Doctor of the Soul

Five years ago I had open heart surgery. I had a quintuple bypass to open up a heart that was blocked at over 90%. My heart did not get that way over night and it did not happen without my knowledge. I had the usual symptoms that go with such blockages. I couldn’t climb a flight of stairs or walk through an airport without shortness of breath and my chest tightening up. I had minor chest pain and irregular rhythms all the time.


But I am a guy. Guys believe that if you ignore something long enough that it will fix itself and go away. I was also young and invincible. I didn’t need a doctor. Fortunately for me, things got bad enough that I did go see my doctor. He sent me straight in for an angiogram and ten minutes into that I was informed that open heart bypass was my only option. I was literally a heart beat from death.

Sin does to the soul what a clogged heart does to the body. Both will surely kill a person, but death from a clogged soul is far worse than just bodily death. The punishment for grave sin is eternal.


The good news is that, just as my doctor was standing by to fix my heart, there are doctors standing by to help repair the soul. They are called priests and the operation is called the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Jesus gave his authority to forgive sins to the Twelve, who in turn passed that authority along to their replacements. Every priest has that authority. Through the Sacrament of Reconciliation Jesus uses the priest to clean a soul once clogged with sin.

“God, the Father of mercies,
through the death and the resurrection of his Son
has reconciled the world to himself
and sent the Holy Spirit among us
for the forgiveness of sins;
through the ministry of the Church
may God give you pardon and peace,
and I absolve you from your sins

in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

This is the prayer of absolution. It is the most powerful prayer a man can say, second only to the prayer of consecration. Through this prayer a priest, by the authority of Jesus, can grant absolution to sin and restore a soul to the state of Grace, the state it was in after a person was baptized.


Non-Catholic Christians do not have this Sacrament. They don’t believe it is necessary. Jesus died for our sins and so they are automatically forgiven. There is nothing anyone has to do to be forgiven. The problem with this belief is that it removes free will. The only sin that will not be forgiven is the one we do not wish to receive forgiveness for. Through Jesus’ public ministry we see him forgive sins. Each time he begins by asking the person what they wish him to do. He knows they need forgiveness but he does not automatically give it. He waits for them to ask for mercy.


God respects the free will he gives to us. If we do not ask him to forgive our sins and heal our souls he won’t do it even though he can. God sends no person to hell. We choose to go there when we choose something over his love for us.

Lines to receive our Lord in the Eucharist are long. Lines in front of the confessional are virtually nonexistent. Priests spend hours alone in the confessional waiting for people to come and be healed. There is little surprise then that recent polls tell us that 7 out of 10 people no longer believe that Jesus is present in the Eucharist. If Jesus is not in the Eucharist then there is no real reason to receive absolution of our sins is there? Our non-Catholic Christian brothers have no need for it so why should we?


Had I continued to deny that I was having heart problems much longer it would have ended in my death. Continuing to deny that our souls are in need of forgiveness will end in our damnation. Death is the doorway through with every man must pass regardless of his status or lot in life. Passing through that door with the stain of mortal sin leads straight to hell.

Doctors are standing by. 

It all begins by simply saying, “Forgive me Father for I have sinned.”

Nothing but a Thing

Faith is a thing. Church is a thing. Prayers are things. Most people have lives that are too full of things. Many have no room to add another. It becomes easy to give up church, a thing, for something like football, a thing that seems to give more enjoyment. One of the reasons people fall away from a faith filled life is because it is nothing more than an unused thing, like that treadmill collecting dust in the corner. A thing unused is a thing unwanted.


Christianity was never meant to be a thing. Christianity is a relationship. It is a friendship with the second person of the Holy Trinity, the person of Jesus. Jesus is an actual living, breathing person. He is not a concept or someone living in a distant place that we never see. He is an intimate part of every person. He should be the one we have the closest relationship with. Yet, too many of us don’t know him.


In my former life as a sailor I used to observe other sailors calling their loved ones from the pay phone on the pier. It would not be uncommon to see one of them just stand with the phone to their ear, not saying a word, for hours on end. Words were not needed. Just being connected to someone they loved at the other end of the line was all that was necessary. The phone was nothing but a thing that connected them together. Because it did it was something of great value.


The things of our religious life, our faith, going to Mass, saying prayers, are much like that phone. When we have a love relationship with Jesus those are the things that keep us connected. Because they keep us connected we treasure them.


It is my estimation that this is the real reason so many leave the faith. We teach them the rules of the faith. We take them to church. We get them to memorize the prayers. We tell them all about Jesus. At the end of the day they have a lot of knowledge but no relationship. It is like being forced to learn the rules of baseball without having a desire to watch a game. Avid baseball fans fall in love with the game first and then try to learn as much about it as they can. Modern evangelization goes about it backwards. We teach as much as we can about Jesus in the hope that one will come to have a relationship with him and love him. Sure, that works for some who were open and searching for the relationship to begin with. It doesn’t work so well for those who have no interest.


When you express your faith do you talk about the things used for the connection or do you talk about the person you are in love with? If you were to talk to one of those sailors as they left the phone booth on the pier they would tell you all about their loved one. They would tell you how beautiful that person was and how much they loved said person. Not one of the sailors would mention the cold, black, plastic phone with the shiny, square buttons. That should be a clue to us on how we should express our faith with others. When we talk to others about our faith do we talk about how beautiful our church is, our great our Mass is, or the prayers we pray every day? Without a relationship with Jesus they become nothing more but trivial, empty things. When we get someone interested in establishing a friendship with Jesus those things become treasured means of connection and communication.