The season of Lent during this Jubilee Year should also be lived more intensely as a privileged moment to celebrate and experience God’s mercy.
Pope Francis, ‘Misericordiae Vultus’ 17
There is no more personal experience of God’s mercy than the Sacrament of Reconcili-ation. The Holy Father reminds us, “God is always ready to forgive, and he never tires of forgiving in ways that are continually new and surprising … all of us know well the experience of sin.” (MV 22)
Sin separates us from God. It also separates us from the Body of Christ through which we encounter Jesus and through which we are strengthened by the Spirit. That separation alienates us. We feel cut off. We have cut ourselves off.
When we seek to be reunited through the Rite of Reconciliation, the priest, acting as Christ, reconciles us with the Body of Christ and with the Father. The priest and the Church offer the prayer of Christ that we be reconciled and that prayer of Christ is always responded to by the Father. Although we confess to the priest, the agent of the ministry of reconciliation is the Holy Spirit.
In the words of Pope Francis, “The Jubilee year makes it possible for many of God’s sons and daughters to take up once again the journey to the Father’s house.” In order to make that journey possible, every church in the Catholic Diocese of Dallas will participate in the Light is ON for You initiative in which the Sacrament of Reconciliation is offered at every one of our parishes in the Diocese of Dallas on Wednesday March 16 and Wednesday March 23. I hope you will come home and experience the mercy of God.
The light is on for you.