Giftwrap Your Soul for Jesus!

Gift-wrap your Soul for Jesus

Confession, when I was growing up, was a thing in which I dreaded. It had nothing to do with explaining to our Priest the ghastly things I may have done. It had more to do with, if I couldn’t think of something bad I had done, then I had to make something up! That, for me, was the worst, and the main reason why, when I came back to the Church as an adult that I stayed away from the confessional for so long.

I mean, it’s not as if you can just go up to someone in line for confession and ask, “So, what is your big sin today?” Nope. Not a very smooth way of learning about sin. No, for me, it took a lot of prayer, asking God to help me understand just what is confession. And you know what happens when you ask God something?...... Yup. He answers!

We had a great “Mission” at our church during Lent several years ago with a Father James. He explained in a wonderful way that sin is like a cloud on a sunny day. When your soul is “clouded” by sin, it is like you are under a tree but you don’t really see a shadow under the tree. But confession, clears up the sky (our soul) and NOW you can see that shadow (near occasion of sin) and can better step around those potentially sinful situations.

WOW – the light turned ON! I was on fire to go to confession! And so for the first time EVER I went to confession at a communal penance service. God was really working in me because all of my un-confessed sins came to mind with a flood of tears. That was the beginning. My first real confession! My soul was shiny and clean as it had been on the day I was baptized!!!

But the story doesn’t end there. You see, God is still working with me on this confession thing. And I just “got it” today, that my soul is such a precious gift from God! And yet it is ALSO a gift we can give back to God when it is all shiny again. And so, this Lent as we prepare for Jesus’ Resurrection, what greater gift can we give our Blessed Lord and Savior, but our shiny and new souls!

Now go and gift-wrap your soul for Jesus!