes find it hard to follow the faith that was given to me at birth. I'm probably not alone. I hope I'm not alone!

I've slowly begun to see myself as middle-aged and, finally, I've realized that I'm mortal. I managed to live through mistakes in my 20s and 30s and end up just fine. At some point, however, it's time to start thinking about the future. Not the future as in, "Where do I see my career in ten years" or "At what age would I like to retire." I'm talking the BIG future, the final frontier, if you will. Heaven.

Because I do believe with all my heart that there is something after this life and that we have a say in how good or bad it is. I used to think a lot about that when I was a child. "If I tell a lie, will I not go to heaven when I die?" But as I got older, I got caught up in the here and now, which is easy to do since we're here right now. It's understandably hard to focus on something that you can't see or feel but that you're told is better than anything that life can offer.

I'm lucky that I've lived long enough to start thinking about heaven again and what it takes to get there. For a few years now, I've been saying that I'm going to ride my husband's coattails, but I really don't think God gives out "buy one get one free" passes.

So it's up to me, which scares the... you know what... out of me.

All of the above has led me to create this blog. I think that most of us are more spiritual than we realize, and it is helpful when we know that others are embarking on a similar journey. I also think we don't spend enough time thinking about what it means to be "good" and what the ultimate reward for that would be.

This blog won't be laden with stories of "why am i such a bad person." Instead, my goal is to shed light on my spiritual journey and those of others--real saints and saints-in-the-making. Mistakes will be made along the way, of course, and hopefully none will be so horrific that we can't laugh about it after the fact. Unfortunately, we won't know who reaches their final reward, but we can learn, grow and have a little fun while we all try to get there.