04/12/26 The Next...: The Next Confession

2:26 So something amazing happened last weekend. And not just the fact that Jesus, we celebrated his resurrection, but you guys, if you were at the Easter Vigil, you know what amazing, maybe the Easter Vigil here in Duluth, maybe somewhere else, maybe we went back home for Easter. It was incredible. Like we had, I don't know if you know this, but the Diocese of Duluth made the news. We had the most growth from last year to this year of people coming into the church. We were basically most improved diocese. Some people are MVPs. We're most improved. It's okay. But it's incredible. It happened not only in our diocese. We had 55 people from Newman come into the church, get baptized, make a profession of faith, get confirmed. Incredible. Some of you are here and so glad. Amazing. But it happened across the country. Thousands and thousands of people and almost not unprecedented, but almost unprecedented number of people just responding to God's grace and responding to his mercy.

3:18 Those people who last weekend, they made their first confession or they made their first Holy Communion. And those of us who already were Catholic, maybe you made your latest confession or last weekend was your latest Holy Communion. And it's just incredible. And here's the great thing. Here's the dilemma. The great thing is this. Oh my gosh, this is amazing. We had our first confession, our first communion, or we had our latest confession, our latest communion. And the problem is this. If we only rely on our first confession, our first communion, or if we only rely on our latest confession, our latest communion, what can happen is our hearts can still grow cold. And even if we were like, just no, Lord, you're Jesus. You're risen from the dead. You brought me into your family. I know this is true, and I will let you chart the rest of my life. We know the fact is love can grow cold.

4:12 And so what we need to do is this. I think what we're invited to do for the next four weeks is not just rely upon our first confession or first communion, not rely on our latest confession or latest communion. I think we want to focus on this. For the next four weeks, getting ready for summer, getting ready for some of you to leave this community only to visit in the future. We want to focus on, okay, what's next? Like, what's, in the next four weeks, what's our next, I don't rely on my latest confession. What's my next confession? Or my latest Holy Communion? What's my next Holy Communion? What's the next step? What's the next goodbye? We're going to get to that place. what's the next goodbye? And how could God be in this so that we're not helpless? Because I know the danger so many of us face is my love for Jesus, my love for God, my love for the Lord can grow cold.

4:58 But we have to understand that when that's the danger, you're not helpless. We're not helpless. We're not powerless. Like, oh yeah, this is what happens. It's just what happens. You get excited for Jesus and then you just kind of, your love grows cold. That doesn't have to be the case. So again, next four weeks, we're going to focus on this. We're going to focus on the fact that, okay, what's my next confession? What's my next communion? What's my next step? What's my next goodbye? Because none of us are left helpless. None of us have to have love go cold, although it's happened so many times. In the course of human history, in the course of Christianity, there have been times in our lives where love has grown cold. In fact, even after all Jesus has done for us, there are seasons in the world where the world's love for Jesus, where Christians' love for Jesus has grown cold. One of them was this last, the beginning of the last century. almost a hundred years ago. This is what happened. In that space between World War I and World War II, what had happened, God had looked out over this world and he saw that what happened to our hearts, even though he pours his grace on us, what happened to our hearts is our love for him had grown cold.

6:00 And so what he did is he appeared to this young nun, a Polish nun named Faustina Kowalska. And there's nothing really special about her. She was living an ordinary nun's life, an ordinary hidden life. She wasn't influential. She wasn't like a super genius. But she, God just, Jesus just appeared to her and he revealed himself. She wrote it down and we call it now the diary of St. Faustina. And over and over in this revelation of divine mercy, the message was the same. And the message is this, the world is in need of mercy. The message was this, that even though God's love for us has not dimmed, souls were drifting away from him. That people know God, but they weren't coming to him. And this is us so talking, right? Like, no, I know God's mercy is there, but I'm going to drift away from him.

