Dissolving Dried Scum

Needing more room in my garage for storage, the other day I tackled two cardboard boxes I had never looked into since before I moved into my present house.  I'm sorry to report that I've lived here 7 years!  Had I known how quickly I could separate out all the trash, recyclables, plus only a few things to save, I wouldn't have worked around them all these years.  I even recycled the big cardboard boxes I had moved around time and time again.

Two of the things I found and saved were small blue glass tumblers.  How real glass survived being thrown in with a lot of last-minute junk, I'll never know, but they were not cracked.  One glass just needed a trip through the dishwasher.  The other one had a ring of unknown dried 'scum' around the inner rim.  I tried scraping it off, unsuccessfully.  What to do?  I tried to remember what might have caused the yucky stuff: oh, I might have tried to 'root' a leaf from a houseplant and the dirty-looking scum was minerals left from the evaporated water.

What I did was simple.  I filled the glass to the top with vinegar, straight from the bottle.  I let it sit on the kitchen counter for two days.  Then I dumped out the vinegar and rubbed off the scum, easily, with just my fingers.  A trip through the dishwasher and it's good as new!

That got me to thinking: what is the invisible 'scum' of our personal lives?  It's our wrong-doing, our purposeful mistakes that hurt another, our sins against God and against our neighbor.  And what is the remedy for this kind of 'scum?'  We Catholics have Confession.  We call it the Sacrament of Penance.  After careful, private consideration of the wrongs we have committed, we (privately) tell our sins to a priest, pray to God, telling Him that we are very sorry and intend to never again do the wrong actions or thoughts, and then the priest, standing in for God, prays and absolves us of our sins.  I must tell you that it is extremely freeing! There's a wonderful feeling of starting over!  We are as good as new!

If you are psychologically or spiritually weighed down with your wrong-doings, you might try this.  It works!

The other day I had a conversation about this topic with a close friend who is considering joining the Catholic church.  She asked about the confidentiality of Confession.  I told her that priests are not allowed to disclose anything said in Confession.  She wondered, "What if a priest was told that someone had intended to murder someone?  Doesn't he have a duty to warn the person?"  (We medical personnel have a legal duty to report to police when someone is in danger or even a suspected victim of abuse.)

"No," I told her.  He is not allowed to disclose anything to anyone.  In the history of the church (2,000 years plus), there never has been an instance of breaking the 'seal' of confession.  Priests have died before revealing anything.  This is very serious business!

Lord, on this Sunday, Your day, I'm again reminded of your wonderful plan to get us back to You - in heaven!  Thank You for loving us enough to teach us about Confessing our sins!