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Q.

Dear Father Angelo,

My name is … and this is not the first timeI am writing  to you.

I attend high school, I am a devout chapel goer, I pray in the morning and in the evening and I go to church almost every day.

I recently came back to church life, after a stop also due to health reasons.

I started a wonderful friendship with the other parishioners. This year I feel stronger my faith in believing that in the Holy Eucharist there is really our Lord, in fact the night of Christmas I came to shed tears to see the Holy Child presented to the faithful.

Sometimes, however, I fall into sin, and for this, I ask God for forgiveness.

Nevertheless, I am not able to approach the sacrament of reconciliation out of shame. What should I do? Am I worthy to receive our Lord?

Please remember me in prayer.

A.

Dear friend,

1.    I truly wish that after all this time since your email you have already gone to confession.

I am glad of the pathway you started, by coming back to the Lord.

Most of all, I am pleased to read that you go to church almost on a daily basis.

2. St. Gregory the Great points out that if the Jews were freed from the exterminating angel because they had dyed their houses with the blood of the lamb, which was a prefiguration of the Blood of Christ. Who knows from how many evils of soul and body we are not freed because we approach not the blood of an animal, symbol of the blood of Christ, but the very Blood of the Lord?

This is why he ended up by saying that by hearing the Holy Mass men are freed from many evils (ob auditionem Missae homo liberatur a multis malis).

3. However, if your consciousness is soiled by sin you cannot receive the Holy Communion, by which you would benefit a lot.

You may remember Jesus saying: “Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” (Jn 6:27).

The food we eat, once it is in our mouth or in our stomach, does not last, it perishes.

On the contrary, the Eucharist is imperishable.

What happens when we start feeding our soul with imperishable food?

It becomes imperishable itself, toward temptations and sins.

4. You need the Holy Communion to avoid sin.

St. Thomas says: “this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die.” (Jn 6:50).

Manifestly, this is not to be understood of the death of the body.

Therefore, it is to be understood that this sacrament preserves from spiritual death, which is through sin. (Summa Theologiae, III, 79:6 sed contra).

Again:  “Sin is a kind of spiritual death of the soul.

Therefore one preserves from sin in the same way that one preserves the body from death.

Now, such preservation is accomplished in two ways.

First, by inwardly strengthening the human organism against the internal agents of corruption: that is, it is preserved from death by food and medicine.

Second, by defending it from external dangers: that is, by preserving it with the weapons that protect the body.

Well then, this sacrament preserves from sin in both ways.

First, because by uniting man to Christ through grace, it strengthens the life of the spirit as spiritual food and medicine, in accordance with the words of Psalm 103:15: “The bread that sustains his strength.

And St. Augustine exclaims: “Draw near safely: it is bread, not poison” (Commentary on the Gospel of John, tract. 26).

Second, because it represents Christ’s passion, which vanquished the demons: in fact, the Eucharist repels every diabolical assault.

Hence the words of Chrysostom: “Like lions breathing fire, we return from that table, made terrible by the devil” (Ib., corpus).

5. There remains the problem of shame in confessing certain sins.

If the Holy Curé of Ars says that we should not be afraid to accuse sins because the priest already knows what the sins of the faithful are, I would add: go to confession precisely in order to feel ashamed and thus expiate your sins together with Christ.

Here is what St. Augustine says: “For shame (erubescentia) it has a part in remission.

For out of mercy the Lord commanded that no one should do penance covertly.

Forthe very fact that one says personally to the priest, and overcomes the blush for the fear of God being offended, forgiveness of guilt takes place. It becomes worthy of forgiveness by confession what was guilty when it was done; and if it is not immediately cleansed, it nevertheless becomes venial what one had committed that was mortal.

He has offered much satisfaction who, overcoming his shame, has not denied to the nuncio of God any of those things which he has committed. (…).

And since shame is a great penalty, who blushes for Christ becomes worthy of mercy” (St. Augustine, De vera et falsa paenitentia, 10:25).

After overcoming the shame and receiving the absolution from the priest, you will feel a sense of peace.

Most of all, you could feel the presence of the Lord in your heart.

6.   If you have not yet confessed and have received Holy Communion, in the next Confession also say that you have received Communion without having it preceded by the confession of serious sins. Because receiving the Holy Communion without being confessed to grave sins is a grave sin.  

I will gladly remember you in prayer.

I wish you well and I bless you

Father Angelo