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In Confession: "Father, I don't know what to do."

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Catholic culture and church versus secular culture.

Fr. John Higgins The difference between Catholic culture and church, versus secular culture. One evening I was doing a session with our Confirmation Students. They had written questions on small pieces of paper and they were put into a basket. We met in the church and a Priest from Cameroon, Fr. Khumbah was with us. He and I had a great relationship and we often laughed together. We sat on stools in front of the Altar and answered the questions. One of them was "Do you believe in EQUALITY?" I smiled and asked this African Priest. He said "No, of course not. Fr. John is not nearly as smart as me, but I am fatter than him!" The youngsters looked shocked. He gave them a big smile and they laughed. He said "It depends on what you mean by "equality". We are all equal in our human dignity, but some people are beautiful like me and some are pasty white like Fr. John! The students looked a little shocked. He said "Now is that not ridiculous?" I said...
Indulgences in the Catholic Church. As a Convert from Methodism I found "indulgences" to be a difficult idea to grasp. But a very simple, older Priest who is now deceased, gave me a simple but clear understanding. It's been enough for me for 45 years now. An indulgence is a form of love, not from us to God, but from God to us. Or it can be a form of love from people who truly care about us to us. I imagine purgatory not as a "place" somewhere in the universe with material objects and material torture, but as the experience of sometimes painful letting go of things that we have no business owning, like resentment, gossip, selfishness, an addiction to something spiritually, mentally or physically unhealthy. It is a realization of exactly who we are and the pain and suffering that we have inflicted on ourselves trying to cling to sin and the pain and suffering that we have inflicted on others because of our self-will. Jesus looks us deeply into our soul and says ho...