Bulletins

February 3, 2013

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Lent begins in a week and a half. Those attending the Traditional Mass are forewarned by the vestments already being violet as of the third Sunday prior to Ash Wednesday's start to our forty days of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Having just celebrated our parish Mardi Gras, legitimate since it already is "shrovetide", we would do well to think ahead to our next confession. The Catholic Encyclopedia explains:

The English term "Shrovetide" (from "to shrive", or hear confessions) is sufficiently explained by a sentence in the Anglo-Saxon Ecclesiastical Institutes translated from Theodulphus by Abbot Aelfric about A.D. 1000: "In the week immediately before Lent everyone shall go to his confessor and confess his deeds and the confessor shall so shrive him as he then may hear by his deeds what he is to do [in the way of penance]".

Making a daily examination of conscience will help our next confession to be humble, sincere and entire, which the Baltimore Catechism clarifies:

"Our Confession is humble when we accuse ourselves of our sins, with a deep sense of shame and sorrow for having offended God… Our Confession is sincere when we tell our sins honestly and truthfully, neither exaggerating nor excusing them… Our Confession is entire when we tell the number and kinds of our sins and the circumstances which change their nature."

Moreover, "after telling the time of our last Confession and Communion we should confess all the mortal sins we have since committed, and all the venial sins we may wish to mention." St. Francis de Sales has much to say about how to confess well. I encourage you to make Introduction to the Devout Life a staple in your diet of spiritual reading, as clumsy as some of the translations may be. Chapter 19 is "On Confession", in which the saintly bishop advises that we give an account of our conscience "simply and frankly", all the more important when thousands of penitents have only a few confessors. Sometimes our confessor will ask us for more information, sometimes for less. I just received a welcome reminder of the need to listen well in the confessional. I shall and I thank you for your prayers.

In the end please take a deep breath and remember that God loves you. Since you are truly sorry for your sins, everything will be alright.

Oremus pro invicem. Let us pray for one another.

God bless you.

Fr. Christopher J. Pollard