By Gary Topping–
Advent is primarily a season of anticipation and reflection, but it can also be a season of confession and penance as our reflection leads us to consider our shortcomings while we prepare for the coming of the Lord. In his homily last Sunday, the second Sunday of Advent, our bishop strongly encouraged us to seek out the confessional and to avail ourselves of the Sacrament of Reconciliation during this holy season. Many people typically do just that. As I listened to him, my thoughts ran back many years to the most meaningful confession I have ever experienced, and I thought I would share that with you this week. Priests, of course, are solemnly forbidden to divulge anything that happens in the confessional, but we lay recipients of the sacrament are not similarly restricted.
The priest in this case was Father Reyes Rodriguez, now retired. I didn’t know him at all at the time, but we have since become very close friends who meet occasionally for lunch. I don’t go to him for confession anymore, but I rely on his great wisdom, so he continues, albeit informally, to function as my priest. At the time, he was in residence at Salt Lake City’s Cathedral of the Madeleine and engaged in prison ministry. I don’t remember what time of year it was, but it very likely was either Advent or Lent because he had been pressed into service to assist the Cathedral clergy in hearing confessions, which was outside his regular ministry.
In my life at the time, I was going through a phase where I thought I should be going to Confession much more frequently than I was. I wasn’t guilty of any serious sins, but every few Saturday afternoons I would draw up a mental list of my offenses and head to the Cathedral. Although the things I was confessing were indeed sins, they were such tawdry stuff that I wouldn’t have blamed the priests if they had kicked me out of the confessional for wasting their time (none ever did).
This week, though, I was in for an abrupt lesson in what the Sacrament of Reconciliation—and indeed life itself—was all about. Fr. Rodriguez sat there in his quiet and patient way, carefully and respectfully listening as I spilled out my current week’s list of banal little transgressions. When at last I finished, he said, “Okay, I’m going to grant you absolution. For your penance, I want you to go out and spend some time praying for young people who might be tempted to join gangs.”
BAM! He couldn’t have shocked me more if he had slapped me in the face (which I probably deserved). So this is the kind of stuff I should actually be worried about, I thought, rather than the little peccadilloes with which I had been wasting his time. I went out and knelt in the church and prayed harder than I had ever prayed before. If earnestness and sincerity can move God’s hand, I must have broken up an entire cartel of gangs that afternoon. Eventually I added Fr. Reyes’s prayer to my daily prayer list so that every day I bring those desperate young people before God’s attention.
Won’t you join me in that?
