Sts. Joseph & Paul Catholic Church

     I have a friend in the parish, who did heavy construction work in his career. He was an ironworker and a foreman on many jobs. During the height of his career, he worked in the East building skyscrapers. He likes to tell stories about those experiences of being several stories in the air; he described the rush that he got walking from one iron beam to the next. He said that every once in a while, one of his workers would fall off the beams. In those falls, they might get some scrapes and bruises, or even have the air knocked out of them.

He observed that those who fell often had a hard time getting back up on the beams and continuing their work. They were scared of falling again. As a foreman, he had to encourage the workers to get back up on the beams and continue the job as soon as possible because he noticed that the longer they remained off the beams, the harder it was for them to go back to work.

The sacrament of reconciliation helps us to get back on the beam; it helps us to return to the work of Christian living. The sacrament of reconciliation helps to put us back in right relationship with God, self and others. We heard St. Paul tell us that, through our sins, we are dead. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of his great love for us, has restored us to life through his Son, Jesus Christ.    

      God’s unconditional love for us abounds in this Sacrament. We do fall in life, and we may find it hard to gain the strength to get back up on the beam of life and begin again. When we fall because of our sin, we get scraped and bruised; we may even have the air knocked out of us, and it is hard for us to continue the work of living as Jesus has taught us, by loving God and our neighbor. But God’s healing love gives us the courage to stand up, to ask for forgiveness and to begin again. We cannot allow our sin to keep us down, and the longer we go without God’s healing, the harder it is for us to get back up. We must believe in faith that God’s love is more powerful then any sin, that it can strengthen us, and it can lead us to new life in Him.

sdrose@bellsouth.net
12-23-2007