I Was Scared of Confession

 Another reason I haven't come fully into the Catholic Church is that I am (was?) scared of confession.  I have never been to confession and the thought of laying out all my dirty laundry was frightening and distasteful.  I don't want to remember all my sins.  I've swept them under the "Jesus has already forgiven me" rug and they can stay there.  

It's an excuse.

It's using an evangelical trope to feel justified in another crossing of my arms and digging in my heels.

The real reason I don't want to go to confession is that I like for people to see me as not so flawed.  I mean, people know I sin because we all sin, but they don't need to know the details.  I've enjoyed the high status of "good girl" my whole life!  The very idea of telling a priest, especially a priest I wish to impress with my "good girlness," feels icky.  He's going to see me for who I am!  He's going to know I'm a blob of ick.  He's going to see right through my facade!  

The other day I was scrolling through facebook and I saw an open letter written by a priest in my local diocese.  It was a humble and beautiful thank you note to the diocese and parishoners for the outpouring of love and support as he gets help for an addiction he has.  It blew me away.  Here was a priest with dirty laundry, serious dirty laundry that's being aired out for everyone to know about.  He's confessed it and is seeking professional help and healing, and people are pouring out a flood, an absolute deluge of love, goodwill, cheer, celebration of his confession and ongoing recovery, and support.  

I realized something.  When you walk into and then out of the confessional in the Catholic Church, you are loved.  It is a celebration.

Confessing sins in an evangelical church is dangerous business.  There's outward talk of love and forgiveness, but I have seen the ugly underneath it all.  People are right to hold onto the "I only need to confess to Jesus" trope because it is too unsafe in many cases to be truthful before your fellow congregants.  Even pastors are not trained or catechized to handle confessions of sins.  

Now, I am actually feeling eager to get to confession.  I'm not sure when or how.  We currently have 1 priest for 4 churches in my local area, so he is unfortunately extremely busy.  I may ask if I can do my first confession with the priest of the next parish over.  He is "only" covering 2 churches and may have more time to spare on a lengthy confession.

A Very Embarrassing and TMI Reason I Haven't Become Catholic, Yet

 This is going to be R-rated and TMI.  Just putting it out there.  Skip this if you must.  

I crossed my arms on this one.  I crossed them firmly and declared the Church to be unrealistic, legalistic, and dooming us to failure.  I reasoned that it was no different than rubbing a kink out of your neck.  Touching your own body and experiencing a natural, physical response can't be sinful.  It harms no one.  It feels good to rub my sore feet after a long day.  It brings me pleasure.  What difference does it make if I shift that pleasurable feeling to a different part of my body?  

Besides, no way was I going to tell a strange man (a priest) that I like to self-pleasure (and had no intention of stopping).  

It was unfair.  I tried to stop, before, but my body would respond with a cry for attention, usually at the most inopportune times, like trying to fall asleep.  A quick, pleasurable bit of attention to the hormonal surge would relax me and I'd fall asleep.  How was that sinful?

I could not wrap my head around Catholic teachings on this matter.  

Therefore, I decided to start talking it out with Jesus in prayer.  

In the prayer I (or the Holy Spirit's prompt) asked myself why I self-pleasure and why I want to continue.

My answer was that I feel desirable.  It's been very important to me throughout my life to feel desirable and be desired in a way that completely takes care of me.  That I hold value and worth where someone would want to give so freely to me.  It then dawned on me (or was revealed to me by the Holy Spirit) that Christ desires me.  I am desirable to Him!  He loves me and wants me completely, and the pleasure and intimacy of sexual union (meant for within marriage between spouses)  mirrors the even greater pleasure and intimacy of our relationship with Him through Worship.  

The opposite of masturbation isn't no masturbation.  It is worship.  

I do believe I can learn to transfer that natural hormonal "call" to spiritual fulfillment.  It's going to take serious discipline and practice, but I want to put it all in its proper place.  A part of me still feels entitled to my own body, but I must remember that in being entitled, I am demanding the corrupt and rotting in place of the eternal and glorious.  I must remember that as remarkably pleasurable as an orgasm is, nothing compares to the pure joy and spiritual ecstasy of loving and worshiping the One who desires us more than even our spouses (or ourselves) can desire us.

Guardian Angels

Growing up, guardian angels just seemed like a childhood fairy tale.  It was a cute story to bring comfort, and a bit of discipline, to young children.  In my household, angels weren't really spoken of too much, especially not personal guardian angels.  We believed in angels and that angels could be sent by God to intervene in our lives, but it was still met with a level of skepticism.

