Buckle your seat belts, we're in for a ride. Welcome to the holiday season 2012-2013. It only gets crazier from here. The countdown to Thanksgiving is nine days and counting. Then we are on to Christmas Eve, Christmas, and New Years Eve. Don't laugh, it's all coming and will be here before you know it.
I know that my schedule gets so hectic. I get snappy and rude to others, including my family, and that attitude ruins the season, which should be a focus on thankfullness, Christ, and Christ-like actions. How can I return to grace and appreciation of the season? Confession!
Father Z's blog had an awesome article on a priest and confession. He says, "A priest became pastor of a smaller rural parish, of approximately 300 registered families. The first Sunday of Advent, he announced to the parish that he wanted no Christmas presents from the parish that year – no gifts of money, or food, or gift certificates. Instead, the present he wanted from his new parish was for every member of the parish to go to confession during Advent.
To that end, he would add times for confessions during the week, bring in outside priests, and make the sacrament as available as possible.
He said that, during the four weeks of Advent, he initially tried keeping track of the numbers of penitents, but was only able to keep track of the numbers of those who had not been to confession in more than 20 years – nearly 200, in his small parish!
Many of the penitents told him that the reason they had been away is because no priest had told them they should go, or even invited them to go. Because of one priest’s invitation, an entire small town grew in grace through the sacrament of confession."
It's a busy time of the year, but let's make room for confession and returning to God's grace in the season of Christ's birth....and hey, let's make it our gift to our priests, too!
God bless you all!
Chloe M.
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