“Hallow” is the number one Christian prayer app in the world. This Lent, it has featured daily readings from The Way, a spiritual classic first published in 1934 by St. Josemaria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei. The Way is a book filled with short, paragraph-long meditations on various subjects. The intended audience for these meditations was the lay faithful, whom St. Josemaria spent his life encouraging to pursue holiness through their ordinary lives at work and at home. When he was growing the apostolate of Opus Dei in the mid-20th century, the idea that lay people might become saintly was still a neglected part of Catholic spirituality. At that time, most associated holiness with priests, nuns, and monks. The Second Vatican Council, however, took up the theme of the universal call to holiness that was so dear to St. Josemaria and enshrined it in its document on the nature of the Church. The Council states that those who labor, “should imitate by their lively charity, in their joyous hope, and by their voluntary sharing of each other’s burdens, the very Christ who plied His hands with carpenter’s tools and Who in union with His Father, is continually working for the salvation of all men. In this, their daily work, they should climb to the heights of holiness and apostolic activity” (Lumen Gentium, 41). The work of those ordained to the priesthood is primarily a ministry of service to the lay faithful, providing them with what they need to pursue personal sanctity by building up the Kingdom through their lives as baptized people living and working in the world. The greatest aid that priests provide to the laity in their pursuit of sanctity is the grace they share with them through the sacraments, especially the Eucharist and Confession.
Speaking about the sacrament of Confession, St. Josemaria says: “Jesus, Our Lord, and God … instituted the sacraments, which are like His footprints which we can step into and thus reach heaven. One of the most beautiful and consoling of these sacraments is Confession. God the Creator is a marvel, creating everything out of nothing. God the Redeemer fills us with love and gratitude. But a God who forgives? Only mothers and fathers know how to forgive… So, in confession we find a Christ who is both mother and father, who forgives and enlightens us and gives us strength, so that we don’t fall again. And if we do fall again, He forgives us again, and helps us again, and strengthens us again. My children, resolve to go frequently to the Sacrament of Penance!”
This Monday is Reconciliation Monday in the Diocese of Bridgeport, during which priests will exercise our ministry of service to the lay faithful by hearing confessions in various churches from 3-9pm. Here in Stamford, confessions will be heard at St. Cecilia Church and St. Mary Church. Please consider taking advantage of this special opportunity, or one of the many regular opportunities for confession that we offer in our parish. In Confession we receive the medicine of mercy that heals and strengthens us to persevere in friendship with God and participate in His work of transforming us and the world through us, which we accomplish by fidelity to daily tasks done with love for Him and our neighbor.
posted 4/12/25
The Parish of St. Cecilia-St. Gabriel 