This guy goes to confession and tells the priest that he stole some lumbar from a construction site and 
the priest gives him absolution and tells him to say a Hail Mary. The guy repeats the same offense the next week and was discovered by the foreman at the job site. He proclaims how bad he feels to the priest. The Father again gives absolution, a penance of 3 Our Fathers and an admonition to not repeat the sin. The third week it is more of the same and the priest is exacerbated over the continuing offense and decides to lower the boom of penance on the man, who apparently is not too familiar with the nuances of Catholic devotion because when the priest asks him if he knows “How to MAKE A NOVENA”, the apparently unrepentant sinner replies, “I don’t know Father…but if you got the plans…I got the lumbar!!”
In this case, the sorrow felt by the penitent was more for the act of being found out and not so much for the actual sin of stealing. There was no real repentance experienced in this instance. And sometimes, isn’t that the way it goes with us? I remember when I was a kid I went along with one of my cousins and his friends on a mini “crime spree” on what we used to call Mischief Night around Halloween. The “highlight” was us walking through a neighborhood “keying cars”. For those of you who are not aware of this practice, it involves taking a metal car key and using it to scratch the sides of parked cars. Don’t ask why we did it…well, actually you can ask. I was trying to fit in. Look cool for my older cousin and his friends. No one ever found out and I promptly forgot the whole incident…or so I thought.
After making my Cursillo weekend, the whole concept of confession and reconciliation took on a new meaning and significance and I needed to make a better confession. To really examine my conscious. And in preparing for a confession soon after Cursillo, the memory of the mischief night came roaring back. I felt awful. I felt ashamed. What did I do to all those people whose cars I damaged? I couldn’t go back and apologize. What a jerk I was then. What I did not feel at the time of the sin, I certainly felt in the moments before this confession.
After Adam ate the apple he received from Eve, he was hiding from God in the garden. God asked him why he was hiding. Adam replied that he was naked. God asked him, “Who told you that you were naked?” Of course, it was the serpent…the devil…who convinced Adam and Eve to sin against God and it was this act that created the underlying guilt and shame that made it hard for Adam to stand in the presence of God. It was this shame that created the guilt that I had as a remembered the past sin against not only God, but against those neighbors who cars I damaged all those years ago. My relationship with God and neighbor suffered as did Adam’s.
God did punish Adam for his sin. His penance was to labor for his food and he was banished from the garden. But God also extended his mercy to Adam. God wrapped Adam in Lamb’s skin to help him overcome his nakedness, his shame and guilt, before God. Interesting choice…LAMB’s skin. I had the shelter of the Lamb during that confession where I revealed to the priest my action all those years ago. Only this time, it was not the skin of a lamb but the forgiveness of the true lamb. The Lamb of God that is Christ Jesus. The lamb that was slain so that we can call on His name and be forgiven when we truly repent for our sins.
I am not sure if the construction guy in my joke above ever really knew the gravity of his sin, or was really repentant for stealing all that lumbar. But I do know that, even though I cannot tell those whose cars I damaged that night that I was sorry, I do know that the sin has been wiped clean by the blood of the Lamb. And if I fall again, and I will no doubt fall again, true forgiveness is waiting as a reward for true repentance.
Also, today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. A day when we commemorate the Mary’s conception was without sin. She was made a pure vessel in preparation for her carrying the Son of God in her womb. This feast was declared as church doctrine in 1854 by Pope Pius IX but was accepted as true from the writing of the church fathers from the 2nd to the 4th century and carried on in tradition since then. It is a Holy Day of Obligation for Catholics and a time for us to honor our Mother.
