Fourteenth Sunday In Ordinary Time (Homily)
July 03, 2016 11:00 am · Father Dennis Riccitelli
You know priests do get together every now and then. And when it's just a group of priests, you might be interested to know what we talk about. What do they talk about? Do they talk about what they hear in confession? Well, of course we would never do that, we would never reveal any sins or anything like that. But every now and then we talk about a particular confession maybe that was funny or odd without naming names or particulars. So I was at a gathering not to long ago, and a priest was telling this story. He said he was with the children, there were lots of children at this Mass as it was a children's reconciliation service. This one little boy came in and told his sins and the priest, when he was done, told him, gave him a little council, then he said, "For your penance pray the Our Father two times." The little boy got this shocked look on his face and said, "I only know one!". So the priest said, "Well, which Our Father do you know?", the little boy said "The one that goes, 'Our Father who art in heaven...'". The priest says, "Well say that one twice." So he did get the point.
Now I tell you this story about children and confession because I'd like to talk about confession and children a little bit. One of the things I always remind children of, especially in the confessional, is how much God really loves them. Sometimes even ask them to promise, that when they get big, they will always remember how much God loves them. No matter what they ever do, no matter how bad they may someday become, I ask them to always remember that God never never gets mad at them. For He will always loves them. God indeed may not like some of the things that they wind up doing but He will never turn His back on them. I then go on to tell the children that even though people get mad at them for something they have done, God does not. Then I often repeat one of my favorite sayings, and that is, "People get mad at people, God doesn't get mad at people. People get mad at people, God doesn't get mad at people."