I once read somewhere that Jesus told us to take a “no prisoners approach” to sin. And though it may sound strange, I don’t how much clearer this could be after reading today’s Gospel.

This is why, in one of the most graphic and strongest ways possible, Jesus calls us to not just account for our sin, but to do everything in our power to root it out, to cut off our hands, our foot, or to pluck out our eyes.

Granted, He does not mean it literally, but to do everything in our power to fight against it, to realize that, indeed, we are engaged in a spiritual battle, with an enemy who does not play fair, who does not play by the rules, and one who will find any way to cause us to fail, any way to lead us away from God, and not just lead us away temporarily, but eternally, where as Jesus puts it: “their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.”

Because, whether we believe it or not, our souls are a spiritual commodity, and while God wants to see each and every one of ours with Him again, we have the choice as to whether or not that will happen.

This is why Jesus is so clear and so serious, because, despite what we think, despite what we believe, just as there is a Heaven there is also a Gehenna. Now, Gehenna was actually a place that was outside of Jerusalem and earned an evil reputation because it was there where children were sacrificed by fire, so as a result, it became a place that became equated with what we call Hell.

Now, usually, when someone would get up here and preach on the reality of hell, it would be known as preaching “fire and brimstone.” That is not my purpose; in fact, it was only when, I, myself was abruptly reminded of this reality that I came to discover my vocation to the priesthood.

Years ago, during the course of my discernment I left the seminary. However, in speaking to a priest, he recommended I visit and discern with a group of Franciscan monks. When I got there they were about to pray, so they gave me a prayer book and had me join in. I looked around and thought, these people are holy, this place is holy, and my next thought was I shouldn’t be there. So, I decided to go to confession.

I spoke to one of the monks and almost out of a movie; he took me down a few cold dark hallways up a few cold dark stairs until we arrived opposite the library. He knocked on the door and left. On the other side, I heard a strong, gruff, voice tell me to come in. I walked in and I saw an old frail monk, hunched over his desk reading. I told him I needed to go to confession.

He told me to kneel beside him and to confess, which I did. I remember how struck I was by the fact that he kept calling me “child” but even more, how the sins I confessed seemed like they hurt him as well. I don’t remember ever experiencing such deep compassion in the confessional.

When I was done, he did something no other priest had ever done before, he must have realized that I was not fully sorry for my sins, so he refused to give me absolution. I was a little shocked but even more so when he told me my Penance, it was to read a chapter from a book by a saint. The book was called Preparation for Death and it was by St. Alphonsus Ligouri. The chapter was on the Abuses of grace.

If you have ever read Ligouri you know he is not one to mince words, so when I found myself in the library, reading this chapter, I remember looking up and saying to myself, in all seriousness: “I am going to Hell.” Yet, that was exactly what I needed to change my life.

It took me a few days before I went back to him, but when I did I was different and I was truly sorry. He made me do a general confession, which was a confession of everything I had ever done in my life, so that, as he put it, if I were to die tomorrow I would go immediately to Heaven. When the confession was done, he looked at me and said: “Child, your sins are forgiven,” and then he told me I never have to confess them again.

After I left him, I went into the chapel and spent hours there, in tears, in prayer, in thanksgiving and with a renewed sense of the love and mercy that God truly has for me. In fact, a few days later I had gone to their other house in Connecticut, and there, in a very real and very clear way, had come to realize that I was being called to be a priest. And, it all began, with a good confession. 

Sin, by its very nature separates, it confuses, it causes our souls to be in turmoil. This is what Jesus makes clear in our Gospel because He wants us to understand the intensity of the battle that is, indeed, daily waged upon our souls.

He speaks with such graphic detail, not to scare us but to motivate us, to call us to take our spiritual lives seriously, to work towards holiness, to fight for holiness, despite the cost. This is why, all of us, myself included, should recognize the value of each of our souls, to take care of them, and, indeed, give them what they need.

And, the best way to do so is right back there, because though it is probably one of the most powerful sacraments, it is also the most neglected. Yet, it is a sacrament that, I am convinced, literally, saved me and my vocation.

God has given us this beautiful sacrament, a sacrament that reconciles us back to Him and to our neighbor. By it, we do more than just confess our sins, we are restored in the life of grace; we are made anew in Christ. In fact, many saints would call confession a second Baptism, because they recognized that, by it, we are once again filled with the Holy Spirit and are freed of sin once more.

Therefore, let us make use of this sacrament as often as we can, knowing, in the end, that the battle for holiness is lost or won on the fields of our souls and so, in the words of the early Church Father, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, with whom I leave you with today: “Wrestle for thine own soul, especially in such days as these.”