Absolution

I love Confession! Or the Sacrament of Reconciliation, or Penance, or whatever you want to call it. Be it a psychological or transcendental thrill, nothing beats that feeling of being clean (even if, as is the case, you feel slightly grungy and sweaty), of being at peace with God.

I leave open the possibility of a mere psychological thrill, though I am a completely convinced Catholic, simply because it could be just that. God works through physical signs and sacraments not because He can't do better, but because He made material reality fundamentally good, and because we are material creatures and we are most easily touched through it. So the thrill may just be the psychological result of believe in an unseen God and a cleansing personal guilt... but if so then that's a side-effect of scrubbing off the black mark of sin that I'm willing to keep.

Not that the thrill's always there. The absolution is, but I don't always get that rush of weak-kneed awe when I leave confession. Sometimes it's just more of a "been there, done it, I'm clean... now what?"

There's no "now what?" this time around. 'Tis too difficult when you're simply bubbling with joy.