Tag Archives: Prayer

Inside the Confessional: What Is It Like for a Priest? – Aleteia

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Inside the Confessional: What Is It Like for a Priest? – Aleteia.
I was once riding in a shuttle-bus with a number of older folks on the way from an airport.  They noticed that I was a priest and started asking questions about it.
“Do you do all of the priest stuff?”“Yep.”“Even the Confession thing?”“Yeah. All the time.”

One older lady gasped, “Well, I think that that would be the worst.  It would be so depressing; hearing all about people’s sins.”

I told them that it was the exact opposite.  There is almost no greater place to be than with someone when they are coming back to God.  I said, “It would depressing if I had to watch someone leave God; I get to be with them when they come back to Him.” The Confessional is a place where people let God’s love win.  The Confessional is the most joyful, humbling, and inspiring place in the world.
What do I see during Confession?I think there are three things.  First, I see the costly mercy of God in action.  I get to regularly come face to face with the overwhelming, life-transforming power of God’s love.  I get to see God’s love up-close and it reminds me of how good God is.
Not many folks get to see the way in which God’s sacrifice on the Cross is constantly breaking into people’s lives and melting the hardest hearts.  Jesus consoles those who are grieving their sins . . . and strengthens those who find themselves wanting to give up on God or on life.
As a priest, I get to see this thing happen every day.I see a saint in the making.The second thing I see is a person who is still trying – a saint in the making.  I don’t care if this is the person’s third confession this week; if they are seeking the Sacrament of Reconciliation, it means that they are trying.  That’s all that I care about.  This thought is worth considering: going to Confession is a sign that you haven’t given up on Jesus.
This is one of the reasons why pride is so deadly.  I have talked with people who tell me that they don’t want to go to Confession to their priest because their priest really likes them and “thinks that they are a good kid.”
I have two things to say to this.1.  He will not be disappointed! What your priest will see is a person who is trying! I dare you to find a saint who didn’t need to God’s mercy! (Even Mary needed God’s mercy; she received the mercy of God in a dramatic and powerful way at her conception.  Boom. Lawyered.)
2.  So what if the priest is disappointed? We try to be so impressive with so much of our lives.  Confession is a place where we don’t get to be impressive.  Confession is a place where the desire to impress goes to die.  Think about it: all other sins have the potential to cause us to race to the confessional, but pride is the one that causes us to hide from the God who could heal us.

Do I remember your sins? No!

Read more via Inside the Confessional: What Is It Like for a Priest? – Aleteia.

Glory Dwelling in the Land

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From my small domain,
A mere spot
On the face of the Earth,
Shine out!

Like a monstrance,
Held high before me,
Give light to a world
In need.

O You, my Eucharist,
Heart of Love
Rule my heart.
Soul of sanctity
Convert all peoples.
Holy Truth,
Go forth to illuminate the Nations.
Then shall the heavens witness,
Your “glory dwelling in the land.”

Copyright Joann Nelander 2012

All rights reserved

Take Care

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Pray,
Take care
Who you turn away.

Give thought,
And ‘haps a listening ear.

In truth,
The heart of God
Beats in the beggars breast.

copyright 2015 Joann Nelander

Joann Nelander
lionessblog.com

Tears’ Requite

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Awash on  shores of errant heart,
Crystalline soldiers wend their depart.

The battle o’er, the mend begun,
Hovering Spirit break forth thy sun.

You tugged as moon on ebbing tide,
To etch and burrow as to chide,

But than as swells of billowed lace,
You left a smile of radiant grace.

To purge my soul of sorrow’s trough,
You gently rain to Spirit off

The crust and brine of life’s past sin,
and let your troves of laughter in.

Providence of wind and wave
Serve but to resurrect and save.

©2010  Joann Nelander

Listening and Silent

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It seems…
I am always talking to You,
That I am always with You,
And have no doubt
You are with me,
Listening and silent.

I am an endless monologue.
You, hovering Spirit,
Wordlessly eloquent
Abide.
You are Presence and Truth,
Listening and silent,
Thunderously silent,
Save for the stirring of my heart,
And the sometime rush of thought,
Coming, as it were,
From the bowels of my being
With frightening conviction,
And challenging my reticence
To speak aloud
The thoughts of solitude.

Reluctant always
To go about,
And leave the cloister of my heart,
Where in Your chambers I find,
And hold dear,
Private audience with the King,

The world without is a noisy charade,
And woos the pride of me take center stage.
Where suddenly I realize
I have been talking much, too much,
To my regret.

I, naggingly, suspect
I have diminished
What was my treasure
And ceased to learn.
Cacophany of me,
I cease to learn,
And simply rearrange,
That with which I am familiar.

Where do prophet, poet and a would be recluse
Find voice if not in You,
Rejecting even audience
To find You in my silence,
Your silence.

©2012 Joann Nelander
All rights reserved

Listening to Love

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What are you saying, dear Lord?

You Who speak with Your poor creature.

Give voice to Your desire.

Place Your lips to my ear.

 

How do You speak?

Will I hear a voice?

See a vision?

Feel Your stirrings in my soul?

Will there be thunder as on Sinai

Or the breeze of Carmel?

 

Can I see in my blindness?

Hear, despite ears that have inclined to foreign gods?

Barnacles of perversion weigh on me.

Encrustations of sin hamper my ascent.

 

Give me feathers,

And wings of desire,

That I might rise, weightless and free,

Drawn by Your Love for me,

As music on the Wind of Your Spirit.

 

©2011 Joann Nelander