May 10 was the feast day of St. Damien De Veuster who worked in the leper colonies in the South Pacific. One time on his feast day, the priest at the Mass I attended talked about the suffering of St. Damien. He said that although St. Damien endured much in his work, and he himself contracted leprosy, the worst suffering for him was that he was not able to go to confession regularly. Since there were no other priests on the island, he could not go to confession unless a ship came. Father said that every time a ship would come, Fr. Damien would run and see if there was a priest aboard, so he could go to confession. The priests who were on the ships would not want to get near, for fear of contracting leprosy, so Fr. Damien would have to shout his confession to the priest in the ship. His confession was anything but private! How awesome it would be if we all yearned for confession like that! For many of us, confession is readily available, even daily, and we don’t have to shout! And if we cannot go to the scheduled confessions, we don’t have to wait for a ship to come in – we can just make an appointment with a priest. Our Lady says that there is not a person on earth who does not need to go to confession at least once a month, and that confession would be a remedy for the West!
Spirit of Medjugorje
No comments:
Post a Comment