From my noon reading ...

I am rereading, slowly, the best book I have ever read about confession, Prayer and Pardon: A Sinner's Guide to Confession by Fr. Francis Randolph. This went straight to my heart and perhaps your heart needs it also today.

It is the love of God that makes the sacrament of confession possible. More than anything else, that is what I want you to remember out of this book: that God loves us already and is on our side in the struggle to reflect that love, to accept it, to pass it on to others. The heart of the Christian gospel is the message that God was born as one of us and that his name shall be called "Emmanuel", which means "God is with us."