{"id":1025,"date":"2013-03-17T10:00:37","date_gmt":"2013-03-17T14:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1025"},"modified":"2013-03-17T10:00:37","modified_gmt":"2013-03-17T14:00:37","slug":"people-want-to-be-forgiven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/people-want-to-be-forgiven\/","title":{"rendered":"People Want to Be Forgiven"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past few weeks, I have spoken in homilies and during the announcements about the Sacrament of Reconciliation (confession) and\u00a0opportunities for people to confess their sins.\u00a0 With some assistance from our parish Evangelization Team, I created two videos and some handouts on this sacrament (available at http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/ls\/reconciliation.htm<\/a>).\u00a0 It is also the season of Lent when more people come to receive the sacrament.<\/p>\n

In the last couple of weeks, a few people have made appointments for private confession and the line on Saturday afternoon has been growing.\u00a0 Normally regular confessions here are from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. on Saturday.\u00a0 With the increased numbers, I announced last weekend that for the remainder of Lent, confessions will begin 1\/2 hour earlier, running from 2:30 to 4:00 p.m.<\/p>\n

Yesterday (Saturday), I entered the confessional at 2:30 p.m. and immediately began hearing confessions and went basically non-stop till 4:20 p.m. when I needed to leave the confessional to prepare for Mass at 4:30 p.m.\u00a0 I think this is wonderful.<\/em><\/p>\n

People want to have their sins forgiven.<\/p>\n

It’s not<\/em> <\/strong>that we are awful people.\u00a0 We are fundamentally good, created in the image of God.\u00a0 We are also imperfect.\u00a0 God knows that.\u00a0 That’s why God sent his only Son to die for us on the Cross so that our sins may be forgiven.\u00a0 Our willingness to confess our sins is a sign of our openness and desire to know God.<\/p>\n

I have no doubt that some of the increased numbers coming to Confession are simply\u00a0because it is Lent.\u00a0 Others are led by the Spirit.\u00a0 Some may be doing because of something I said in a homily or the video and handouts.\u00a0 It doesn’t really matter why.\u00a0 The Sacrament of Reconciliation is a gift<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 God does not want to judge us.\u00a0 God wants to forgive us.\u00a0 God loves us so much that\u00a0He wants to forgive us no matter what we have done.\u00a0 God does not want to condemn us (see my Sunday homily this week<\/a>).\u00a0 Do we seek the forgiveness God offers us?<\/p>\n

Peace,<\/p>\n

Fr. Jeff<\/p>\n

P.S. Don’t forget our diocesan Day of Penance on Tuesday, March 26th.\u00a0 I’ll be in the confessional from 12:30 to 7:30 p.m. For the schedule of other parishes in the diocese click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the past few weeks, I have spoken in homilies and during the announcements about the Sacrament of Reconciliation (confession) and\u00a0opportunities for people to confess their sins.\u00a0 With some assistance from our parish Evangelization Team, I created two videos and some handouts on this sacrament (available at http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/ls\/reconciliation.htm).\u00a0 It is also the season of Lent …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘People Want to Be Forgiven’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-gx","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1025"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1027,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025\/revisions\/1027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}