Letter to the editor

By THE REV. WILLIAM ROGALLA
By now our families have gone home and we have cleaned out the refrigerator, sending Thanksgiving leftovers to the side of the street to be taken away never to return. Now the arrangements for celebrating the birth of the Hope of the World, our living Lord Jesus Christ, begin in earnest.
As Catholics, we have begun this time of expectant waiting which the church calls Advent, looking back to the birth of our Lord, seeking Him daily in our lives, and looking to His glorious Second Coming. Traditionally we have cleaned and decorated our souls just as we clean and decorate our homes in preparation for Christmas. We clean and decorate our inner rooms through what we call the Sacrament of Reconciliation, also known as Confession.
Since Jesus came into our world so we could have life, and have life abundantly, the Gospels record many instances of Christ showing His authority to forgive sin; the very thing that destroys the divine life within us, which was first given us in Baptism.
Our faith in confessing to priests goes back to our Jewish forefathers in faith. An example can be found in Leviticus 5. As recorded in John 20, after our Lord’s Passion and Resurrection, He revealed Himself to the first bishop-priests of the Catholic church in the Upper Room. We are reminded Jesus gave His priests the power and authority to forgive our sin in His name and sent them out to do the same as He was sent by the Father.
For the past few years, the Diocese of Lafayette, the diocese across the bridge, has sponsored the Light is On For You program to help us prepare our souls for Christmas. This program includes every parish of the diocese.
On the Wednesday evenings of Advent, from 6:30 to 8 p.m., a priest will be in the confessional of the parish church, to hear confessions, or for someone to just come and talk. The dates for this year are Dec. 3, 10 and 17.
Pope Francis described the confessional as the “field hospital” of the church, meaning this is where we go for healing from the battles of this life. In this “spiritual emergency room,” new life is breathed into our souls when we hear the priest say “I absolve you from your sins.” As pastor of St. Bernadette Parish, I invite you come home to Christ at Christmas, to come home to the church to be washed clean again in this sacrament of mercy.
Rogalla is pastor of St. Bernadette Catholic Church in Bayou Vista.