Throughout the world people are stocking up on material essentials to prepare for the COVID-19 coronavirus. In addition to these efforts it is important to remember to make spiritual preparations. We do this by continuing our Lenten prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Most importantly, we prepare spiritually by making a good confession. Priests are still available to hear individual confessions upon request, for those who are able to go.
The Prodigal Son “came to his senses” after a famine hit his town. He then went back to his father, confessed his sins, and was restored. God wants all of us to return to Him so that he can restore us as His sons and daughters. Famine, sickness, age and so on, can be motivators to bring us back to Him.
In the confessional we encounter Jesus Christ through the instrumentation of the priest. When the priest speaks the words: “I absolve you from your sins,” the penitent can be assured that his or her sins are forgiven. The penitent can know that he or she has been restored to grace and to the love of Christ which we call charity. As St. Paul tells us: “What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly.”
