Abbey-Roads2

Carnival in Venice.

I love the idea of Venetian Carnival before Lent, going about the city in long cloaks and masks, permitting every sort of revelry, safeguarding the participant’s anonymity.  It seems to be something of a metaphor for contemporary life.  We all wear our masks, and some of us say, think, or do things we are not proud of in the disguise of some good.

Carnival often became a cesspool of vice, a term that occurred to me this morning as I prepared for confession before Mass.  It is such a grace to see my soul as a cesspool of vice, while being struck with contrition and obtaining the grace to confess, opening myself to the Divine Mercy.

Sometimes our sins are so cleverly hidden, disguised by habit, self-love, or a sort of unconscious rationalism, that we cannot see them.  We may see the symptomatic sins, while never finding the root sin, from whence these spring.  The psalmist tells us this when he prays,  “My sins so overcome me, that I cannot see.”  Crying out,  “From my hidden faults, acquit me O Lord.”

This morning it seemed to me my soul opened up to allow a penetrating insight, as it were, much like a pomegranate we pull apart, revealing its seeds - only this pomegranate was rotten, and the fruit was putrid and foul.  I began my confession, “My soul is a cesspool of vice…”

It was an astonishing revelation for me this morning…an experience of grace - sheer grace.  It has provided me my direction for Lent.

I received Communion this morning as viaticum…begging Our Lord to accompany me on the way of repentance.