What is in a Name?

We all have heard this Sacrament being called by many names:

* Confession
* Forgiveness
* Penance
* Reconciliation (also Penance & Reconciliation)
* Conversion
* Healing

Accusing ourselves of sins, confessing these sins, forgiveness, absolution, receiving God’s mercy, reconciling with the Church, conversion of our hearts and souls, performing the given penance, and our resolve never to offend God again – these are all aspects of this Sacrament. The names most commonly heard are the aspects associated with this Sacrament. What is the Sacrament’s real name?

Let’s take a closer look at each of these aspects.

Accusation & Confession of Sins

We accuse ourselves of the sins committed after Baptism and confess them to Jesus Christ, through a Priest. Why sins committed after Baptism? At our Baptism, we are created anew. The sins of Adam and Eve (original sin) are wiped away; we are then christened with water and oil signifying that we are now a part of God’s family. The sins committed after Baptism are the ones we commit against God and neighbor. We need to atone for these sins, requesting God’s mercy, in order to share in His Heavenly Kingdom.

God is pure holiness and nothing unholy can enter His Kingdom.

In the Parable of the Wedding Feast, a man sent invitations to all his relatives, friends, and neighbors, asking them to come and share in this joyous occasion. When his friends and neighbors refused to come immediately, he called for the poor, blind, and lame, the outcasts of society. Before they could enter, they are given basins to wash in and new clothes to wear. One man entered the home not dressed properly for the feast and was immediately escorted out of the house and off the estate.

If our hearts and souls are not properly cleansed, we cannot enter into God’s Kingdom nor join in His Heavenly banquet.

‘In a profound sense, it is also a ‘confession’ – acknowledgement and praise – of the holiness of God and His mercy toward the sinful man.’ You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. One must appreciate the magnitude of the gift God has given us in the Sacraments of Christian Initiation in order to grasp the degree to which sin is excluded for Him who has ‘put on Christ.’ But the Apostle John also says: ‘If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.’ And the Lord, Himself, taught us to pray: ‘Forgive us our trespasses’ linking our forgiveness of one another’s offenses to the forgiveness of our sins that God will grant us. (CCC 1424 – 1425)

We need to go into Confession with a contrite heart. Contrition is true sorrow for your sins with the resolution not to sin again. Perfect contrition is when your sorrow and repugnance for sins committed comes from a love for God Who is loved above all else. Contrition is imperfect when the fear of damnation and other punishments that could occur because of our sins are greater than the love for God. By itself, imperfect contrition cannot obtain the forgiveness of grave sins (mortal sins), but it does influence the sinner to obtain forgiveness through this Sacrament. (CCC 1453)

By confessing our sins, we are taking an in-depth look at ourselves and the sins we are guilty of, taking responsibility for them, and opening ourselves up to God and into common union with the Church.

‘Those who approach the Sacrament of Penance, obtain pardon from God’s mercy for the offenses committed against Him, and are, at the same time, reconciled with the Church, which they have wounded by their sins and which by charity, by example and by prayer, works for their conversion.’ (Lumen Gentium II)





Forgiveness

Jesus instituted and entrusted to His disciples a gift of His love and mercy, a gift of forgiveness of sins. ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven. Whose sins you retain, they are retained.’ (John 20:22)

Through Jesus Christ, forgiveness of sins is offered to each person by means of sacramental absolution by His Priests, the ministers of the Sacrament. The Council of Trent stated that Jesus instituted this Sacrament so the faithful, who have fallen into sin after Baptism, might receive God’s grace and mercy and be reconciled with God and the Church. When the Priest absolves you of your sins, Christ is absolving you. God’s Priests are the stewards of the Sacraments; the Priest’s work is secondary to Jesus. What was visible through Jesus’ work on earth has passed over into His mysteries.

Throughout history, God made covenants with His people, and sealed the covenants with an outward sign, a physical sign, and a shared meal.

* Noah – rainbow; sacrifice of animals
* Abraham – circumcision; sacrificial lamb
* Moses – sprinkling of blood of first born lamb; first born lamb
* Us – A New Covenant – Jesus; the Lamb of God




At the heart of every Biblical covenant, there is a solemn and sacred oath, with real power to change lives and history. The Sacraments still carry this power today. When we confess our sins and ask for God’s forgiveness, we are also vowing to God that we will not sin again and will amend our lives.