6:50 Then I know the truth. In fact, Jesus said this in one of his lines, one of his quotes to Faustina. He said, Let no soul fear to draw near to me, even though his sins be as scarlet. In other words, the problem that we experience is not that God has turned away from us. The problem is that we stopped coming to him. And what happened is love had grown cold. So what does Jesus do? he gives a number of things. At least three things we'll say. The verse is this image. This image in front of the pulpit but also this image that you might have picked up on the way in. It's the image of divine mercy. It's the image of here's Jesus and Jesus communicated to Faustina, communicate this to a painter. He painted this image of Jesus stepping forward towards the person. So if you just see, here's Jesus in front of you and he's stepping towards you. Meaning that no matter who you are, no matter what you've done, he still wants you. He's still moving. He's advancing. He's not waiting. You come to me when you're ready. He's like, no, I'm coming after you. Not in a bad way, but he's coming after you.

7:43 But then also what's happening is he raised that hand in blessing, the hand of peace. From his side, right, his pure side we heard about today in the gospel, comes rays of light blue and red. That's the rays of baptism and the rays of the Eucharist because God's mercies are not done. In fact, look it up. Amazing. Those people who venerate this image and the image that you have, you might even have in your bulletin, this image that we have, if you venerate this image, there's promises, there's graces. God wants to bless those who honor and venerate this image of him and his mercy. The second thing is a prayer called the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, which is on the back of this card. I will say this right now. The Chaplet of Divine Mercy is my favorite prayer. It's probably my favorite prayer of all time. No, the rosary is great, you guys. Chaplet takes like a third of the time. But that's not why it's my favorite. The rosary is an incredible meditative prayer. It's undeniable how good it is.

8:36 but the chaplet is an extension of the Mass. And the Mass is the most powerful prayer we've been given. Imagine being able to pray a prayer that takes the graces of the Mass, those offering of the Son to the Father and the power of Holy Spirit, to wherever you're at, you're driving to the gym and you're actually extending the graces of the Mass out into the world. Because that's what we pray, right? One of the prayers is, Eternal Father, I offer you the body and blood, soul and divinity of your dearly beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world, to be able to recognize that you, all of us, at any given moment, can be praying the chaplet and extending the graces of Jesus Christ conquering death on the cross and rising from the dead to the whole world.

9:16 It is the most powerful prayer that we have outside the Mass. So we have the image, we have the chaplet, and the third thing is, even just the message of divine mercy. The message of divine mercy, again, is that for everyone, Jesus says, whether they be the hardened, most hardened sinner or the most lukewarm. that His mercies are abundant. and he said this, he said, the only limitation on the graces he wants to give to your life and my life is our trust. It's not him, he's not limiting himself. The only limitation is our willingness to just lean in and trust him.

9:58 To a world that had grown cold, Jesus said, my love has not. We're not helpless. We're not powerless. So how do we do this? How do we take this next step? I would say this. I would say, let's look at this. What is the first thing Jesus does when he rises from the dead? How do we experience divine mercy? How do we experience these graces? How do we let our love not grow cold? First thing Jesus does. We heard it in the gospel today, right? He appears to the disciples, the apostles. Peace be with you. He says, as the Father sent me, so I send you. What did the Father send Jesus to do? He said, to bring God's mercy to the world. As the Father sent me, I send you. Breathes on them and says, therefore receive the Holy Spirit. Those who send you forgive are forgiven. Those who send you to hold bound or held bound. People say, why do you go to confession to a priest? Because Jesus said so. In John chapter 21, Jesus is making those men the first priests and saying, no, you actually have my power. You have my ability to bring mercy to the world, to forgive sins.

10:52 If you don't, they're retained. If you do, they're gone. That's why I'm going to say that today, your next confession is the exercise that your soul and my soul needs. that your next confession is the exercise that your soul and my soul needs. And I mean this for everyone. From the person who is convinced that they're beyond God's reach to the person who is absolutely convinced they're a genuinely, quote unquote, good person. Because that's maybe a lot of us. We're like, no, but I'm okay. Like, why would I have to go to confession? Like, I go to mass. Like, I help.

