Some Disjointed Day's Wanderings

Rock of Ages, let our song
praise your saving power.
You, amid the raging throng,
were our sheltering tower,
Furious they assailed us,
but your arm availed us,
and your word broke their swords
when our own strength failed us.
And your word broke their swords
when our own strength failed us.

Assailed indeed is the name of the game recently. I need to arrange a ride to the Cathedral to pray in that special place. When it was rededicated after the renovation it was so beautiful, and so very Catholic, and I could go inside again also, like I did when I was more able.

If we returned to public Confession, so that we all knew all of each others' secrets, would we live in less fear? Or would we only abuse each other? Would we be more free, knowing everybody knows everything anyhow, or would we drive the shy and the timid away from Reconciliation altogether? And what does the Seal of Confession mean when the entire congregation hears?

Up until May 23rd, the presumption was that the details of one's long-ago confessed and long-ago forgiven sins were nobody's business but God's. But we have discovered to our pain that they are also the business of any who can use that knowledge as a club.

Unconscionably but providentially (and it's one of those paradoxes how one action can be both!), along with knowing much that we have no right to know, we have documentation of the glories of the love for Christ and his Church, of true contrition, and of the depths inside the human heart. Thanks but no thanks to my ex-classmate, who, I hope, is receiving whatever he was seeking in his noteriety.
(And who I also hope returns the $450,000 he fraudulently received from the archdiocese. If the claim was not a fraud, the Dear Paul Letter would never now be public.)

For myself, and for the other believers here, and for both our bishops, the retired and the administrating, there is only the one thing to hold and remember, and St Teresa said it in her Nada te turbe:

Let nothing disturb you,
nothing frighten you.
All things are passing,
God never changes.
Patient endurance
attains to all things.
The one who has God
finds nothing wanting.
God alone suffices.
.