But the effect of this Sacrament depends on our disposition to receive it. Are we truly sorry for offending God? Do we regret asking God to partake in our sin? Yes, when we sin, we are ultimately asking God to partake in the very sin we are committing. God made us in His image and likeness, and through Baptism, we become members of His family, partaking in a share of His Divine Nature. When we sin, we are asking God to also partake in that sin, which He is unable to do. By our sin, we offend God.

Confessing our sins and receiving forgiveness, restores us into God’s family.

The Sacramental Rites strengthen our resolve through His Divine Grace, so that we may also enjoy in the Divine society, the Communion of Saints. Jesus Christ is the redeemer of the world. He is also the creator, the second Person in the Most Holy Trinity. The One Who made matter and spirit also redeems matter and spirit; and He uses that matter and spirit to redeem us as well.

In the Our Father, we petition God to forgive our sins, but not only to forgive them, but also to forgive them ‘as we forgive others who sin against us.’ His mercy cannot penetrate our hearts if they are hardened against our brothers and sisters. The heart of the elder son in the Parable of the Prodigal Son was full of resentment and hatred toward his brother. When his brother returned, the mercy and forgiveness that his father had toward his brother was not able to penetrate his own heart, it was full of the enmity and prejudice and not open to God’s love and mercy. Love, like the Body of Christ, is indivisible; we cannot love the God we cannot see if we do not love the brother or sister we do see. In confessing our sins, our hearts are opened to God’s Grace. (CCC 2840)

In the Last Supper discourses of St. John’s Gospel, Jesus gives us a New Commandment: ‘You therefore, must be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. A new Commandment I give to you, that you love one another, as I have loved you.’ (John 13: 34) Not only are we to love each other, we are to love each other as Jesus loves us. Jesus’ love for us loves to the end of time. As disciples, we are commissioned to do the same.

The Parable of the Merciless Servant ends with ‘…so also my Heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.’ (Matthew 18:23-35) God will forgive us as we forgive others. If the resentment and hatred fills our hearts and we are unwilling to forgive them, God will forgive us in exactly the same way. ‘The heart that offers itself to the Holy Spirit turns injury into compassion and purifies the memory in transforming the hurt into intercession.’ (CCC 2843)

Jesus insists on forgiving our brothers and sisters: turning the other cheek, giving our cloak to the one who has taken our coat, forgiving and loving our enemies, and granting forgiveness seventy times seven times, without limit.

Absolution & Reconciliation

When we confess our sins, we are reconciled back to God, Who is anxiously waiting to take us back. We are also reconciled back to the Church, the Body of Christ, who was also wounded by our sins. He who lives by God’s merciful love is ready to respond to the Lord’s call: ‘Therefore, if you bring your gift to the Altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the Altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.’ (Matthew 5: 23-24)

During His public life, Jesus not only forgave sins, but also made plain the effect of this forgiveness: He reintegrated forgiven sinners back into the community from which their sin had them alienated or even excluded. A remarkable sign of this fact is that Jesus receives sinners at His table, a gesture that expresses in an astonishing way both God’s forgiveness and the return to the bosom of the people of God. (CCC 1443)

Reconciliation with the Church is entwined from the reconciliation to God. They are inseparable.

In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the younger son sins against his father by asking for his inheritance before his father is dead, stating that his father is already dead. The son is mesmerized by the temptation of living on his own, independent of his father and family. He becomes disappointed by the emptiness of the mirage but pride keeps him from returning. Alone and dejected, the son hits rock bottom and finally decides to return to his father’s house, humiliated. No longer feeling worthy as a son, he returns ready to become a slave.

We do the same thing every time we sin. By our sins, we proclaim that God is dead; that we can do anything and everything without his assistance and love. We decide that we can live the way WE want rather than doing His will.

Once we find that our way does not provide satisfaction, we return humiliated and broken, no longer feeling worthy to be His sons and daughters, we beg His forgiveness and ask to become hired hands.