11:26 Like, if you're back at your parish. Like, at Easter, I was back home for Easter and like, they knew I was there. So like, hey, get back up, you know. Like, I help out a lot. Maybe like I'm a fair person. People genuinely like me. I'm not that bad. I would say once again, whether you're like a good person or you're like, no, Lord, I walked into this room today because this is the closest thing not to a church because I think if I go into a real church, I'll explode or the ceiling will crash down.

11:55 For every one of us, your next confession is the exercise that your soul and my soul needs. So my invitation is this. this next four weeks, as well as into the summer, I invite every one of us to make a resolution to go to confession every two to four weeks. That for the next four months, every two to four weeks, and if you're like, I can't keep track, okay, then every three weeks, that's it. Just, that's not a rule, just a recommendation. Why? Because I think, again, a good confession is the exercise our soul needs. Number one, I think for four reasons. Here's the first reason. First reason is honesty. I think a lot of us don't necessarily take the time to stop and really take inventory of our souls I think a lot of us I think many of us want to be honest but we're just ignorant like we just haven't paid attention we don't know it's kind of the question of like how many subscriptions do you have I get those ads for is it rocket money or whatever it is the commercials you maybe get them before YouTube videos or it's like someone on the street stops and says you get $10,000 you get in my car if you can tell me how many subscriptions you have.

13:02 And nobody knows. I think the average subscription to a family is like 12 subscriptions every year. And I think the number is 86 or 84% of people underuse their subscriptions. Over a third of people have a subscription to a streaming service that they haven't even looked at in the last six months. It's one of those things where like, oh, I don't even know why. Because I haven't stopped and looked. I think before the iPhone came out with screen time, the alert that happens on Sunday mornings and makes us all feel guilty. If you were to ask someone, well, how much screen time do you have in the course of a day? People would probably be like, I don't know, a couple minutes.

13:40 The average amount of screen time per person per day is I think around the eight hour mark. But we would not know that unless we stopped and took an inventory. Like how much money do you spend in the course of a month? Like I don't know. Try not to go to jail I guess. But the thing is, we want to be honest with our subscriptions, with our screen time, with our money, but we just don't know because we haven't looked. When it comes to our soul, same kind of thing. Like, I don't even know what I confess. Well, stop. Take inventory. So take a look. And I think sometimes this, where we have looked, you might say, no, I've looked, but I haven't found the sins I used to confess as a kid. So like, I got nothing to confess. I haven't sassed my parents in like a long time. I haven't picked on my little sister in weeks.

14:31 And yet, what we need is, right, we need an examination of conscience for our state in life. I can't be coasting off of my second grade examination of conscience when I'm not in second grade anymore. Because your heart has changed. My conscience and our soul has changed. And so we need our examination. There's actually, you know, there's examinations of conscience for like retired people. There's examination of conscience for if you are octogenarian, right? If you're in your 80s, here's an examination of conscience for you. There's an examination of conscience for priests, like specifically, here's a way to go through this. And I read it, I was like, oh, I didn't even think of that. Shoot. You find a good examination, you realize, wow, this is what I get to surrender to Jesus. We just didn't know because we didn't stop and take a look.

15:13 And that willingness to just be honest with our hearts, be honest with ourselves, because I think that, I think part of that is, part of being honest is being practical. This may or may not have been a conversation I had with someone once. where I asked them, I said, is the Lord, is God, is Jesus the center of your life, or has he been kind of pushed to the sidelines? Oh, no, no, God's number one, God's the center. Like, okay, great, that's awesome. So have you, like, you pray every day pretty regularly? Oh, oh, no.

