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Thursday, December 16, 2010

CONFESSION WASN'T GOOD FOR THIS PRIEST! BUT NORMALLY IT IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL!

One of my favorite movies, Alfred Hitchcock's "I Confess" starring Montgomery Clift



Tonight, Thursday, December 16, St. Joseph Church is having our Advent Penance Service.

A couple of years ago as I flipped through the television stations, I landed on a Mega Church's pastor preaching up a storm, using props, wearing really cool, casual clothes and the whole "I'm just like you and really with it routine."

But he said something that has stuck with me. It is a sound bite, but very good.

Now his sermon that day was on SEX. He wanted to emphasize that unlike other Churches, his mega church saw sex as a gift. (News flash, so does the Catholic Church.) But then he went on to highlight the different types of sexual sins.

But this is how he described sexual sins: "USING A GOD GIVEN GIFT, IN A GOD FORBIDDEN WAY."

You know, that's cool and I like that description and I think you could use it to refer to sin in general, not just the abuse of the gift of sexuality.

Sin in general is using the gifts of God in a God forbidden way. Our life is a gift from God. Do we use God's gift of life to us in a God forbidden way?

I ask you decide.

1 comment:

Gene said...

Aha! You are gleaning TV evangelists for homily material. Maybe my request for, "When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder," is not so far-fetched, after all. Actually, it was a fairly well put comment.

RE: "I Confess." There are dozens of "Catholic" movies, as my Calvinist Dad used to call them. A favorite theme is the fall of a Priest from Grace a la "The Thornbirds." What a piece of trash!
Non-Catholics are fascinated by the Priesthood, the Church, and what they see as something mysterious and awe-filled.. Although many Christian non-Catholics are drawn to the Church by a sense of the Holy and by some sense that the Catholic Church is, indeed, the True Church, they hold back and only watch it from afar...too often in sensationalistic or down right disgusting portrayals in the popular media.

I must confess that I liked "The Exorcist," however...mea culpa.