Lent 25

Occasionally, I stumble upon a website I've seen many times in the past. Something will remind me of it, and I'll check it out. www.postsecret.com is perhaps one of the most haunting places you can go. The whole idea is that people will anonymously write their deepest secrets on a postcard and mail it in to be displayed. Some of the confessions are startling, some of them silly, some of them deeply moving, and some of them heartbreaking. I don't know if an anonymous confession made public can really help, but it does bring to mind the whole idea of confession.

I think one of the tragedies of the Protestant church's desire to run away from Catholicism is the loss of emphasis on confession. Now, let me say this: I don't think confession requires a priest in a box and priest-mandated penance. I do, however, believe that we have so emphasized God's grace and forgiveness that we've actually forgotten a key part of the repenting we know and love in the Protestant church. We're skipping a step. Naming something is important. It's also dangerous. Sometimes we keep it pushed down because we know that if we bring it out, it'll get the air to breathe. But bringing the thing with which you struggle up to the surface also gives you the opportunity to see it in the light of day. And then you can deal with it. And yes, sometimes, you need to do penance, not necessarily as punishment, but as a way of changing a habit or getting some forward momentum in a new direction.

The secrets we keep deep down can eat us alive. Confession leads to pardon.