An Act of Contrition

Growing up in the Roman Catholic Church part of the ritual surrounding the obligation to make a 'good confession' was reciting the Act of Contrition while in the confessional. In those days, I would go into the confessional booth. The priest would then slide a small window open so that both sides could just barely make out the face on the other side of the screen separating the one making the confession and the one listening to it. After the greeting and the listing and the enumeration of sins  committed since the last confession - also admitted at that time - there would come the part in which the confessing person - me - would be asked to say a good Act of Contrition 

This was something well-burned into one's memory. During my years as a pastor, I would often show people how fast I could whip through that prayer. Of course, I would have never done it as fast as my classroom antics in the parish because I knew the priest would not have appreciated the speed - though I think he would have found it precise even to how I would position pauses.  Well, here it is:

O my God I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee

and I detest all of my sins 

because of Thy just punishment.

But most of all, because they offend Thee, my God,

who art all-good and deserving of all my love.

I firmly resolve with the help of Thy grace, 

to sin no more and to avoid the near occasions of sin. Amen.

I now see Thy just punishment not as something God will do to me to - get me. It is a punishment of eternal love. Say what? It is the understanding that despite my leaning into the depths of sin in its many forms, there is the God who runs to me like the Father of the prodigal child - endlessly forgiving - eternally embracing - wonderfully present. It is therefore a reality that heals and welcomes one home and never turns a back and it is the power that pulls me into the way of peace that is the life within the Reign of God. O yes, it would be wonderful to never fall under the power of sin - no more. But we all know the reality of how we are always open to ways to control our own life - live on our own terms - sacrifice others for our own well-being. 

So today I find myself with a great need to go into the confessional (kneel - stand - sit -whatever) and admit to how offensive I have become to the Reign of God's love. I am not able to blow off my offensiveness or ignore it or make excuses to soften its blow. Though I never fall back into the grasp of having to enumerate the 'sins' I have committed - as though it is just about doing or not doing things. In my case, very deep within how I go about life in the world is that deadly sin called envy. It is not simply an act - it sneaks up on me even as I am playfully and joyfully moving through the day. It is able to ruin everything. I become someone I do not want to be. It is like a hound biting at me and never letting go.  It pounces upon the day and I begin to act as though I am more a resident of hellishness than holiness.  My envy cries over what I do not have and what I want but have not been given. I let myself consider stopping all that I do. I have been tempted to believe that nothing I do is of any good - so screw being a part of anything good because no one will recognized my actions like they will that of others. This is a wicked and painful spiral into death - especially when I have become aware of it like a cloud hanging over my head. 

So how do I do battle with envy? How do I face that beast in me and put it to rest - no - to death. When I simply try to ignore it as its ugly head takes over my head, it comes back around in another day - but always with the same power to turn my heart that longs to be loving into a heart that has turned stone cold. I try breathing - deep breathing. I try imagining being free from envy. I prayerfully consider life not held hostage by my envious heart. And yet, it come back around in another day and in another way - always deadly,

Most interesting is that no one knows of this envy. It doesn't show - at least that is what folks have said when I try to say what is possessing my heart and simply overwhelming me. Envy - like other characteristics of life contrary to life in God's Reign can go unnoticed by others. It buries itself deep in our lives. So deep, we do not even see it as it controls us. I know that was how it was for me. Then one day the word envy came up and it cut me to the heart - still does. There was a mirror that gave me the opportunity to see myself. It was not the self I wanted to see. Maybe one way to face it and defeat it is to learn to see it in the mirror every morning and renounce it - like daily remembering my baptism. Ha - more easily said than done. Yet, it is necessary - it allows me to see the wound that somehow has hardened my heart. But the reflection is not pleasant to see - it can be repulsive - it has a way of throwing me into a mood of melancholy - a lost space - an empty space - a lonely space - a space I work to banish from my life, but it never seems to work - it remains deadly.

Envy makes me want to rage against the machine -whatever face it wears - but that is not healing for anyone - especially me. Therefore, I ramble on. I wait. I try to paint a picture of the me that avoids the reality that is always trying to own me and shape me. It does not last. So maybe even now it is good to go back to an old prayer - one I have come to understand in a new light - the light of a never failing love that is the God who judges me as beloved even as I struggle against the demons that want to take me far from the Peaceable Reign of God. 

O my God I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee

and I detest all of my sins 

because of Thy just punishment.

But most of all, because they offend Thee, my God,

who art all-good and deserving of all my love.

I firmly resolve with the help of Thy grace, 

to sin no more and to avoid the near occasions of sin. Amen.

TRRR