Seeking Divine Mercy
Falling
From Faith
(The
Prodigal Son)
Admittedly, I have been no less
materialistic or a sinner than anyone else so let no one assume I have a “holier
than thou” attitude. It is by the grace of God that I have come to the
realizations that I have today and I give thanks daily for what I have come to
know.
Raised in a typical Catholic
family, I attended catholic grade and high school receiving the standard
education, which included classes in the faith on a daily basis. As many do,
once independence was attained as a young adult, I began drifting away from the
practice of my faith justifying my lack of involvement with my criticisms of
the practices and doctrines that I disagreed with.
After
entering my sought after profession a few years later, except for the
occasional visit to church at specific times of the year, I became for the most
part non-practicing in any organized faith. Oh I always called myself a
Christian and never stopped believing in God but I developed the ideas over
time that as long as “you believed in God and did your best, it was what was in
your heart that mattered in life.” I also believed that it didn’t matter what
denomination a person joined or belonged to, that Christian faith was Christian
faith because in truth, all Christians are brothers and sisters in Christ
through Baptism.
As far as the sacraments were concerned, I had a real
problem with the sacrament of “Reconciliation” or “Penance” and came to the
conclusion it was not a necessity. “I could pray for God’s forgiveness directly
to Him and didn’t need to go through a priest or intermediary”. There were many
other issues I questioned or disagreed with regarding the doctrines of my
faith. For instance, regardless of the method, “birth control couldn’t be
wrong” and although I was against abortion in general, abortion when it
involved terminating pregnancy resulting from other than consenting sex would
probably be justifiable. For many years I went on with these and other adopted
ideas, attended mass only when I felt it was really necessary (convenient) and
lived according to my own interpretations of faith.
In my profession I held a position
commonly considered of authority in the community. I believed that I was doing
the right thing both in my personal and professional life by practicing the
faith I adopted (my own). Of course I had my share of struggles just as we all
do. I believed I was in control and could justify whatever goals I set for
myself (pride and ego were no strangers) as long as I was doing what “I”
thought would be considered acceptable with God. As time went on the years went
by and the cloud that concealed the truth became thicker and thicker until
there was no longer any thought to it. There wasn’t time to think anyway. Daily
life had become so consumed by everything I was involved with including the
so-called material and financial goals that I pursued that inadvertently I
forfeited authentic living and the salvation of my soul in the very quest
itself. We live by the path we choose. In truth, the goals many seek are
actually those dictated by commercial industry through modern society and often
have no real benefit at all other than feeding the ego, pride and corporate
wallets. So what is the point of most of the goals we seek? Is it nothing more
than competing egos for the sake of satisfying pride? And
what about all the periods of struggle and crisis we go through. Why is it some things no matter how seemingly simple, can be so
difficult or even impossible to attain?
As
questions came to mind I looked more intently at my past, at both good and bad
events. Suddenly the cloud began to lift and I realized it was not me who had
control of the events in my life at all. Where I once thought I had the
answers, I had none. Admitting my limitations, I turned back to our Lord and
prayed. For the first time in many years I prayed with sincerity of heart and
placed all that my life had become and where it would lead in His hands. It wasn’t long before the awareness of
missing Christ in my life became overwhelming but I still had those issues
regarding some of the practices and doctrines of the Catholic faith. There were
other Christian denominations available to consider so it seemed the best
course to take was to look into those faiths until I found the one that was
“right”. So many “Christian faiths”
seemingly so similar to each other and many preached along the same lines as my
way of thinking but yet I was 
very
troubled over the fact that many seemed to have parts of the Bible missing and
others had completely different interpretations than what little I was familiar
with. Even considering a non-denominational faith didn’t help. There was just
far too much missing causing too much confusion.
Now I had an insatiable hunger to learn all I could about our Lord but I wanted authenticity. I decided to research from both historic and theological resources tracing back in time and forward from the origins of recorded Christianity as those investigating in preparation for trial. The more information I obtained the more I came to recognize just how much I didn’t know about my own Catholic faith. I was ashamed of myself beyond explanation. The very doctrines and practices I had criticized were instructions and teachings given by our Lord Jesus Christ to the Apostles in how they were to live their lives, preach and continue His word through their successors in His Church until His return. Not one of the teachings and practices has changed in substance since the first Bishop of Rome, Saint Peter. The sacraments (seven) including the Eucharist were also performed without change, then as today.
I
also realized something else. Regardless of who the founder of a given
Christian faith was, the very basic Bible sources they adopted most often came
from the original Bible as compiled and translated within the Catholic
Church. I had issues with practices and doctrines more because they might have
interfered with some of my choices in life as well as a lack of understanding
and knowledge of my own faith. Not much different than the misguided issues
that lead some to found their own faith based on their own “philosophies”. Of
course some had other reasons but most often of a personal nature or agenda.
