Editorial

Hearing the heartbeats of God in the sacrament of penance

Feb. 22 was Ash Wednesday, and this weekend we will celebrate the First Sunday of Lent. The Church gives us this holy season to help us identify the spiritual sicknesses that affect all of us to some degree or another because of original sin.

During Lent, the readings at Mass, our prayer, the penitential practices we are called to observe (fasting and abstinence) and the good works we are invited to perform (almsgiving) all help us to admit our sinfulness and, with God’s help, to change from a self-centered way of life to lives of generous service.

As described by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops:

Lent is a 40-day season of prayer, fasting and almsgiving that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends at sundown on Holy Thursday. It’s a period of preparation to celebrate the Lord’s resurrection at Easter. During Lent, we seek the Lord in prayer by reading Sacred Scripture; we serve by giving alms; and we practice self-control through fasting. We are called not only to abstain from luxuries during Lent, but to a true inner conversion of heart as we seek to follow Christ’s will more faithfully.

Lent is the time of year when the Church encourages us to do a thorough examination of our spiritual health and then to take whatever steps are necessary to let the healing power of Jesus make us whole again.

The 40 days of Lent provide a structure for diagnosing the symptoms and the root causes of our sinfulness. During this special time of year, the Church encourages us to take advantage of the healing power of the sacraments, especially the sacrament of penance, to admit our selfishness and sin (confession), to experience a change of heart (conversion), to deny ourselves (penance) and to change the way we live (healing).

Through this great sacrament, we allow Jesus to enter into our hearts and cleanse us of all the impurities—large and small—that have built up over time. We present ourselves to him for the healing of both our symptoms and their root causes.

Jesus Christ is the Divine Physician. Throughout his public ministry, Jesus reached out, by word and deed, to heal those with illnesses of the body and sicknesses of the mind or soul. In his passion, death and resurrection, he conquered sin and death and became the source of ultimate healing for all.

Through the Holy Spirit, Jesus gave the Apostles a share in his very life so that the healing power of his words and deeds might continue to be present to the world through them. And through the sacraments, Jesus himself continues to be present in every time and place, healing us and drawing us into the communion that he shares with the Father and the Spirit.

During this season, we are reminded of the great gifts of healing and hope that are available to us in the sacrament of penance. Through this great sacrament, the Divine Physician brings us reconciliation and communion—with God, with each other and with ourselves in our inmost being.

According to Servant of God Catherine de Hueck Doherty, a great spiritual writer who founded the Madonna House Apostolate in Combermere, Canada, which today serves the poor in six countries:

These 40 days are set aside every year for us to let go of the old and to enter into the new, because God is merciful. Now we can pass over from the old life that we led before Lent into the new life after. … Lent is you and I, like St. John the well-beloved, putting our head on the bosom of Christ and hearing the heartbeats of God (Jn 13:21-25). When you hear the heartbeats of God, you change. We try to listen well to those heartbeats during Lent, so that we may not only repent and make our peace with God, but forgive all who have hurt us.

There is no better way to “hear the heartbeats of God” than by receiving the sacrament of penance. A good confession paves the way to curing our soul’s sickness. It helps us to admit our sinfulness, to do penance and to resolve to sin no more.

As we begin this Lenten journey, let’s take advantage of the great gift we have been given in the sacrament of penance. Let’s ask the Holy Spirit to open our hearts so that we can seek God’s forgiveness, repent and change.

—Daniel Conway