A Sunday Thought About Staying in Shape This Summer

Many of us shape up during the summer. The weather permits more outdoor activity. Maybe we want to look better - usually slimmer - because our bodies are more on display when we wear summer clothes, and those pounds we might have gained during the cold winter months have to go.

If you've gotten or are getting in shape this summer, consider using the same sort of discipline that drove you to get in physical shape to get into spiritual shape. The best way for us Catholics to get into spiritual shape is regular Confession. If you haven't been for a while, go now. If you're slacking off during the summer for some reason, get back to your Confession "work-outs" pronto.

Father Alfred Wilson, C.P., in his Pardon and Peace published in 1946 gives us the benefits of regular Confession:

1. It deletes sin. The Sacrament has special efficacy. 2. It remits the temporal punishment due to sin, and does this more effectively than ordinary acts of virtue because of Sacramental efficiency. 3. It heals the soul from the evil effects of sin. 4. It has an incomparable power of restoring peace of soul. Making a clean breast of things gives us the maximum relief of mind and powerfully restores our resolution. 5. It gains us a right to actual graces for future combats and supernaturally strengthens our purpose of amendment. 6. It is a powerful moral and educational force, which fosters self-knowledge and self-control, gives insight into human nature, and makes us more sympathetic and understanding and therefore more helpful to our fellow-men. 7. Confession to a fellow-man helps to knock the conceit out of us and nullifies a grave danger to personality and salvation. 8. It enables us to get useful advice and surer guidance. 9 It increases sanctifying grace and the fervor of charity. These reasons have been summed up admirable by Pope Pius XII in his encyclical on The Mystical Body of Christ. “To hasten daily progress along the path of virtue, we wish the pious practice of frequent confession to be earnestly advocate. Not without the inspiration of the Holy Spirit was this practice introduced into the Church. By it genuine self-knowledge is increased. Christian humility grows, bad habits are corrected, spiritual neglect and tepidity are countered, the conscience is purified, the will strengthened, a salutary self-control is attained, and grace is increase in virtue of the Sacrament itself.”

 It's time to get in spiritual shape. As the famous Nike commercial urges us: "Just do it!"