‘The Church can forgive nothing without Christ and Christ does not wish to forgive anything without the Church. The Church can forgive nothing except to a penitent, that is to say, to a person whom Christ has touched with His grace: Christ does not wish to consider anything forgiven in a person who despises the Church.’ Sumo 11 (1 Dominica II Post Epiphaniam, 1)

When we forgive, our hearts have to be open to forgiveness and mercy. If they are hardened, we will be unable to receive God’s graces and love. God, Who has been anxiously awaiting our return, is waiting with open arms; He welcomes us back, forgiving and forgetting our sins. We are made anew – we are reborn, restored into His family.

Jesus prepared His Priests to act as fathers in the Church. They forgive like the father forgives in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. They help God’s children to be properly cleansed and clothed for the Heavenly banquet, to be reconciled back to God and the Church. The most important thing the Priest does in this Sacrament is to pronounce the words of absolution:

‘God, the Father of mercies,through the death and the resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among usfor the forgiveness of sins; through the ministry of the Churchmay God give you pardon and peace,and I absolve you from your sinsin the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’

Penance & Satisfaction

It is called the Sacrament of Penance since it consecrates us, as sinners, to personal and ecclesial steps of conversion, penance, and satisfaction. For after we confess, we make amends for our sins. In our penance, we are not paying the price for our sins, since no human price could match what Jesus obtained for us on the Cross. It is, however, a personal commitment to God to begin anew. It is a way to join our physical and spiritual mortification to the Passion of Jesus, who obtained forgiveness for us.

In order to have the sins forgiven and absolved, the penitent receives from the confessor what is called a ‘penance’, usually in the form of prayers, actions, fasting, alms, the Stations of the Cross, etc. The confessor, according to the sins revealed, determines the quality and extent of the penance. Sometimes the penance can be performed immediately, other times it may take a couple days, such as during Holy Week. Penance can also be defined as ‘The payment of the temporal punishment due on account of the offence committed against God by sin.’ (St. Thomas, Summa Theologicae Supplement. 12.3)

In the early Church, not only were the confessions heard publicly, but also public penance was prescribed and performed in order to ensure that the penance was completed.




Conversion of our hearts & souls

Although we receive pardon for our sins through this Sacrament and God’s grace and mercy, it does not permit us to commit sin in the future. In fact, if we go to Confession with the attitude of expecting forgiveness and the intention of committing future sins, expecting those will also be forgiven, not only is our confession meaningless, but we have also sinned to a much greater degree.

This is a Sacrament of Conversion because it makes Sacramentally present, Jesus’ call to conversion, the first step in returning to the Father after straying by sin. (CCC 1423) We recognize ourselves as sinners and inclined to commit sin, but through this Sacrament, God’s grace, and His mercy, our hearts are returned to God’s. When we request this Sacrament frequently, it also gives us greater resistance against sin and a resolve to do what is right and pleasing to God. When we are faced with difficulties, we can and are encouraged to seek assistance from friends, Priests, or Religious, who are faithful, prudent, and well informed of the Church’s teachings and the Catholic Faith. The Church also invites us to take our concerns to God in a special way, through this Sacrament.

At times, more than one decision can be morally justified but we may never do evil so that good may result from it. (CCC 1789)

Moral and spiritual conversion must be rooted in prayer and the Sacraments, especially the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Eucharistic. The more we pray with humility before God, the better we will be able to hear Him speak in the depths of our hearts. If we sincerely desire to live in a manner holy and pleasing to God, we must ask for the help of the Holy Spirit, Who will remain in us and lead us all to Truth. A conscience formed by the Spirit of Truth will be upright and reliable. (How to Form Your Catholic Conscience)

Contrition and Conversion draw us nearer to God, through rediscovering our true identity, which was upset and disturbed by sin. It is a liberation of the very depth of self and thus a regaining of lost joy, the joy of being saved, which the majority of people in our time are no longer capable of experiencing. (Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation – Reconciliation and Penance)


So, what is the real name? It depends on which aspect you are speaking. As a whole, the Church, in the Catechism, says it is the Sacrament of Penance. Pope John Paul II, in his Apostolic Exhortation – Reconciliation and Penance, calls it both the Sacrament of Reconciliation and Sacrament of Reconciliation and Penance. In Lumen Gentium II, the Sacrament is called the Sacrament of Penance. As long as you frequent the confessional with a humble and contrite heart, it really does not matter.

Path to Forgiveness

This journey of faith began by looking at Jesus the person, praying and trying to listen to His voice, and responding to the gentle urgings of the Holy Spirit.