Coming out of this difficult period where I'd pretty much given up on all but very basic Christian identity, I felt very empty and confused.  Pretty much all I had left was the Apostle's Creed, and even that was just recited with a feeling of emptiness.  It was all I had left to hold on to of my Christian faith.  

Once the Christmas music had rewarmed my heart of hearts, I decided I need to get back to basics and relearn my faith.  I had the Creed.  What explains the Creed well?  The Baltimore Catechism!  I pulled it off my shelf and started to read.  

Chapter 4 starts with St. Matthew 18:10 ".....their angels in heaven....."  Wait.  What?  I grabbed my Protestant Bible and looked up the verse.  Surely this was just a weird Catholic translation to support their cute guardian angel theology.   Nope.  There it was plain as day.  Jesus was talking about the children and their angels; their personal angels who behold the face of God.  

When I was pursuing Catholicism the first time, I didn't really believe in Guardian Angels.  This was the first time I was really hit in the face with the fact that we do, indeed have Guardian Angels.  So, I grabbed the Catechism of the Catholic Church and read section 336 on Guardian Angels.  Then, I opened up the index in my KJV Bible and explored verses on angels.  I found this gem:  1 Peter 1:12, where angels are concerned about us humans.  

I can't escape it.  There it is in black and white not only in the Catholic Church, but in my Protestant Bibles.  

This is sometime I really appreciate about Catholicism.  The spiritual realm is available to us, to a degree.  Evangelicalism is very earth-bound.  We have Jesus, and for Charismatics, the Holy Spirit.  And while I completely believe in the Holy Spirit and his indwelling in us, I believe that many evangelicals rely on feelings and emotions as their "holy spirit" rather than the true Holy Spirit.  Catholics believe He is ever-present in us, whereas Evangelical Charismatics seem to believe that we have coax the Holy Spirit, conjure Him up, so to speak.  

(As an aside, I remember singing songs in my Assembly of God church asking the Holy Spirit to come, welcoming Him into the church.  It suddenly dawned on me that we are the ones walking into His house.  Church isn't our house that we invite the Holy Spirit into.  Why do we sing songs like that?)

Evangelicals tend to shun anything that "gets in the way of Jesus."  But, Catholicism welcomes all the gifts that Jesus has to give us:  the angels, the saints, Mary!  

When I close my eyes and picture my evangelical walk with Jesus, I see darkness and within the darkness I see the light of Jesus, but that light is concentrated just on Jesus.  It illuminates little to nothing else.  When I close my eyes and think of Catholicism, it is all light, central on Jesus, but revealing all His glory and all who give Him glory.  Perhaps not so ironically, that is why Catholic churches tend to be feasts for the eyes, but more and more evangelical churches are plunging their auditoriums (I hesitate to even call them sanctuaries) into darkness and utilizing special lighting techniques to pinpoint whomever is on stage.  

Now that I've gone off on a slight tangent, I conclude with happily believing I have a guardian angel! 

Time to get acquainted.

PS....I sometimes hear from evangelicals that "angels don't look like that," concerning the often Catholic use of beautiful human-like depictions of angels.  Of course they don't look like that.  The images offered us in the Bible are quite frightening and rather beyond our complete comprehension.  Angels are depicted in human-like form for our benefit (and the fact that they can appear in human-like form.  That is not beyond God to do for us).  

Feeling Drawn Back to Catholicism

 It was Christmas music.

I just felt like listening to some good old-fashioned Christmas music.  I found an old Firestone record from the 1960s that someone had placed on YouTube, popped my earbuds in, and while cleaning, I listened to this vintage mix of hymns and classic fun holiday songs.  To my surprise I found myself crying and yearning.  I knew, then, I was back on the Catholic path.

I gave up Catholicism earlier this year for a myriad of reasons.  But, as the months passed, I became very sullen and disquieted.  My prayer life fell away.  My Bibles sat mostly unopened, unread.  I explored liberalism and liberal thought, Christian feminism, Christo-paganism (if there is such a thing), and even got to points of agnosticism.  Sin came more easily and felt excusable. 

During this time my prayer was for God to not harden my heart and that I was still open to Truth.  Nevertheless, I still felt like my heart was hardening.  

Christmas hymns softened my heart.  The beauty and ministry of the lyrics spoke Truth.  The memories of the wonders and celebration of Christmastime, especially with my family when we were all in one accord celebrating the birth of our Savior, broke down those walls and the hardness that had formed.  I simply cannot live in a world without my God and my Savior.  I simply cannot function without the Holy Spirit.  I can't live an agnostic life.  It's too difficult, too empty, too sad, too bleak, too dark, too exhausting.

Christmas is going to be exciting this year!