Next Sunday, December 18th at 2:00 PM we will celebrate our annual Advent Communal Reconciliation. This service is offered twice a year, once now before Christmas and in the spring of the year before Easter. Also each day from December 19th through Friday, December 23rd Private Confessions will be available in the Chapel.
The Sacrament of Reconciliation is the Sacrament of God’s mercy and compassion. Sins are not the focus of our attention; our eyes are focused on God, a gracious and merciful God who seeks to draw ever closer to us.
Sometimes people talk about “their search for God”. In reality the story of salvation is the story of God’s relentless searching for each of us. We are “found” when we allow God to embrace us, as the father in the story of The Wayward Son embraces his son returning home. Francis Thompson reflected on this truth in his poem, The Hound of Heaven.
Pope Francis reminds us that the center of God’s relationship with human beings is mercy. The Old Testament Jews recognized this in first attributing to God gracious and generous mercy (hesed). The first of the names of God in the Koran is “God the merciful”. In the story of Israel’s wandering in the desert God would sometimes appear to Moses in the cloud that hung over the meeting tent. The shelf on top of the Ark of the Covenant was known as “The Mercy Seat”—the place where God is found.
Pope Francis is fond of making verbs out of nouns. Take the noun “mercy” and use it as a verb “to mercy”. God mercies us in Sacramental celebrations.
Invite your family and friends to join you at Communal Reconciliation as well as at Private Confession.
Communal Reconciliation
- Sunday, December 18, 2:00 pm
Private Confessions in the Chapel
- Monday, December 19, 4:00 – 5:00 pm
- Tuesday, December 20, 7:00 – 8:00 pm
- Wednesday, December 21, 4:00 – 5:00 pm
- Thursday, December 22, 7:00 – 8:00 pm
- Friday, December 23, 4:00 – 5:00 pm
Father Steve Adrian
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