15:42 I don't know how to tell you this, but I'm pretty sure he's not the center of your life. Like, because you probably breathed today, today, probably ate food today, and haven't talked to the Lord today. I just, again, doesn't mean you don't love him. it just means he's not necessarily the center. I think one of the things we need to do when we stop and take inventory is just be honest. And that honesty gets to be practical. So that's invitation, right? For the next confession, the first thing is just to stop and take inventory. Find a good examination of conscience. According to like, what's in a good examination of conscience for college students? They have them. We have them. And be able to go through that. The second thing is this. I think sometimes, I don't know if you've ever had the experience of like wondering if you had enough faith. or maybe you've stopped and like just have you ever had that where it's like I don't feel it or wonder if you're like do I believe strongly enough I don't know if you've ever wondered like I don't I don't know I look around these people they seem like they're really believing strongly they're having some kind of emotional thing but I have questions like I struggle I go into prayer and I don't feel anything and I can wonder in those moments if I even have faith your next confession is the exercise your soul needs.

16:55 Why? Because every confession is an exercise of faith. I mean, we know this. Faith is not a feeling. Faith is a verb. Faith is an action. Faith is a posture. Faith is a habit of trust. Another way to say it is, faith is a step of trust. What do you need when you go to confession? One of the things you need is you need faith.

17:16 I need to know that when I show up in this place and talk to this guy, that yeah, Jesus said, through his ordination. When he forgives your sins, your sins are forgiven. If he retains your sins, your sins are retained. Faith says that I know I can trust the Lord with the worst things in my life. You guys, confession is an exercise of faith. It is a step of trust.

17:44 And I'll say this, I don't know, if you don't go to confession, I don't know if you have faith. But if you do go to confession, I know you absolutely have faith. Because faith, your next confession, is the exercise your soul and my soul needs. And to do this, to just simply bring yourself, your actual self, not the person you wish you were or not the person you want to be at the end of the confession, but bring your actual self to the Lord as you are and simply declare, Jesus, I know, I believe, I trust that you can do something with this. Hear my sins, Lord. I trust you can do something with me.

18:23 So the first thing, take an honest inventory. What's my, where's my soul at? Secondly, I have an exercise of faith. You're just exercising. The third thing is, I don't know if you've ever experienced this. Maybe you've experienced, have you ever felt like really helpless when it comes to your past? Like I've done these things and I just, I wish I never did them. Or you feel helpless about like, I don't know my future. Like I don't know what's going to happen. And so I found myself in this place where I look at my past and I'm like, I can't undo this. Look at my past and I'm like, I just, here, I wish I could go back and make this not true.

18:58 Or we look in the future and say, I just, I don't know how I'm going to be able to navigate this next step, this next, this piece of future. Do you realize that we say Jesus is Lord. What's that mean? That means that if he's Lord, it means he has a dominion, right? It means he has a kingdom. I really like the word dominion. because I've had this experience. My experience regularly is of this, I look back at my life and think, oh gosh, Lord, I wish I could go back. I wish this wasn't true about my heart. I wish I could change something that I actually can't change.

19:37 When we go to confession, what we're doing is we're saying, okay, Lord, I take all of me, the past, the things I can't change, my sins, my whole self, and I just place it under your dominion. I keep saying, Jesus, you're the Lord. That means you have dominion. So Baines, when I go to confession, I'm placing all of me under your dominion, saying, God, you have it. That's why surrender, I used to think surrender was giving up. For Christians, surrender isn't giving up. Surrender is giving access.

20:02 It's coming before the Lord and saying, God, I don't know what to do with this, or I'm powerless in the face of this, I'm helpless. And it's like, actually, no, I'm not. What I can do is I can place all of myself under your dominion. When we go to confession, what we're doing is we're placing all of ourselves under his dominion and saying, God, it's all yours. whatever you want to do with it, you're the Lord. I don't have to undo it. I don't have to change what I'm experiencing right now. It's just yours. Every time you go to confession, it means you've taken inventory, you've been honest. It means that we've exercised our faith and it also means he has dominion. And here's the fourth thing, and I think the fourth thing is the best thing. Because those first three are about me. The first things are about like, well, here's what I'm doing. I'm exercising my faith. I'm taking honesty. I'm letting the Lord have dominion. The third thing is this. You realize every time you go to confession, God is glorified. Like every time you go to confession, we're like, okay, sometimes we go to confession like this.

