Over the decade plus that I’ve written on this blog, I’ve built a solid habit of receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation. So much of my knowledge today is attributable to the golden age of podcasting and blogging in the 2012-2014 era, and this particular habit finds its roots in Mark Hart. He was on The Catholic Guy Show with Lino Rulli as I was driving across my huge sales territory, and he made a comment that has stuck. He said nothing was more consequential in his life as a husband and father than embracing this sacrament.

In all those years, I’ve gone from a guy who’s just trying to make it through the line as efficiently as possible, to now bringing along three of my four children. Kids make it through Reconciliation quickly, but it’s a different experience. It’s no more just seeing and experiencing reform in my own life; it’s seeing my children lined up in the pew, doing their penance, experiencing the same newness.

Most people yearn for youth and lament their age, but the philosophy in me pulls me in the opposite direction. The wisdom of age is a comfort and gift unto itself, grey hairs starting to show through reflecting that I am now beyond the phase of gathering knowledge and now and pouring it into those who are following behind me.

In youth, I loathed the season of Lent; now I harvest its fruits. In youth, I guiltily avoided Reconciliation; now I embrace the process of refinement. This is the life of the Christian. I do the hard things to make myself a more prefect reflection of Love.

For the time they are home with me, I will bring the children along when I got to Reconciliation. When they are grown and on their own, I hope they, too, will find the sweetness of this special Sacrament, and spend their lives embracing its refining fire.