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When people ask me why they need to go to see a priest in confession instead of going “directly to God,” I remind them that they already believe that you can’t “go directly to God” when it comes to another sacrament: baptism.Protestants believe that someone else (ideally, a Church minister) has to baptize you—you can’t baptize yourself. Protestants who believe that baptism saves us from sin consequently believe that we need the involvement of a minister …

The Christian response to sin is always necessary, but it need not be dire. For even before we turn back to God, he draws near to us, the sinner. And, if we allow him, God can use even our failings and faults to his glory and for our good. Romans 8:28 says that “all things work for good for those who love God,” and St. Thomas says this includes even our sins, for “God makes all things work together for their good to the extent that if they deviate and stray from …

People living in deep sin are not always the ones who are most in need of our help, but rather the people who think they’re doing well, when in actuality the opposite is true. Before my conversion to Catholicism, I was that person—outwardly functioning but spiritually sick. I considered myself to be a “good person.” I opened doors for strangers, volunteered, gave blood, recycled bottles and cans, and limited my consumption of plastic goods. I once drove all over town in …

  Having a proper understanding of joy is imperative to becoming a saint.   Joy is the arousal of some sense of good. When we malign and obscure good, we malign and obscure joy. St. Gregory the Great tells us, for example, that (a false) joy may result from another’s misfortune (CCC 2539). The unrighteous presence of envy, in this case, corrupts true joy. There’s a better means of obtaining the joy that comes from the Spirit, and a study of the life of St. Philip Neri rev …