Second Sunday of Advent (Year A) 7th December 2025

Newsletter Second Sunday of Advent (Year A) - 7th December 2025.pdf

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Gospel Reflection:

Sacrament of Reconciliation.  Today the Church focuses on St John the Baptist.  His mission was to bring people to repent and change any sinful lifestyles, in order to prepare them for the Messiah.  A theme of the Second week of Advent, therefore, is a week where we make a special effort to go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation (confession).  Today’s homily is a brief catechism of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  Why should a person go to a priest to have his sins forgiven?  (why not go to God direct?)  Jesus gave His apostles the authority to forgive sins when He said to His apostles: “What the Father has given Me I now give to you.”  He then breathed on them and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit, if you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven.” (John 20:22,23).  From these words from Our Lord, the apostles understood that they were given the authority to forgive sins.  Hence, St Paul said: “What I have pardoned ‘for your sakes I have done it in the person of Christ.’” (2 Corinthians 2:10).  Meaning that the gift to forgive sin was given by Christ to the apostles.  The apostles in turn prayed over other men to receive the gift amd they prayed over other men, until today.  So priests today have the gift to confess sins.  A gift which had been passed on from the Apostles.  Today priests have this gift.  Therefore, when we leave the confessional, we know for certain, 100% guaranteed, that all of our sins have been forgiven.   Even if we are the greatest sinner of all time.   Conditions: 1. Genuine sorrow/contrition 2. Firm desire to sin no more.  How often should we go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation?  Our Lady of Fatima in 1917 asked us to go once a month.  Some of you are familiar with Our Lady’s requests for the First Saturday devotion.  To fulfil that devotion, it is a requirement to go to Confession once a month.  But if we have committed a serious sin then we must go to confession as soon as possible (and we should not receive Holy Communion until we have).  We should go to confession on a regular or frequent basis for two reasons.  One is to have our sins forgiven.  The other is to receive ‘Sanctifying Grace.’  Sanctifying Grace gives us the power or strength not to sin again and also the power or strength to help us to achieve the highest virtue.  Sin always leads to spiritual sickness, which can lead to physical sickness.  Therefore, in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, because a person is healed of spiritual sickness, he or she may also be healed of physical sickness.  A Fr John Rea was giving a parish mission in New Zealand.  The penitent, Clare, had slipped a disc in her back ten years previously.  Since then, she had suffered from severe back trouble and had been unable to kneel.  After Clare went to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, without thinking, she knelt down to do her penance.   She later discovered she was completely healed; she has had no back problem since.  Another reason why we should go to Reconciliation often is because we don’t know when we will die.   In the country town of Northam in West Australia where I spent 6 months as a deacon, there was a man about 50 years of age who had excellent health; he hardly had a sick day in his life.  One Saturday morning he said to his wife that he was thinking about going to confession that afternoon.  That was unusual because he hadn’t been to confession for months, nor had he desired to go.  In the afternoon he changed his mind, saying to his wife that he hadn’t been to confession for such a long time and maybe there was no point.  With encouragement from his wife, however, he went to confession.  That very night the man died (as a result of a burst blood vessel in his brain).  Another reason to go to Reconciliation, according to an exorcist, is because Reconciliation is the most powerful prayer of exorcism.  If we are struggling to stop a bad thought or we cannot overcome a vice, for example, then try the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  What sins should a person confess in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  A person must confess all their mortal sins, in this Sacrament.  There are 3 conditions for a sin to be mortal.  1.  Serious matter. For example, one of the Ten Commandments.  “You shall not steal”.  “You shall not commit adultery”, etc.  2. Full knowledge that the act is a mortal sin.  3. Free Will.  Sometimes we might do an act which is serious matter.  However, the act would not have been “free will” if we had a genuine desire not to do it.  If a person doesn’t have any mortal sins, they don’t need to go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  However, a person should still go to this Sacrament once a month to receive the Sanctifying Grace which will help them overcome all sins and achieve the highest virtue.  Our Lord said to St Faustina before she died in 1933: ‘I desire trust from My creatures.  Encourage souls to place great trust in My fathomless mercy.  Let the weak, sinful soul have no fear to approach Me, for even if it had more sins than the grains of sand in the world all would be drowned in the unmeasurable depths of My mercy (1059). Tell souls where they are to look for peace; that is in the tribunal of My mercy (the Sacrament of Reconciliation).  There, the greatest miracles take place.’ Mr Marino Restrepo’s life highlights the importance of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  Marino was a well-known actor in Columbia, South America and like many actors his life was far from pleasing to God.  In the 1990’s he was kidnapped and held for ransom.  For several months he lived in a dark cave with almost no food.  During this time, he had an ‘after life experience’.  His soul left his body but returned sometime later.  During his death he saw his sins like watching a film.  At the same time, he was aware of Our Lord’s Love and Mercy for him.  Marino said it was unimaginably painful to hurt Our Lord through sin because He is all love and all compassion and all mercy.  When he came back to life his greatest desire was to go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  On top of that he made a prayer to God that he would never sin again.  The thought of offending Our Lord, because He is all love, was too painful.  Of course, God desires that we do more than overcome sin in our lives.  He wants us to have the greatest possible virtue.  I will finish with a quote from Bl Mother Cecile of Rome.  She died in Canada in 1929.  She was beatified by Pope John Paul II.  ‘I wish to practice interior silence and recollection and to that end suppress every useless thought and very useless movement.  I committed myself under pain of sin to do constantly and in every circumstance, what was most perfect in my thoughts, my desires.  This vow affects every second, every moment of my life.’ In Confession we re-commit our lives to Jesus Christ.  When we go to confession, we make a commitment not to sin again, and we make a commitment to give God everything we have.  We also know that the Grace of the Sacrament is sufficient for us to achieve that commitment.