Dear Parishioners, This weekend is Steubenville Rochester where 17 not 24 students of various high school age kids from our communities are gathering for a large conference. It is a beautiful weekend where they will hear dynamic speakers, Christian music, Adoration, confessions along with Mass. It is usually a great experience for young people as they experience the wider Catholic Church that they are a part. The universal nature of our faith is more profoundly experienced and I think it can be a place where the kids get excited for their faith. I think it can also be a place of prayer and encounter. We all need to encounter the living Jesus. The most profound way we encounter Jesus is in his Mercy. Once we experience this mercy, we know that the Lord is real and he is interested in us. Confession is one of the most profound ways we experience that mercy and it opens us up to encounter the love Jesus has for us most of all. Much of my/Fr. Stiles time at the conference will be spent in confession for hours at a time. I remember at frustrated by this (I’ve been to many conferences) as part of me wanted to spend time with the kids I came to the conference with. However, I know confession is central to who Fr. Stiles and I are as priests as we reconcile sinners to God. It is always a blessing to do so, and I never regret it. After all, we stand there in the person of Christ, who breathed on the disciples and gave them authority, “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven, whose sins you retain are retained. We stand in judgement one sense, to retain is not something we do often, and in fact I’ve only done it once. Not going to reveal anything from the sacred seal of confession here but the person was not sorry and told me they were going to do again. You see we have to have some contrition in confession it may be very little but some contrition. We are weak and I’m just as weak as many of you. I know that without the grace of God I will commit the same sin out of weakness. The trick is to stop relying on yourself, but that’s a hard lesson to learn. It was pride that came before the fall, (that self-reliance and selfishness) it’s the same every time I know I fall into one sin or another. God allows us sometimes to fall into sin so to stop our pride and self-reliance. Humility is what God wants and according to the Catechism is the root of prayer. St. Theresa of Avila said, “If you never stop praying eventually you’ll stop sinning.” Until then we have recourse to the great Sacrament of reconciliation. The Church requires it for anyone who has fallen into a serious or grave sin. But just like any relationship after hurting the other grievously it takes serious reconciling before you are united again. This is why a person with serious sin on one’s conscience should go to confession because in Communion your uniting yourself with the beloved in a deeply intimate marital like embrace. You simply need to reconcile or you’re not recognizing the rift you put between you and the Lord. How often should we go to confession? Every time we need to reconcile in serious sin! Don’t wait! Your relationship with the Lord is as important in everything as God is the love with which we love. We are selfish otherwise and He puts proper order into our lives. I’d say regular examination is important, am I drifting in my relationship with the Lord? I should go to confession if I feel distant. Every month or every other month and try to come prepared with having done an examination of conscience. I try to go to confession monthly but sometimes I feel it’s needed more often. It’s like a car wash for a while after you avoid any small puddle (small or Venial sin), but once you hit one then another they build up and pretty quickly you don’t avoid sins at all and might hit even major sins. I hope we need to get more confession times because of the volume of people flocking to confession. God’s blessings and pray for our youth! In Christ, Fr. Michael