Let’s think about this situation for a moment….

Your child is playing with another child at the playground. Both children seem to disagree over something, and you SEE your child push the other child down.

Or how about this….

You are cooking dinner and tell your children that there will be no cookies until after dinner. You know that there were 12 cookies, and when your children thought you weren’t looking, they take one.

Question for you: would you go to your children and tell them what they did? Or would you ask them: Where did the cookies go?

Knowing myself I would ask first, even though I saw and know.

 

I used to dread going to confession. To have to kneel (or sit) in front of the priest and explain and tell them everything that I did wrong (or been distracted from God) is a very humbling experience.

Seriously, who likes to admit when they do anything wrong? Isn’t that why we have no fault insurance? Isn’t that why we are in a no fault culture? I didn’t understand before the beauty of the Sacrament of Reconciliation but looking at it from a simpler position I completely appreciate it.

When our children do something that is against what we teach them (assuming we are teaching them right from wrong), we usually ask them: What happened? What did they do? We do this even if we saw what happened, and already know what happened. But we are looking for them to confess And be honest with us.

In this case we are looking for them to accept what they have done wrong, and hopefully, learn to never do it again. It’s one thing if they say it in their minds and hearts, but to never to have to utter our their wrong doing out-loud means they never really have to own it.

They will not accept the consequences for it, and they will never receive forgiveness for it.

So this brings me back to the quote at the top of the post: where are you?

This was the first question our Lord ever asked man (after he ate the forbidden fruit). He didn’t ask that question because he really didn’t know (obviously because he knows everything) he asked to give them a chance to confess what they did wrong.

When God asked Cain, “Where is your brother?” Again, God already knew what happened to Able, but he gave Cain the chance to be honest.

Yes, even in our no fault culture, we still rely on confession, but here’s the catch: only if it’s someone else’s confession, and not our own.

To say out loud you did something wrong, is to accept it. It’s no longer a “secret” but it had been shared. I think that is the most scariest thing to do for some who believe they answer to no one.

Do you accept when you do wrong (all the time)?, or do you find that you sometimes blame others or something else when things go wrong?