Confession: Turn Around

Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn,

While the world rejoices; you will grieve,

But your grief will become joy. – John 16:20

Sadness and grief find their way into my life regularly.  I find sadness when I think about the family that has passed away.  I hope they are in heaven in restful joy.  This hope gives me joy.  So, in a personal way, I feel as though Jesus is talking directly to me in the scriptures just as he is talking to the disciples.  And the Church teaches that Jesus is talking to me. 

Faith is a desire of mine but faith is a gift from God.  I believe in God, in Jesus, in the Holy Spirit.  And within this belief comes the invitation from God to embrace faith and renounce sin.  I have asked to enter spiritual formation and direction.  My hope for this is to recreate in my heart a welcoming place for Jesus.  I want to be filled with the Holy Spirit so that I might be able to live virtuously. 

Where I am spiritually and emotionally is in a place where I am letting go of secrets.  A prior post I made a candid confession about some of my failings.  Today, I reveal my love of money.  When I was young, my family united to make it work out.  We had enough but not much of excess.  I was a fairly spoiled as a child which means that my sisters suffered for my selfishness and greed.  My younger sister required extra attention because she was nearly killed at 6 years old.  And, yet, I persisted in my greed and selfishness.  I ultimately would leave my mother for my father’s mother because I perceived a better opportunity for wealth. 

My internal conversion requires confession.  Eventually, as I continue to reveal more to the world, I will submit to a General Confession.  This General Confession will ask to me to confess all of sins.  But I desire holiness.  I desire to live such a life that will grant peace to my soul and eventually give me a peaceful death where I eventually hear “well done, good and faithful servant.” 

Confession is painful.  I have often commented how waiting for Confession can make me angry.  Why are these people taking so long?  Why is the line long?  And then, I remember that I am judging sinners who are seeking forgiveness.  My selfishness strikes again.  But confession is painful.  But as it is a sacrament, it is an encounter with Jesus. 

An encounter with Jesus doesn’t require anything but a willing spirit.  In my heart, I usually go to Confession knowing that I will encounter Jesus, and so I will enter this encounter reverently.  And so, I question how have I come to a place of desolation?  I vainly think that I am intelligent and in some respects, God has gifted me with a great ability to make connections fast.  Some have commented that this is itself is intelligence.  So, I reflect on this today:  How am I in desolation? 

Desolation is described by St Ignatius of Loyola in the Fourth Rule of his Spiritual Exercises as containing characteristics “such as darkness of soul, disturbance in it, movement to low and earthly things, disquiet from various agitations and temptations, moving to lack of confidence, without hope, without love, finding oneself totally slothful, tepid, sad, and, as if separated from one’s Creator and Lord.”  Within this definition, it is possible that I have spent the clear majority of my life in desolation.  I think that because I have spent most my life in selfishness, lustfulness, in lies, essentially in sin, that I may have chosen to live in desolation. 

Conversion is a metanoia.  Metanoia comes from a Greek word that literally means “to turn around.”  I am turning towards God.  I am afraid of what he says when I finally can hear his voice.  But Jesus says to me, “you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.”