And this splintering of Christianity has deceived many people who have no idea
of what our Lord through His sacraments has given us because they have so many
years ago been lead away from their parent faith. The only faith that can
provide all seven sacraments and their founders were well aware of that at the
time.
As Jesus Said; “…Simon, Simon!
Remember that Satan has asked for you, to sift you all like wheat. But I have
prayed for you, Simon that your faith may never fail. You in turn must
strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:
31-32)
Wouldn’t
“Sifted like wheat” look something like this
graph?
In regard to the sacrament of reconciliation
or Penance; many of those who have this sacrament available to them find it
very difficult, embarrassing and yes humiliating to confess their sins to a
priest. These are the most common reasons people are hesitant to do so and
claim it is more acceptable to seek our Lord’s forgiveness directly. In
reality, it is easier to say because they do not stand before Him. That idea
only sounds acceptable as long as we are not actually confronting Him. But when
you think about it, would anyone truly want to confront our Lord with his or
her sins when He provided the opportunity for forgiveness before we faced
judgment? And doesn’t this sacrament provide us the added strength through
grace and additional incentive to avoid repeating our sins? Isn’t humility what
we pray for in honor of Jesus Christ?
Unfortunately, many do not understand the seriousness of the need for
confession or the greatness of gift it truly is as Jesus provided it to us
through His Church. They forget the Church did not just form itself out of a
group of “guys” who wanted to establish a club, but many take it that casually.
This is the Church founded by Jesus Christ of which many who represented Him
throughout history to today were horrifically martyred for their Faith. In the
beginning, confession itself was performed openly among the congregation but we
complain today to take advantage of it even in closed private session.
The key is, one must have true solid faith in Christ to realize the
Church is in fact His established body on earth and with the authority He
Himself placed in her as given Him by His Father, our Father in Heaven,
including that of forgiving or retaining sins. It is not realized that this
commitment one freely makes to reconcile with Christ through His Church is not
only a provision of forgiveness, but healing through that forgiveness.
Many Catholics look at confession as something inconvenient, but even
more so feel it humiliating. Yet humiliation is nothing but
offensive to one's pride and pride is what leads most of us into sin in
the first place. The degree of humiliation or embarrassment increases in
correlation to the seriousness of the sin one has committed, rendering the
sin that much more difficult to confess, and possessing more of a hold over us.
This is Scriptural and no Catholic can deny this without denying Scripture
itself. Even those of Protestant denominations who deny this can only do so
through their denial of the Church as His true Body but they remain in
opposition to Scripture. This is a sacramental gift, Jesus, our divine Judge,
provided so that we may repent and amend our lives, and be strengthened in His
Grace, expressing our contriteness of heart BEFORE we stand before Him
in our final judgment, believing we have the time to prove our sincerity by
amending our lives while still in this life. Just how deep is one’s sincerity
in the desire to reconcile his or her sins with Christ if one refuses because
“it feels embarrassing”?
Priests, as part of their devotion to their service to Christ have
offered themselves through their sacrifices on our behalf for the forgiveness
we receive for our own sins. In doing so, they take on a responsibility for our
sins. There is no earthly benefit to a priest for having to sit in a 3' X 3'
closet waiting to hear the worst possible things human beings can do to each
other. Most sins confessed are not stealing bubble gum. Based on some of the
experiences this writer has had in law enforcement and investigations, it is no
secret how inhuman people can be toward each other. To imagine having to offer
absolution to some after what they may have done would for me, not be an easy
task. Something only a priestly servant of Christ could offer.
Jesus called upon all to repent and made it
clear that the way to God the Father was through Him and ONLY through Him. That
He Himself gave His apostles the power, grace and authority in His name to
forgive us of our sins or retain them until our day of judgment. That this authority through His sacrament of reconciliation would
be bound to whom ever they elected as successors. To be Christian means
to believe in Christ, trust with faith and follow the Word of Christ in its
entirety to the best of our human abilities. As far as abortion is concerned,
look into the eyes of the unborn to know pure innocence. Understand the reality
of what abortion means. The fact is man condemns himself
when condemnation is at hand. But only
our Lord can extend to us His Divine Mercy and forgiveness to those sincerely
repentant.
I have shared my past ignorance here so that others may understand
the common misconceptions and ignorance we may fall to. All Christians
regardless of denomination are brothers and sisters in Christ through our
Baptism. If we truly seek to know Him as we should, one day all Christians will
again have the fullness of all the sacraments gifted us by Jesus our Lord.
May God Bless
us all.
