David Ancell / Sunday, August 28, 2011 / Comments(0)
Recently, I was in the Confession line at a very large parish. Well, actually, I wasn’t really in line. There wasn’t one. This parish has only a thirty-minute time period for Confession, and I found out why. After one more person, there was no one left.
As much as I hear about no one going to Confession anymore, I don’t find it to be completely true. I was actually surprised by what I saw at this particular parish, but then again, there are other signs that something isn’t quite right. At my parish, there are often long lines for Confession.
Regular Confession is one of the greatest things we can do for our walk with God. When we examine our conscience, we recognize how our lives are not in line with what God wants. We have to admit that to the priest. When we receive absolution, we not only receive forgiveness of our sins, but powerful grace to help us to avoid sin in the future.
It doesn’t end there, though. As we get closer to God, we learn more and more how we are falling short. We bring those to the sacrament, and more grace is poured forth. More and more of what is not of God is stripped away , or at least we get a second chance to work on what we weren’t able to accomplish since our last Confession.
It’s sad to see a large parish in which people are not taking advantage of this. There is great grace available. All one needs is a sorrow for sin and a resolve not to commit those same sins again. If we do fall in to the sin again, go back to Confession and try again. God is ready to take us back and give us the grace. Take advantage of it.
Your sorrow doesn’t have to be some totally altruistic motive either. Even sorrow for sin because of fear of Hell is enough to receive the grace of the sacrament. After all, Hell is separation from God, and if you don’t want to go there, you don’t want to be separated from God. You will either go to Confession or Hell, so go to Confession. Of course, you will want to get to where you have a pure love of God, but this is much more easily accomplished when God has forgiven your sins. Then, there is not eternal punishment to fear. So, let God give you the grace he so badly wants to give you.
Category: Cathechesis, Catholic, Spirituality
David Ancell / Sunday, August 21, 2011 / Comments(0)
At long last, I got Episode 11 of the podcast published.
I think my last blog post will tell you what took me so long. In fact, I wonder how the sound will work for others because I migrated computers after recording but before finishing the post production.
This will almost certainly be the last episode before my son is born. Also, it’s my longest and probably my most technical episode. These were both topics I felt I needed to talk about even though they are a strange combination.
The Cloud really can be a great thing for computing, but it has its drawbacks. There are some definite advantages and disadvantages I wanted to cover. The new Mass translation is something I first blogged about a few years ago. This time I just weighed in with a concise explanation of why we need it. Unlike others, I think we’ve been waiting too long for it.
Category: Podcasts
David Ancell / Saturday, August 20, 2011 / Comments(0)
Wow, it has been a month and a half since I have blogged. I do have a podcast in process, but I’m not sure when I will get it finished. Time has just been hard to find.
About a month ago, Yana and I closed on a new house. We’ve had a lot of work to do to get through closing in less than 30 days from when we got our contract. This is the first house I’ve owned. We have been steadily moving, and we are very thankful for a lot of people who have helped us. Right now, the move is almost done.
As for the baby, well, we are expecting him any time. He’s going to be a pretty big guy right off the bat. Everything we have heard from the doctors has indicated that he is making great progress.
Oh, I did get my new iMac that I had been wanting. It’s one fast computer with a gorgeous screen. As soon as I got it, I installed Mac OS X Lion on it since it didn’t come preinstalled. The installation went without a problem, and Lion is a lot of fun to use. I think the gesture thing is a gimmick that won’t really be used for long, but there’s plenty more to the OS. Unlike a lot of reviewers, I like LaunchPad. If I can get around to it, I’ll write more on this later.
I’ll be sure to let everyone know when the little guy is born. After that, we’ll see how often I make it to this blog.
Category: News on My Life