Note: On Tuesdays and some Sundays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
Warning: Call to go to confession ahead.
Yeah, I know. It can be scary to tell all your deepest, darkest sins to a priest who also happens to be a friend. What if he lets 
something slip to someone else? Or, conversely, what if you confess to a priest who doesn’t know you from Adam, who won’t understand that you’ve made so much progress already? What if he yells at you? What if he refuses to absolve you? What if he gives you a penance that you just aren’t willing to do?
Then there’s the whole venue thing. What if you’re in the box, and he can’t hear you and asks you to speak up? What if someone who’s waiting can hear what you say? Or, what if you’re face to face and the priest’s eyebrows go up or he grimaces as you talk?
So, all too often, we decide to skip the whole sacrament… and just keep going to Communion at Mass anyway, but feel a little guiltier every time. Or we figure we’re basically good people who tithe and love our families and friends and total strangers and do service without complaint, most of the time anyway, so we just don’t need to go.
In short, we forget, as Jesus told the scribes and Pharisees in today’s Gospel reading from Matthew 23, that the only way the outside of the cup can be truly clean is for the inside to be shiny and bright as well.
Please God. Clean your soul. Go to confession. You’ll feel so much lighter and better armed to do battle with the evil we all face daily.
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