It’s common for Catholics to hear the question, “Why do I have to go to a priest to have my sins forgiven?” I’ve never liked that question because not only is it clunky (confession is the ordinary way for the pardoning of serious sins, not lesser ones). But it misses the larger context: the wonderful origins of the sacrament itself. And this context is deeply Jewish.

When I was a young boy, my parents told me about their wedding. Then a few years later, they showed me my mother’s wedding dress and my dad’s suit. It was astonishing to see and touch garments that connected me to the event that led to my existence. Of course, I already believed they were married based on their word. But these holy garments made the event real and tangible for me.

Consider how useless it is to spread your clothes on the ground for a donkey to walk on. The clothes get smeared with hooves, and who knows the grimy places where they’ve been? The animal may leave some unsavory presents on them. They may get stolen by a thief looking to make a buck. The thorns, thistles, rocks and muck of the road will leave stains. The clothes may never be useful again, and you’ll probably walk home shivering without your normal covering. Yet this is precisely the gesture the people employ to welcome Jesus and his donkey. Why does this detail matter?

“The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the middle” (John 8:3). Why do they make her stand in the middle? Why not expose her on the periphery? The reason is something that affects us practically every day.

The center is what stabilizes a community’s identity. We humans tend to center ourselves around an accused and condemned victim — though we rarely admit it. This renews our fragile communities and our power as those who weaponize the accusation. This is effective because it is often a victim who represents something truly dangerous for the group.

A man looking a bit downtrodden approached me as I filled my car’s gas tank. He asked, “May I share with you my testimony about how good God is?” “OK,” I skeptically answered. He went on to tell me that he had been an alcoholic and drug addict, and that God had healed him; now he was four years sober. He said, “I didn’t deserve it, but now I’m a different person. God is so good! Have a terrific Tuesday!” A few minutes later, as I drove away, I saw him smiling and handing a homeless person some money. I was confronted with a choice: either he was a total fraud or God had changed him. Something had happened to him, and it didn’t seem fake. Maybe it was God.

My childhood best friend was Xander Price. He was the fastest runner in school, an excellent baseball player and Jewish. Though his family wasn’t intensely religious, I felt totally at home with them despite our religious differences. Everything about their Judaism seemed to undergird and strengthen my own experience of being a Catholic. I knew they didn’t believe in Jesus like my family did, but I intuited somehow that Jesus was “hiding” in their religion. Like a cat moving under a blanket, ready to emerge at any moment, the Lord was hidden there in a special way.

St. Thomas Aquinas said that friends share three things: time, possessions and secrets. For example, how do I know if you're my friend? Well, let's say we've been to Mexico together, you've tried my shaky attempts at pasta carbonara, and you know what ridiculous costume I wore in a music video I filmed in my early twenties. We, dear reader, are definitely friends. We've shared time, possessions and secrets.

One of the most fascinating moments in American history is when George Washington could have become the king of the newly liberated United States and didn’t. At the height of his power and fame, on Dec. 23, 1783, he resigned his commission as Commander-in-Chief, and went home. The astonished King of England remarked that in doing so, Washington was “the greatest man in the world.” Greatness is often defined by what we could do but don’t. Greatness is measured by the temptations we overcome.

One of the things that older pastors and younger priests occasionally quarrel about is the proper balance between work and prayer. I know one pastor who complains that his younger associate ignores the people and the parish because he wants to spend more time in prayer. And the young priest complains that the pastor gives him too much work to do and no time to pray. The Lord’s words this Sunday speak into this tension with an image that can help us find a proper balance between life and prayer.

One of my favorite new singers/songwriters is Noah Kahan. I’m a little biased because, like me, he is originally from Vermont. In a fine song entitled “Stick Season,” he sings of his hope to “cancel out the darkness I inherited from dad.” This lyric articulates his painful recognition of a dark spiritual “inheritance” from his father, and his hope to be free of it. We all inherit some degree of evil from our earthly forebears. It’s easy to feel doomed to repeat their darknesses.

I craved four things as a teenager: success in sports, food, fun and the attention of popular people. However, I noticed that as I acquired them, I was more unsatisfied than before. So, I’d strive even more energetically, achieve more, and the sense of emptiness was greater still. These four things started to feel like burdens or even curses. Soon after, I encountered Christ in my high school youth group. Experiencing his love was totally different than anything those four things previously produced. It produced a lasting happiness.

My parents’ garage is full of old junk that no longer serves any purpose in my life. As a 46-year-old man, I admit that’s pretty lame. Either due to my sentimentality or laziness (or both, probably), I just couldn’t get myself to throw things away. But a few days ago, by a grace of God, I thought: “I’ll hire my nephew Ryan to throw a bunch of my stuff away — he couldn’t care less about my junk!” And you know what? It worked. In one day, Ryan chucked the majority of his uncle’s useless stuff. I feel so free, ready for a new junk-free chapter in my life.

What is the secret to sharing in God’s power to overcome our difficulties? Mary teaches us this in the prophecy of her pierced heart. This Sunday, the old man Simeon, prophecies that when her son faces opposition, Mary’s soul will be pierced by a sword. The seemingly pointless agony of a mother helplessly watching her son be mocked, tortured, killed and then cruelly desecrated in death by a spear — somehow this piercing of her heart releases a power by which “the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:35). What to make of this?