February 25, 2024 - Pastor Message
04/30/2024Welcome to the season of Lent, the annual retreat that we as a Church undertake together in preparation for the most sacred celebration of the year, Holy Week. For the next six weeks, we will step out of our usual routine and step up our lives of prayer, penance, and charity. While each of these traditional marks of the Lenten season is important and they are all interconnected, one of the most powerful ways to enter into Lent is the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation, or confession.
It surprises no one over the age of 40 to say that participation in the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation has declined drastically. According to a survey by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, only 2% of Catholics report regularly going to confession, and almost half (45%) report never going. Some of this drop-off may be attributed to the decline in church participation in general - fewer people participating in church life means fewer people going to confession. But even among those who do practice their faith, very few (6%) include regular confession as part of their practice.
No doubt reasons for this decline in participation vary, but Father James Martin, SJ, proposes four major reasons (https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/615/article/bless-me-father): a widespread loss of the sense of sin; a confusing message from Church ministers about sin and God’s mercy following Vatican Council II; the Church’s loss of moral authority following the social upheaval of the 1960’s; and people’s busier lives that make it difficult to get to confession when it is offered.
Whatever your personal practice regarding confession has been, Lent is the time for new beginnings. Take advantage of this time to renew your own participation in the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation. We hear confessions at St. Boniface every Saturday 4:15 - 4:45 PM. We will also once again join the other parishes of the Erie area in The Light Is On For You, an evening opportunity for confessions 5:00 - 7:00 PM on Thursday, March 21. As always, confessions are also available by personal appointment. Whatever works best for you, enter more deeply into the spirit of the season and celebrate God’s mercy in the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation, and may God bless you as we journey to the cross and beyond, to new, risen life, this Lent.
Fr. Marc Stockton
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