About 4 months ago, I left a charismatic group because of difficulties with the leaders. Being subjected to confrontations in front of the entire group and false accusations were things I found disturbing. When I talked with the leaders no apologies were made and I left feeling heavy-hearted. It did not take long for bitterness and anger to envelop my entire being. I tried to pray but it seemed like no matter how hard I tried, it was fruitless. I hated seeing them in Church. How could they come to Mass, receive the Holy Eucharist, and think this was all okay? The bitterness and anger continued to swell.

With guidance from my family, friends, and spiritual director, I was told to pray for them. Pray for healing, pray for peace, pray for the Spirit. I also prayed for me - for God to change my heart and increase my charity and forgiveness. I found it very difficult to forgive someone who deliberately hurt me, but Jesus calls me to this. I pondered on the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, I prayed the Divine Mercy Chaplet, I put all of us on the Altar at Mass. It seemed that no matter how hard I prayed, I was left with a hole of distrust, anger, and bitterness. How do I get rid of this? How can I forgive someone that hurt me so much? And then I look at the Cross, the nails in His hands and feet, the Crown of Thorns on His head, and the Cross He had to bear for my sake. He forgave the soldiers. How? He forgave the elders of His own faith. How? I could not understand how someone could forgive those who were deliberate in their actions. I wanted Him to teach me. Teach me to forgive. Teach me charity.

There are some who say 'be careful what you pray for.' I on the other hand say, 'be thankful for what you pray for.'

About two weeks ago, Sunday, I was sitting with some friends at Mass. Their 6 year-old was sitting with me. She would ask questions during the celebration and I would answer them as honestly and simply as I could. I explained about the Consecration, what the Priest was doing, and how God and the Holy Spirit changed the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus. What happened next was unexpected.

As we knelt for the remainder of the Eucharistic Prayer, I pondered on the explanation, praying for a change of heart, for God to take anything in me that was not of Him and place it at the foot of the Cross. I then asked God to place the parts of Him that I needed in me to fill the void. A deep sorrow swept over me. Holding back tears, as the Priest lifted the Consecrated Body and Blood to God, I lifted my eyes to Jesus on the Cross, behind the Altar. I had to forgive them. In order for me to grow in Christ, I had to move on...but how? I needed help. I had the model right in front of me...literally directly in front of me, on the Altar. But, I thought, He is God, He had no sin, He had direct contact with God. Me, on the other hand, am a simple sinner, incapable of goodness. Inside I was sobbing. We came to Communion and as I uttered, 'Lord I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed,' I understood what this meant. I was so unworthy to receive our Lord. Tears filled my eyes as I finished the sentence. He could make me clean...like the woman who touched His cloak thought. She knew who Jesus was. She knew He was God. Jesus, clean me, please. Enable me to receive You.

I continued praying. I went to Adoration on Monday night and joined in prayer with the Cenacle. I also finished Scott Hahn's book Ordinary Work, Extraordinary Grace. I decided to put some of the Opus Dei beliefs into action and dedicated the next day to God for healing and peace. Wednesday, I saw them at a function and a bitterness swept over my entire body as I saw them enter the room. Please God, not now. Not today. I couldn't face them. The anger was not gone..it had festered so deep inside that I had just scraped the top off the past Sunday. There was more, so much more.

I went home, visited with relatives who came into town, and then went to bed to pray. Please God, teach me how you forgave your captors. I prayed the 'Our Father' and I couldn't finish it. I was stuck on 'forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those...'. If I wouldn't forgive them, then God would forgive me in the same way! This is not what I desire. I want God, I want to live. Please God, teach me to live in freedom, Your freedom. I'm tired of this bitterness. I'm tired of this pain. Please take it away. Take it all away.


Love them.

What?

Love them as I love them.

How?

See them through My eyes. They are also my children.


That was not what I expected to hear, but it was what I needed to hear. I had been praying for them, but had I been praying for them with love?

This Sunday, a guest Priest celebrated the early morning Mass, a very holy Priest and one that I have met before. His homily was on faith. Keeping the faith through trials and tribulations, and focusing on God throughout. Thank you, God! God never said it would be easy. In fact, Jesus did not have it easy. But I am to 'Love one another as I have loved you' (John 13:34). This was Jesus' new Commandment to His Apostles. It was no longer 'Love your neighbor as yourself,' but 'Love one another as I have loved you.' Christ asks us to love each other as HE loved us (and still loves us).

