Letter from a sinner to a priest

Dear Father Priest yesterday, after years of being away from the Church, I tried to come to you to confirm and seek the forgiveness of God, you who are his minister. But my heart is made sad by your unexpected response "I cannot absolve your sins according to the dogmas of the Church". That answer was the worst thing that could have happened to me, I did not expect the final sentence, but after the confession on foot I went home and thought about many things.

I thought when I came to Mass and you read the parable of the prodigal son saying that God as a good Father awaits the conversion of each of his children.

I was thinking of the sermon you made on the lost sheep that is celebrated in heaven for a converted sinner and not for ninety-nine righteous.

I thought of all the beautiful words you said about the mercy of God when you peed the passage of the Gospel that described the adulterous woman's failure to stoned following the words of Jesus.

Dear priest, you fill your mouth with your theological knowledge and make beautiful sermons on the pulpit of the Church and then come and tell me that my life is contrary to what the Church says. But you must know that I do not live in the canonical houses or in the protected buildings but sometimes life in the jungle of the world takes low blows and therefore we are forced to defend ourselves and do what we can.

Many of my attitudes or say better than ours that we are called "sinners" is due to a series of things that happened in life that hurt us and now here we are asking you for the forgiveness and mercy that you preach, the forgiveness that Jesus wants to give me but what you say against the laws.

I came out of your Church, dear priest, after your failure to acquittal and all sad, discouraged, in tears I walked for hours and I found myself after a few kilometers of walking in a shop of religious articles. My intent was not to buy but to go in search of some religious image to talk to, since I came out of your church with the weight of the sentence.

My gaze was captured by a Crucifix who had one nailed hand and one lowered. Without knowing anything I prayed near that Crucifix and peace returned to me. I understood that I could share that Jesus loved me and that I had to go on along the way until I reached perfect communion with the Church.

While I was thinking about all this, a salesman comes up to me and says “good man, are you interested in purchasing this Crucifix? It is a rare piece that is not easily found. " Then I asked for explanations on the particularity of that image and the shop assistant replied “see the Jesus on the Cross has a hand detached from the nail. It is said that there was a sinner who never received absolution from the priest and therefore a penitent in tears near the Crucifix was Jesus himself to take his hand from the nail and absolve that sinner ".

After all this I understood that it was no coincidence that I was close to that Crucifix but Jesus had listened to my cry of desperation and wanted to make up for the lack of that minister of his.

CONCLUSION
Dear priests, I have nothing to teach you but to you when a faithful who has committed something wrong approaches you, try not to listen to his words but to understand his heart. It is true that Jesus gave us moral laws to be respected but in the flip side of the coin Jesus himself preached infinite forgiveness and died the Cross for sin. Be ministers of Jesus who forgives and not judges of laws.

Written by Paolo Tescione