“To be cool with God”: a young Catholic’s thoughts on confession

Via Matt Weber and Catholic TV, some insight  for Lent — or any time, really:

The pope himself has had confession on his mind recently:

Confession can help Catholics build lives filled with hope and holiness, which are needed for effective evangelization, Pope Benedict XVI said.

“New evangelization, therefore, also starts from the confessional,” he told confessors and other participants attending a course sponsored by the Apostolic Penitentiary — a Vatican court that that handles issues related to the absolution of sin.

New evangelization “draws its life blood from the holiness of the children of the church, from the daily journey of personal and communal conversion to adhere ever more deeply to Christ, he said in his address March 9.

There is a strong link between holiness and the sacrament of reconciliation, he said.

The true conversion of a person’s heart that has opened itself to God’s transformative power of renewal “is the driving force of every reform and it translates into a true evangelizing force,” the pope said.

The sacrament of reconciliation reminds people of God’s limitless capacity to “transform, illuminate all the dark corners and continually open up new horizons,” he said.