I continue this journey of faith and love, and as I continue to ponder on this new Commandment, especially at the Consecration at Mass, I believe that the heart-hole is being healed and filled with God's love. As I continue to pray for them with love, I noticed that the bitterness and anger dissipate. I have a long way to go. Only God knows how deep I let this into my soul, but He is the only one who can heal me. Through God and continued prayers, I will finally reach the goal of being one with Him who made me.

Have it Your way!

There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, "All right, then, have it your way." ~ C.S. Lewis

Burger King is all about 'having it your way', I can still remember the jingle: "Hold the pickle, hold the lettuce..." (okay, I'm really dating myself). What's sad is that I have found myself doing this with God when I pray.

• "God, I would like a large house with a pool, but I don't want to have to clean it, and two dogs, but not those yipper-yapper kinds."
• "God, I know you ask us to suffer for others. I'll do it tomorrow. Today is kinda busy."
• "God, today I'll take two doses of knowledge (physics test), some strength (softball practice after school), and a large portion of counsel (you know, for my friends)."

It's like God, 'ala carte.'

I only want the 'good parts' and want to dismiss all the rest.

About 10 years ago, I prayed hard that I would get a job in Arizona so I could be with the one I thought I loved. I even found a friend who would move out there with me! We had everything planned...well, except for the jobs that would get us out there. Looking back, if I was able to get everything I had prayed for, I'd be in Arizona having a lousy time with a man I do not love and wondering how I got into the whole mess. Yet at the time I thought that was what I wanted. I'm so glad God didn't listen! I think it's Garth Brooks who sang "I thank God for unanswered prayers."

Yet every time we continue to exert our will against God's will, we punish ourselves. The worst punishment we receive when we repeatedly sin is the attraction that the sin places upon us. Before long, we're hooked & dependent upon that sin to get us through. I was caught in this sin-loop for many years. The pleasure I experienced from it, even the smallest amount, gave me the desire to repeat it. If I couldn't find pleasure in it any longer, I would go to another type of sin...and it soon became a vicious cycle.

It started with a friend & I going to a psychic. After a few visits of reading my aura, she said that the guy in Arizona and I were meant to be together...his aura was attached to mine. This was all it took for me to get hooked. Before long, I was telling others about the experience and bringing them in to see her. But then these visits were not enough to sustain me and I had to find other avenues to get the information I wanted so deperately. My entire value system was in disarray...evil became the 'good' that I was constantly seeking.

It wasn't until I found myself in total chaos & despair that I was able to get a glimpse of what was happening. At the time, I was a financial & logistical analyst for a major corporation. The company went into one of the worst financial downfalls in the nation's history, because of which, I lost my job - around November 2001 (God's timing is perfect!). Trying to find a financial job in a market where most of the people unemployed were in finance, and the fact that the nation was trying to heal not only from September 11th, but also from financial fiascos in 4 major corporations, was a huge undertaking. I ended up moving across the state and in with family, where I lived on unemployment for the next 9 months.

I found myself being drawn to a local Catholic church for Mass on Sundays. Once I was hired (13 months after I lost my job), I started going to the Cathedral once in awhile. But then the big kicker came. (God's timing - perfect!) I bought a house that had FREE cable! (okay, okay, when I moved in, the cable was already hooked up & the cable company hadn't turned it off from the previous owner). I started watching EWTN. One Tuesday evening, I was watching Fr. Corapi talk about Confession & the 10 Commandments. The more I watched, the more I discovered how deep in sin and trouble I had become. I cried bitterly that night & went straight to Confession the next morning. I think I was in the confessional for 15 minutes that day...crying the entire time! Not only did I have to admit & confess the sins of my past, but also the fact that I went to Mass (yes, and received the Eucharist) with these mortal sins on my soul. Double whammy!

God's mercy is endless! I met God in the confessional that day. I was the prodigal daughter, and God was waiting for me to return to Him, with open arms and tears of joy. Then He brought me to His banquet - the Mass, where Jesus sups with sinners. "Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, 'this man receives sinners and eats with them.' " Luke 15: 1-2.

