On The Sacrament of Confession:Even if I am not a Catholic Christian and am not asked to partake of the sacrament of confession, I do believe that it may have positive effects for human beings for several reasons. The first is that because human beings are indeed communal. I attest to this by my own experiences. No man is an island. I have had many problems with my ex-boyfriend when we were still together, and one of those problems is that I had to keep our relationship a secret because my family and friends did not agree about it. Handling problems within our relationship became a lot harder because I had no one to talk to about it. With this, I realized that in many aspects of my life, I actually face challenges with more courage and make better decisions even just by being able to share my sentiments and experiences to and with other people. The next is that I believe confession is not merely trying to get away from the guilt (which might be apparent in the face of abuse), but it can also be a means to express the sincerity of the one who confesses. I think that a person who confesses his sins to another human being subjects himself to a vulnerable position. No matter how much assurance one can get that his confession will be kept secret, who he is confessing to is still a human being capable of flaws, for instance the tendency to judge or the slip-of-tongue. This is not to say that those confessed to should not be fully trusted, I’m just trying to point out that as a person to confess, I would probably have at least some amount of fear of being “exposed”. Therefore, I believe that confession is not just a bed of roses where one hopes to have their sins just washed away and be again guilt-free but in some sense a test of sincerity. I also believe in the idea that whatever an individual does will inevitably affect others. Therefore in the face of sin, not only does a person affect his relationship with Christ but also with his body, the Church. Therefore, aside from Christ, it is only right to also make amends with the Church through the sacrament of confession. The latter is most important, however upon damaging one’s relationship with the Christ’s body, one eventually becomes an ineffective part of the body because of his separation from it. I realized this during the times when I was very distant from my home church. For some time, I experienced a “backslide” from my faith and just cooped myself in and away from the church and from most of my friends. By God’s grace, I was able to get back on my feet and my faith. However, it was admittedly hard to reconcile with my church family and I strongly felt how distant I still was from all that was going on in the church. It was not until I joined a small discipleship group (D-group) that I again felt the sense of belonging to the church family and function in it effectively again (I’m not sure if the activities of my D-group is an appropriate comparison for confession, but since I have never experienced confession, please allow me to express my reflection in such way).
On The Importance of Holy Mass:
“From God’s perspective, the heart of the man who responds to him is greater and more important than the whole immense material cosmos, for all that the latter allows us is to glimpse something of God’s grandeur.” I think this excerpt summarizes in a worthy manner how important the Holy Mass is. It reiterates the idea that the land is given to human beings as a space to worship the Father and also as a space to receive his abundance. We are in awe of all the things we encounter in the land given us but they are actually nothing compared to the actual purpose of the Creation. And this purpose, which is to be in communion with God, his people, and his creation is achieved in the Holy Mass. Even as it is true that we can in fact commune with the Father when we are alone, the potential of the gift of being able to be in His presence is reached when in communion with others to whom He also graced the Creation. God’s magnificence is only seen because He allows it to be seen and because man allows himself to see it. Often times it is us who blinds ourselves from this grace. For me, this is striking because it is funny how most people search high and low for things better, things to excite or thrill themselves with. But it is actually in the Church, in communion with Christ’s body, where human beings can find the cure for the deep longing of that ultimate breath taking experience which all along can be achieved just by allowing ourselves to be absorbed in God’s presence in its full potential in the Holy Mass.
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