Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Everyday Prayers: The Act of Contrition

We all mess up. We all sin many times and in many ways every day. We sin in our actions when we choose to do something we know is against God's will. We sin in our words when we speak without love or with less love than we should. We sin in our thoughts when we consent to thoughts that are unloving and impure. We sin by omission when we neglect to act, speak, and think as we know that God wants us to do. 

But we are blessed because God forgives repentant hearts. When we turn away from sin and turn back to God, we will always find Him waiting with wide open arms. 

The Act of Contrition prayer helps us to express repentance for our sins and open our hearts to God's forgiveness. It is a simple little prayer that nearly every Catholic knows and says, but when we take time to study it, we realize its depth and beauty.

O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended You, and I detest all my sins because of Your just punishments, but most of all because they offend You, my God, Who art all-good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve with the help of Your grace to sin no more and to avoid the near occasion of sin. Amen.

Let's take a close look at this delightful and useful little prayer.

1. O my God – When we begin a prayer with these three little words, we are claiming God as our own. We are saying that we have a personal relationship with Him. We are not, of course, asserting that we can control God or that we somehow possess Him. Quite the opposite is true. When we claim God, we submit to His will and His loving control of our lives, and we allow Him to possess us.

2. I am heartily sorry – Our repentance must come from our hearts. The heart is the very center of a human being, the place in which we encounter God, the place in which we grasp the deepest truths, the place in which we choose God with our whole being. Our sorrow for sin must rise up from that deep-down core. That sorrow, being sorry, means acknowledging what we do wrong and sincerely regretting and even abhorring our sins.

3. for having offended You – Sin is an offense against God. Period. Sin hurts God. It rebels against love, against truth, against beauty, against goodness, against God Himself in the depths of His being. Sin damages our relationship with God (venial sin) or, worse, breaks our relationship with God (mortal sin). Sin is serious business.

4. I detest all my sins – Sin is the most horrific thing that can ever happen. It is completely detestable, abhorrent, despicable, disgusting, odious, and heinous. There is no other way to describe it. We must hate our sins.

5. because of Your just punishments – We hate our sins because we know that God punishes us for them. God is perfectly just. He gives to each person what is due based on his or her actions. When we sin, we deserve punishment because we have done wrong. God does not punish out of vengeance, however. He is a good Father, Who punishes His children in order to correct them, to make them see the error of their ways, and to teach them how to follow the right path. 

6. but most of all because they offend You – Even though we rightly fear God's punishments, we detest our sins even more because they offend God. We should despise anything that hurts and angers our loving God, Who only wants what is best for us, and sin hurts and angers God more than anything else, for it is a denial and a rejection of His great love. 

7. my God – Once again, we acknowledge God as our God. We long for relationship with Him, that relationship that sin damages or destroys. With these little words, we express our desire to repair and restore that relationship.

8. Who art all-good – Everything God is and everything He does is good. He cannot be otherwise. He is perfect in every single way.

9. and deserving of all my love – There is no one and no thing more deserving of love than God. Besides being all-good, God is all-loving all-beautiful, all-wise, all-true, all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-present. There is no deficiency in God. He is perfection itself. How can we not love Him? Yet sin directly opposes love.

10. I firmly resolve with the help of Your grace to sin no more – To avoid sin, we need to make a strong commitment. But we can't do it alone. We would never succeed that way. We are too fragile and weak; we are too prone to falling. So God gives us His grace to help us conquer sin. We cooperate with that grace by opening our hearts to receive it and then calling upon it and acting in it in every situation when we are faced with a choice to sin or not.

11. and to avoid the near occasion of sin – Along with steering clear of sin, we must also steer clear of situations that tend to lead to sin. We should not take risks about offending God. If we know that particular places, people, circumstances, or objects prod us in the direction of sin, then we have the obligation to avoid those places, people, circumstances, and objects. We must also understand, of course, that no person or thing can force us to sin. Sin is always a free choice. When we sin, we know that our action, word, thought, or omission is wrong, but we do it anyway. That being said, we must be aware of sticky, potentially-sinful situations and stay away from them.

12. Amen – With this little word, we give our firm assent to everything we have just prayed, once again declaring repentance for our sins and our vow not to sin again.

