Our parish is holding its annual Lenten Mission talks this week, and tonight was the second in a series of three talks.
This year the talks are being given by Father Warkulwiz (sounds like a dwarvish name from LOTR, right??) from the Apostolate for Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration. The theme, I believe, is "Prayer and Praying." I am ashamed to admit that I was half-asleep last night (I have an excuse! I only got six hours of sleep the night before and had had only one cup of coffee all day!), so I don't remember much. But I'm very glad I was awake tonight because it was awesome.
He talked about confession and penance, and how important they are, and yet how much they're dismissed these days as superfluous. This is caused mainly by our fallen human nature, of course, because we don't like to take responsibility. The story of Eden is a perfect example. Several saints have commented that if Adam and Eve had simply repented instead of blaming each other, then we might still be in Paradise (oy!). He went on to say that the sin of Adam and Eve was caused not only by greed, but by pride, because they didn't think God should rule over them. They wanted to be independent of His laws, and they wanted to be the ones to say what was right and what was wrong. Sound familiar? :P
He went on to say how much we have been desensitized to sin, due to media we consume, news-stories we hear on television, or pop-culture telling us "hey, it's all good...no worries." We encourage this because we have an inborn desire for comfort. And nothing can make us more uncomfortable than our conscience. So we try to shut it out, turn it off, anything so that it won't bother us anymore. And eventually we succeed.
But therein lies the problem. We all have to have someone to tell us what's right and what's wrong, so if we remove our conscience -- and God -- then we turn to the "higher authorities" in our government or in Hollywood. They give us their version of the ten commandments: thou shalt not overpopulate the earth, thou shalt not vote against abortion or contraceptives, and thou shalt not be a hater. Like, vote for gay marriage and legalize drugs, man. The greatest sin in their eyes in intolerance. Except of course their own intolerance for the Truth.
Another thing he talked about was "the butterfly effect". Usually used in reference to the unpredictability of weather patterns (you know...a butterfly flapping it's wings in China can cause a tornado in Kansas?), it holds true in the case of sin, as well. Every little sin we commit -- no matter how small or private -- has a massive impact on the rest of mankind. He told us a story about St. Francis de Sales that went like this:
St. Francis heard the confession of a young man who told him that he was guilty of telling a vicious lie about one of his friends. The priest told the young man that for his penance, he must take a pillow to the top of the bell tower, cut it open, and shower the feathers on the city below. After he did this, he was supposed to report back to him. Confused, the young penitent did what the priest instructed. It was a very windy day, and the feathers flew far and wide. When he got back to St. Francis, the priest said, "Now for to complete your penance, go and retrieve all the feathers from the pillow." The young man, shocked, replied, "But Father, I cannot! Those feathers are spread halfway across the kingdom by now!" St. Francis smiled sadly and said "It will be easier for you to collect all of those feathers again than to remove the lie you told from every ear that it reached."
One of my favorite parts of the talk was when he mentioned the Latin Mass. :D Everybody knows the worst sin you can commit is to receive the Holy Eucharist in a state of mortal sin, right? What you may or may not know is that more and more Catholics today are committing that sin. According to Father, this is due to poor instruction in catechism, the mind-set of "oh, I didn't really mean to do that...God'll understand", and new liturgical movements. *jaw drops* I can't believe he actually said that! *collects self* He explained that back when we had to go up to kneel at the altar rail to receive Communion, there was much more ceremony, ergo: reverence. Today's casual Masses and frequent changes to the liturgy make it impossible to reach that same level of focus on the real purpose of the Mass (i.e. the Sacrifice).
So! Overall I thought the talk was amazing. Even if it did make me want to crawl into a hole somewhere and never come out. ;) :P
~Grace
