Friday, February 23, 2007

Taking Out the [Spiritual] Trash

The Washington Post has a story about the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.'s effort to help make The Sacrament of Penance (or Confession, or Reconciliation, etc.) available to the faithful during this Lenten season.

The premise is this: every Wednesday during Lent, between 7 and 8:30pm, every parish in the Archdiocese of Washington will be open, and a Priest will be available for Confessions. That's 140 parishes each having an extra (remember- this is besides their normal parish confession schedule) 90 minutes of possible confession time on the 6 Wednesdays of Lent. That's 75,600 extra minutes of availability!

If only the crowds that come out for Ash Wednesday understood that a clean soul is a far better proclamation of Lent than a dirty forehead.

PS - If you're reading this and feeling moved to consider going to Confession (or, in the words of my spiritual director, "You want to 'want to'"), Washington's website has a page with guidelines on how to go to confession and a basic examination of conscience. You can get that here.

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