Its bath time!

There are many times in our lives when nothing really relaxes you like a nice hot bath. My son, after a short stint in the Baseball league in his mind, came inside tonight to take a bath. When one is so worked up there is nothing like a little warm water and bubbles to take off the edge, right?

Its funny how often we forget how great a bath or shower can feel until you are deprived for a while or until you really need one - say after running around your backyard, practicing hitting baseballs.

The same is pretty much true for the spiritual life. So many Catholics forget how good it is to receive the shower of grace that comes from going to Confession. Some would so often would prefer to just stay in the grime of their sin, than to have that stuff removed through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. We forget that incredidble sense of purity that comes from knowing every minute sin is forgiven through the ministry of the Church dispensed through a Catholic Priest.

I have never been to Fr. Schaffer for Confession, and unfortunately I probably never will while he is pastor of our parish. Though I hear he is an excellent priest to confess to. So why won't I go to him? Well, the Code of Canon Law (the Church's book of Church laws for Catholics) has codified that a priest is unable to reveal to anyone anything that has been learned through someone's confession. Thus, if I were to embezzle money from the Church and then go to confess it to Fr. Schaffer then he would be unable to do anything to me, because he could not reveal anything that I specifically had confessed. Now I am not going to embezzle money from the parish, but the point is that Fr. Schaffer must be able to deal with without constraints as an employee who is supporting his mission to proclaim the kingdom of Christ here at St. Jude. Nevertheless, the Church is so serious about this notion of the secrecy of confessions that if Fr. Schaffer or any priest were to break the "sacramental seal," that is to reveal something learned through confessions, then he would commit a sin which could only be forgiven by the Pope himself. Pretty serious, hunh?

Too often, I think Catholics don't realize or remember that Fr. Schaffer is the one who will be facing the gates of Hell for how he leads us. We should support him through our prayers and kind words. It is not easy these days to be a priest, with the many forces in the world that deride or reject the Catholic Church. As well, with so many families at our parish (2,300), Fr. Schaffer can often be not a little stressed! He is only one man who is trying his best, even though he is sinful like the rest of us, to follow after Jesus Christ. He has mentioned that he too goes to confession to a particular priest - that is beautiful. It is great when a priest recognizes his own sinfulness, because it reminds us that he is a man like us, but also has a mission to carry out for Christ as each of us do. An old Dominican piece of wisdom is that a priest should be "a lion in the pulpit, but a lamb in the confessional" and I think part of this mentality can only come about when one recognizes his own sinfulness.

Let no one of us think that Jesus cannot work through His priest, Fr. Schaffer. For this is the promise that Jesus gave to his Apostles, ""Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained (Jn 20:22-23)." The apostles' mission continues even to this day through their successors - our bishops, including our own Archbishop Charles Chaput, O.F.M., Cap. And those bishops ordain their priests to assist them in carrying out this apostolic mission. Thus, Fr. Schaffer soldiers on - forgiving our sins and confecting the Holy Eucharist so that we can be fed upon the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, as well as dispensing the other sacred mysteries of the Catholic Church's sacramental life.

Perhaps when we want to begin complaining about something in our lives, we might stop to

think about when our last Confession was. For as often as we repent of our sinfulness, especially in approaching Christ's throne of grace which a Catholic priest sits upon, then the more we are ready to ask Jesus to allow us to see His plan in our lives so that we can offer up our sufferings with Him upon the cross. Since it is only by doing this that we can "make up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church (Col 1:24)." When we do this we will be able to enjoy just basking in the bath of grace we can receive in each Confession, not unlike a little boy playing with his duckies.