Let us pray once more: 

O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended You, and I detest all my sins because of Your just punishments, but most of all because they offend You, my God, Who art all-good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve with the help of Your grace to sin no more and to avoid the near occasion of sin. Amen.

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Everyday Prayers: The Act of Love

Love is at the heart of Christian life because it is at the heart of God. The Father loves us so much that He gave His only Son that we might be saved. The Son loves us so much that He became man and suffered and died to redeem us. The Holy Spirit is the very manifestation of the love that flows between the Father and the Son. God's love is perfectly self-giving. It overflows and pours out upon the beloved with no limits and no end. Only the receiver can block the flow of God's love by refusing to accept it or putting up barriers to hold back its abundance. 

What's more, God doesn't just love; He is love. He is love in person; love is His very nature, His very being. Therefore, God longs for us to respond to Him with a love that mirrors, however poorly and feebly, His own perfect love. This prayer, the Act of Love, helps us do that when we pray it from the heart. 

O my God, I love You above all things, with my whole heart and soul, because You are all good and worthy of all my love. I love my neighbor as myself for the love of You. I forgive all who have injured me and I ask pardon of all whom I have injured. Amen.

Let's take a close look at this beautiful little prayer.

1. O my God – With these three little words, we are claiming God as our own. We are saying that we have a personal relationship with Him. We are not, of course, asserting that we can control God or that we somehow possess Him. Quite the opposite is true. When we claim God, we submit to His will and His loving control of our lives, and we allow Him to possess us.

2. I love You above all things – God deserves the very best of our love. He is far above all created things, for He is the Creator of the whole universe and everything in it. He has given us everything we have and everything we are, and He holds us in being at every moment. He has redeemed us from sin and death, and He longs to bring us home to Heaven to be with Him for all eternity. He has done more for us than anyone or anything else, and therefore, we must love Him above all people and all things.

3. with my whole heart and soul – Our love for God must come from the very depths of our being. The Catechism says, “The heart is the dwelling-place where I am, where I live...The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others; only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully. The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because as image of God we live in relation: it is the place of covenant” (#2563). Our soul, the Catechism explains, is our “spiritual principle,” the “subject of human consciousness and freedom” that is immortal and the “innermost aspect” of a human being (#363; p.900). In other words, our love for God cannot be a surface emotion or a wavering feeling. It is a choice that comes from within our deepest selves.

4. because You are all good – God is all good, completely, totally good. Human beings intrinsically love goodness; it is part of human nature to do so. Therefore, if we learn of God's goodness and have faith in that goodness, we love Him. We can't help it, for to really know God for Who He is, is to love God Who is all good. 

5. worthy of all my love – There is no one and no thing more worthy of love than God. Besides being all-good, God is all-loving all-beautiful, all-wise, all-true, all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-present. There is no deficiency in God. He is perfection itself. How can we not love Him?

6. I love my neighbor as myself for the love of You – When we love someone, we tend to also love the people whom our beloved loves. God loves each and every person with a love beyond anything we can ever imagine. He sees each and every person as remarkably loveable, and He expects us to do the same. We may not always like other people. We may have conflicts with them. We may disapprove of their choices and their actions. But we must still desire the very best for them; that is the kind of love God expects us to have for each and every one of our neighbors.

7. I forgive all who have injured me – Part of loving is forgiving injuries. Forgiving doesn't mean that we forget what happened. It doesn't even mean that the person who has offended us is sorry or wants forgiveness. But Jesus says that we must forgive seven times seventy times, just as He does for us. When we forgive, we let go of the offense and move on. It no longer eats at us. We can be at peace and return to willing the very best for other person.

8. I ask pardon of all whom I have injured – We sin every day. We offend God and other people in many ways. We must be aware of our weaknesses and continually repent of our sins. We need to humbly approach those we have injured and offended, God included, admit our faults, and ask forgiveness. This, too, is part of loving someone.

9. Amen – With this little word, we give our firm assent to everything we have just prayed, once again declaring our love for God and other people.

Let us pray:

O my God, I love You above all things, with my whole heart and soul, because You are all good and worthy of all my love. I love my neighbor as myself for the love of You. I forgive all who have injured me and I ask pardon of all whom I have injured. Amen.