Sin is Inhumane

I had the privileged last year to listen to an amazing speaker. A speaker who goes by the name Father Dave Pivonka. Father Dave is a Franciscan Priest who came over for the first ever Hamilton Diocese Set Free Youth Conference, from America. He also said a series of 3 speeches at my parish, one of which I was able to attend. He spoke about his journey on the Way of Saint James, a 800km walk from southern France all the way through Spain to Santiago. I was on my parish website and I saw that the talks had been recorded and available to listen to. So, Naturally I listened to it again...

The talk seemed to sink in with me more this time, then the first time I heard it. He spoke about his suffering throughout his time on the journey. He mentioned his 'stupid prayer' that he made. "Jesus, do what ever you want, to draw me closer to you." A very strong prayer to say, a prayer that you say with your whole heart, a prayer that you say when you really mean it. His suffering gradually got worse as his journey went on. He spoke about how all your suffering is for the King, for the Lord, Jesus Christ. One thing that really stuck out to me was, him relating a relatively small thing to something that it is rather significant in our lives: Confession. During the night time he had to wash his clothes, he noticed the difference between how men wash their clothes and women washing clothes. Men just rinse them off with a bit of soap, just to stop them smelling; he just didn't want to smell; women on the other hand, rinsed, soaped and rinsed their clothes again and then do the whole process again; they wanted their clothes clean. We go into confession just not wanting to smell anymore, to go in to the tiny room and have a wash and leave. We should go into confession wanting to be sparkling clean again, clean like the clothes of the women on the St James walk. We don't necessarily go to confession to be clean, to be changed, we go to stop stinking. This really hit me. Do I go to confession to become pure again? No I go to stop stinking, it's not a bad thing but we should go to confession with the heart to change and to say, "Bless me Father, I think I broke the heart of God" God wants us to be cleaned, to be purified to be changed. Sin isn't because we are human, sin dehumanizes us, it's INHUMANE ... we should go to confession to lay out our brokenness and become clean. I just hope that from now on I can go in to confession, not just because I don't like the way I smell, but to become clean again... purified.