Gen Z Catholic

As a convert, one of the sacraments that I really love is the sacrament of Reconciliation. To me, confession is a place that I know that I can always bring my sins to and know that I am forgiven. During my upbringing as a protestant, it didn’t matter what I did, I was saved but that is not the life of a christian. We see that Judas sold out our LORD, Peter denied Christ not once, but three times. Personally, I do not what is worse than sinning against God.

Yesterday, I was in line for confession, and I was right behind a family I just met at a parish event. It was just the mom and her about 7-year-old son. Though confession is exciting to me because of the grace of God that I get to receive, the little boy was quite scared for his turn. I certainly felt bad for him because in a way, because it is hard to do these things that God asks us to do. While I sat next to him, I was trying to think about something to ease him, so that maybe he would have a little bit more comfort in approaching the sacrament. Then something hit me.

Christ has always challenged us to have a child like faith. I think it’s about having that understanding that what I have done is embarrassing and wrong. That’s what the little boy was certainly thinking while I heard him and his mom converse in front of me. “Mommy I’m scared…”, he said. I actually think there is a lesson for us who frequent the sacrament on a regular basis. We start to treat it as a check box, almost on the level of assumption. We should approach it each time with humility and an open heart, not just to seek forgiveness but to repent (to seek to change) as well . 

I actually envy the little boy’s child-like faith, because he recognizes that he is doing something hard and it challenges himself to grow in his faith and as a person. He sees that what he is doing is intimate and makes himself vulnerable. Those are the hard things that Christ is asking us to do. Be intimate and vulnerable with our LORD. 

I challenge not only you, but myself to keep a reminder that confession is intimate, that the next time we’re in line for reconciliation, that we think about what it really means to have a child-like faith, to open our hearts to the LORD and know that we have a real, and true God who desires our souls to be with him in the most intimate relationship.