In rooting around in my things while writing an article for the paper, I found a great quote of Augustine.
For Augustine all created things in the universe, even inanimate things, both give witness to God and give Him glory.
“Respondent tibi omnia: Ecce vide, pulchra sumus. Pulchritudo eorum confessio eorum.
All things respond to you, O God: ‘Behold! See! We are beautiful!’ Their beauty is their profession.”(s. 241, 2)
This last part needs some teasing out. That confessio is a complicated word. We might do this as “their hymn of praise, their demonstration that you are God, their admission that they are not”.
There’s a little theology of the environment for you!
How about your own spiritual environment?
Are you beautiful at Mass?
Go to confession.
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Good point Father!
Do you want to go to Mass looking like sooted coal or cleaned white as snow? Get your a** to confession!
But really, confession is the least understood, but third most important Sacrament. OK, as two the first most important, and correct me if I’m wrong: the first in Baptism, without which you cannot be saved, and the second is the Eurcharist, without which you “will have no life in you”. But the sacrament of reconciliation is equally efficacious inasmuch as your eternal life depends on it if your soul is separated from God by mortal sin.
St. Padre Pio was the master of it, and knew its worth. It’s too bad that it is too little utilized.
We are beautiful because we have been redeemed by Beauty, by Love Himself. Another quotation from this great saint is “Love is the beauty of the soul.”
Yes, I do need to go more often. As far as the Sacrament of Confession being too little utilized, when I do go I have never seen a shortage of people availing themselves to receive the Sacrament. That being said, I belong to a parish with 2,800 families registered and a plethora of lay ministries. Regular confession times constitute seven hours of the week, or 15 seconds per family. If one proposes to make it to confession once a month, that adds up to 4.5 minutes per family. Somehow, the amount of time devoted to the Sacrament seems hardly adequate for the number of people in the parish. How do you charitably approach the subject of time availability for confession with one’s pastor?