St. Francis genuinely embraced this poverty of spirit as a deep orientation in his soul, which enabled him to recognise simultaneously his own broken and wounded self and the dignity of his identity as a beloved child of the Father, loved and cherished beyond measure.
Here at the Shrine of St. Anthony in Ellicott City, Maryland, we have confessions every day. Two confessors are available, and three on special days. I am in the confessional at least four to five times a week. We have these long hours because people want to come to confession – to be forgiven, to be reconciled to God and to be free of guilt.
But there is a deeper longing beneath these reasons. People come to confession because in their hearts they long for a sense of God’s presence in their lives. They want to know that the Lord accompanies them in their daily struggle to be faithful to the responsibilities and demands of life. They want the reassurance that they are not alone, and that they are loved and supported in their faith journey, and that the Lord sees their efforts and forgives them their failures. At a deeper level, people want peace in their souls and to know that they are loved.
Some have an exaggerated sense of guilt and hold many scruples that tend to paralyse their spiritual lives. They seem to be haunted by their sinfulness. For them, it is as if the whole purpose of our life of faith is to avoid sin, rather than to live in the will of God and experience the Freedom of the Spirit in our hearts. Faith and its expressions often seem to be fear-based and focused on obedience and duty.
For too long we have looked at sin as a stain on our souls that needs to be cleaned. We see original sin as an indelible stain that needs continual scrubbing and treatment with whitening bleachers so that we can be pure and spotless before God. But, in truth, sin is not a stain but a wound. A wound that needs healing. When we have the courage to show the wound to Jesus, he mercifully tends to the wound. He cleans it with his mercy, anoints it with compassion, and wraps it in the bandage of his love.
In reflecting back on my journey to becoming a Franciscan friar, what attracted me was the freedom with which St. Francis lived the gospel. And how this expressed itself in a joyful faith. This freedom and joy in living into the gospel was something natural and spontaneous for Francis. His journey began by recognising his human poverty, vulnerability, and weakness. Francis genuinely embraced this poverty of spirit as a deep orientation in his soul, which enabled him to recognise simultaneously his own broken and wounded self and the dignity of his identity as a beloved child of the Father, loved and cherished beyond measure.
Francis’ life teaches us that God’s love and mercy flow out to others most freely when they first touch our own hearts.
During this Lent we come to Jesus with the wounds of our sins and ask him to tend to us and heal us. Especially those deep wounds in our spirits that we cannot reach, the wounds that bring spiritual and psychological pain into our lives, and that weaken healthy relationships with others.
Like Francis, we do not see ourselves as sinners in need of conversion but rather see ourselves as a beloved child of God who is suffering and in need of his healing. When we truly grasp God’s mercy and allow him to anoint the wounds of our sin with healing, our sin no longer haunts us, we learn to stop hiding, we become gentler with ourselves and others, and we begin to worship God with gratitude instead of fear. We begin to experience the true freedom of the children of God.
Friar Terence Bateman OFM Conv