20:57 I'm like, gosh, this is the worst. I hate this. I'm so embarrassed. I feel like a failure. Maybe you are. It's fine. But the point is this. You may go to confession feeling like a failure. But what happens when you go to confession? Let's back up. Let's go back to any of the big holidays. Christmas. Why did Jesus come and be with us? Like why did he have the incarnation? Why did he become a human being? Last week, why does Jesus carry his cross? Why does he get scourged? Why does he go to the cross? Why does he die? Why does he rise from the dead? So Jesus did all this for what reason? So that your and my sins could be forgiven. Right, exactly. So what happens when you go to confession? You go to confession and your sins are forgiven. So the very reason Jesus came to earth is what happens when you go to confession. he is not upset with you when you go to confession. He is glorified when you go to confession.

21:54 Because when we go to confession, we're letting him have victory. Like the thing he did, the thing he won for us, you're letting him win you back. This is one of the most amazing things. That again, confession is for our souls, for our hearts, because we need it. But every time you go, it is not a place of defeat. It is a place of victory. And what we're saying to Jesus is basically, you win. the victory is yours what we're saying is Jesus you don't just win then you don't just win in Nazareth you win now you win in my life and he gives us something. We do these four things. Again, your next confession is the exercise your soul needs because we need to stop and take that honest inventory. We need to exercise faith. We need to let him have dominion and that glorifies him. I got an email from a woman recently. She just became Catholic last weekend. 46-year-old woman. She was baptized as a baby but never, never was exposed to Christianity growing up.

22:48 She encountered Jesus just recently in the last number of years. She wrote to me. She said she went to her first confession on Good Friday. She went to a monastery where a bunch of monks were there. She's like, I don't know who they are. They don't know who I am. We're good. She said she did a bunch of prayers. Like, just like, okay, she prepared her soul. She did that honest inventory, right? She stopped and like, what's going on in my heart? She exercised her faith. She said, Lord, I give you dominion. He was glorified. She said, after confession, she said her confession was nothing like she imagined and everything more than she possibly could have dreamed of. Afterwards, she said, I was completely forgiven my sins. I went and sat in the pew and I just wept for joy. I stopped crying, went to my car, started my car. She said instantly, automatically, my phone connected to the Bluetooth and there was a voice that came through my phone, came through the speakers and the voice said four words.

23:39 Heaven can begin now. She said, I heard those words. She wrote this, she said, it took the words out of my mouth and the breath out of my lungs and more tears out of my eyeballs. Heaven can begin now because that's the truth. Every time you go to confession, what happens?

24:00 God's glorified. Your soul is reconciled to him. Heaven can begin now. That's one of the reasons. This is the last thing. That's one of the reasons why it's not just about her first confession or our latest confession. It's about the next confession. Why? Because here's what we know. You know who Jesus is. You know he has conquered death. You know he's established the church. Here's the big thing. And you know that because Jesus established the church, he on this day, right, John chapter 21, John chapter 20, Jesus gives us confession.

24:29 That no matter how far we've wandered from him, he wants to give us his mercy. That's one of the reasons why we know this, that the evil ones, only weapon against you, when you know this is true, the evil ones, only weapon, it's not to get you to sin, it's not to get you to fall. it's to get you to the place where after you fall you're so discouraged that you don't let them pick you back up. not just for the next four weeks or for this summer, but all of us, for the rest of our lives.

25:07 The battle is not going to be just for virtue or against sin. That's good. The battle is going to be this. Lord, when I'm most discouraged, it's my next confession. Lord, when I feel like I've wandered too far and you can't reach me anymore, it's my next confession. Lord, it's when love has grown cold. it's where I've just drifted into this lukewarmness that you realize you're not helpless.

25:39 You're not lost. You're not defeated. that we're not waiting, not relying on our first confession or our latest confession.