It is only through God's divine mercy that I am where I am today. Sin had robbed me of my dignity, weakening my relationship with Him until there was no trace of life within me. It created a wound so deep that it festered within my entire being and took control over my life. I was living in darkness. But through God's grace and mercy, He sent His only Son to take these sins and put them on Himself...to be sin. God knew that I could not atone for my sins alone. His plan for my life was put in place the moment He created Adam & Eve. Later in Luke's Gospel, Jesus answers the pharisees by saying, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous, but the sinners to repentence." Luke 15: 30-32.

He still yearns for me to become holy, like He is holy...to be perfect, like He is perfect. I struggle, and fail, but my faith keeps me going, this time in His light.

Jesus died so that my sins would be wiped off, a clean slate, healing the infection of the sin on my soul, curing me, and breaking the bonds that sin had on me. New Advent states that "Mercy as it is here contemplated is said to be a virtue influencing one's will to have compassion for, and, if possible, to alleviate another's misfortune." Based on this definition, God's mercy is boundless! Knowing all of the sins that I have committed in my lifetime, thousands, yet I am just one person in a nation of billions, in a world of hundreds of billions; and this is just in one generation. There have been thousands of generations between when Jesus lived and now, yet, Jesus took on ALL our sins so that we have the chance to join Him in Heaven. Now that's Divine Mercy!

Taken from EWTN's website, "the message of mercy is that God loves us — all of us —no matter how great our sins. He wants us to recognize that His mercy is greater than our sins, so that we will call upon Him with trust, receive His mercy, and let it flow through us to others. Thus, all will come to share His joy. It is a message we can call to mind simply by remembering ABC."

"A — Ask for His Mercy. God wants us to approach Him in prayer constantly, repenting of our sins and asking Him to pour His mercy out upon us and upon the whole world.

B — Be merciful. God wants us to receive His mercy and let it flow through us to others. He wants us to extend love and forgiveness to others just as He does to us.

C — Completely trust in Jesus. God wants us to know that the graces of His mercy are dependent upon our trust. The more we trust in Jesus, the more we will receive."

The more I receive God's graces through the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Holy Communion, the holier I become and the more I need God's mercy. I need to dine with Jesus at Mass so I can continue to live the life He wanted for me. Scott Hahn states in Lord, Have Mercy, "Jesus and the pharisees were alike in one sense: Both considered table fellowship to be extremely important. For all pious Jews, ordinary meals held religious significance and were governed by certain liturgical rubrics. These were blessings along with the ritual breaking of bread and perhaps the sharing of a cup of wine. The very idea of 'fast food' would seem blasphemous to them." The 'Burger King' type of prayers are now out.

'Thy Will Be Done!'

A New Easter

It had been too long between visits. Tears filled his eyes as he walked, slowly, toward the front. Why did he wait so long?

The bitterness, grief he once felt was now gone. He wasn't sure how it started, he just remembers the angry words, the slamming of the door, then the silence...painful silence. The scene played back in his mind like a broken record. The anger had filled his very being - how it consumed him. But now all that has changed.

He takes another step, his arm shaking as he leans on the wooden cane preparing to take another.

These last few days transformed him, freeing him from the slavery of the anger and bitterness. The hour spent with his nephew was difficult yet consoling and encouraging. So many tears, so much resentment. He admitted everything, leaving nothing behind. Too many years to review, so much lost time.

Another step closer.

Hearing the words 'I'm sorry' resonated through his mind, then he realized he said those words. Everything was gone. All the anger...dissipated.

He leaned forward, ever so slowly. A tear ran down his wrinkled cheek.

He remembered the hug that seemed never ending. So tight, so long awaited. Too many years away, yet here he was with his family. He looked up, his nephew had tears in his eyes.

He watched as his daughter turns to walk back to their seats. He looked into his nephew's joyful eyes.

Another tear of joy. Remembering the prophetic words..."I absolve you." Rejoicing. Freedom! Such immense love. Unending mercy.

Trying to uncurl his arthritic fingers. Once so active and skillful, now found it difficult to hold a fork. His hands reaching, extending, yearning. They formed a small cradle as if to hold a precious jewel. He finally understood - "The Body of Christ."

His soul leaped for joy. Lord, I'm here...I came. We're all finally together again.

Another tear. His whole being rang out in his 'Amen.'

I'm finally home!