I have a confession to make: I have not been to confession yet this Advent. Every year, I bug people to go sometime during the season, and I think most of my family has been. But I have not yet gone myself.
So the following pep talk is as much for myself as it is for anyone else who needs to hear it. I do believe to my core that there is really only one indispensable preparation you need to make before Christmas, and that is getting to confession.
Let me make my case.
Maybe, like me, you’ve been putting off hanging up lights. You need to make your house beautiful and bright to get ready for Christmas morning. Understandable, but it would be awful to overlook making Christmas personal, intimate. Inviting Jesus into the dark places is what the sacrament is all about. There have been times when I have gone to confession utterly hopeless. I just went because I could not think of anything else to do, but I had no hope that things would get better. And guess what? Day broke. Jesus, the sun, came up. The dark confessional is where you meet the light of Christ. It could happen to you.
Or maybe it is baking that is weighing on you…. Read the rest of my latest for America Magazine.
Image by régine debatty via flickr (Creative Commons)
I have been loving your Advent articles in America Magazine, and I wanted you to know that.
“He wants me to take a deep breath, turn off my phone, slump into the dim church, creak around on the kneeler for a while, say the dumb things, and then he wants to save me. That is what he wants for his birthday.”
— It blows me away what makes Him happy; how eager He is to save…me!
“How can I say no? He is such a good boy.”
— 😂