Who am I to judge my audience, but I think most of us are mostly good and decent people.
We try to be nice and help others. We try to give of ourselves as best as we can. Those of us blessed to be Catholic try to pray as well as know, love, and serve the Lord.
This all sounds great. At times we’re great. I bet we’re so great that six days out of the week, we are model examples of future saints.
We’re so model that someday a church or parish will be dedicated with our names on it.
Wait a minute, what about that one straggler day? That one day when we’re not a future saint.
We can hit the touchdown out of the park Thursday through Tuesday but then comes Wednesday (or any day, really, but play along with me for now).
What happened on “Wednesday”? We sinned. We did bad things. We gave into temptations. Maybe we even did the really bad things and now we can’t go to Communion on Sunday (or Saturday, Friday, Thursday, etc.).
D’oh!
We may be thinking, “But the last few days went so well! . . . I donated a bunch of things to St. Vinny’s, I prayed the Rosary, I volunteered at the local Catholic school, I didn’t cuss when the elderly woman in the red Corvette convertible cut me off on the highway, I’m still good, right? What’s one little thing?” A lot.
Yes, you, we, all of us are still good, but as humans, we’re not all good all the time.
I’m certainly not encouraging us to be obligatory about this and feel that “if we’re going to sin anyway, we might as well make it a good one (see: presumption),” but even if we don’t see ourselves — and probably aren’t — as bad as some of the most evil people who may or may not be in the bad place, we’re still sinners who sin.
Even if we’re bright shining lights for all six out of seven days, that remaining day could be the difference in what happens to us when we die.
Don’t panic
What I said.
We also don’t want to get too focused on the good we do and the good days we have and dismiss the minority of time spent doing bad things (see: pride).
Luckily, or rather blessedly, Confession is available. Confession is available a lot, or it should be.
You don’t want to be running to the Confessional over EVERY little thing (see: scrupulous), but if you’ve done something really bad, go. Go now.
Go now so you can get back in the state of grace. Go now so you don’t shrug and think that you’ve sinned once, might as well get some more in before you can get to the booth. Go now because it’s the right thing to do.
Additionally, and many priests have said this so I feel I can borrow it from them, don’t get discouraged.
Yes, you’ve sinned. Yes, you need to repent and be contrite. But, you can get back to where you were before. You ARE still the person who did all of those good things and God worked through you to be the light of Christ to others, but you are still imperfect and you need to seek God’s mercy.
Fortunately for us, there is a limitless amount of God’s mercy available. All we have to do is have faith and sincerely ask for it.
Don’t sin*
*I know, easier said than done.
Perhaps some of us out there don’t just have one bad day a week. Maybe it’s two bad days, or three, or more.
Maybe it’s one good day after the visit to the confessional and then six bad days.
Maybe it’s worse than that.
Obviously, that is far from an ideal situation.
The good news is, if you’re making frequent and necessary trips to Confession, you’re good at step one.
The challenge is now to make it to the other steps.
Not being a priest or a counselor, I don’t have any golden advice to break out of that cycle other than to keep going to Confession and take things one day at a time.
Rejoice in the small victories, but have the humility to know that you can’t do it on your own and God is with you the whole way.
Turning toward Him
Whether you’re the “sometimes sinner” or the “‘weren’t you just here yesterday?’” sinner, there is always that step one to being better and turning ourselves toward God.
Our greatest challenge in life is to know how to handle those weak days (which may or may not happen on weekdays).
We won’t make it through all of life without tripping and stumbling, but we can do a little better every day.
We can feel and embrace His mercy every time we exit the confessional.
We can feel filled with His love every time we go to Mass and receive Communion worthily.
We can know we are weak and need Him, especially on the days we don’t think we do.
As Lent goes on, try to have more good days than you usually have.
Try to avoid some of your worst temptations. Better yet, identify what some of those are.
Try to know that you are more and better than your sins.
Try to know that whatever you are struggling with, no matter how often it’s a struggle, God can and will help you through it.
I hope you’re having a blessed Lent.
Thank you for reading.
I’m praying for you.