Advent confessions 'marathon' to be held at Mexico City cathedral

Mexico City, Mexico, Dec 6, 2018 / 12:00 am (CNA).- The Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico City will host on Dec. 7 a “Day of Forgiveness,” in which for 10 consecutive hours priests will hear confessions.

“Four years ago the priests serving the Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico proposed holding a day of confessions during the major liturgical seasons, Lent to prepare for Easter and Advent to celebrate Christmas.” Fr. Hugo Valdemar Romero, a canon penitentiary of the Archdiocese of Mexico City, told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language sister agency.

From the first occasion, the Mexican priest recalled, this confession marathon “has had great success, both for the participation of priests to hear confessions and the participation of the People of God, who came in huge numbers.”

In confession, he emphasized, the faithful find “the consolation and forgiveness of God.”

“It’s wonderful to see how the grace of God touches and transforms even the hardest hearts,” he said, such as those “people who have been away from the Church for years and been deprived of grace, who have found during these days the opportunity to return to God and the community of believers.”

Romero noted that “although it’s true that Advent, unlike Lent, is not a properly penitential time, the Word of God does in fact make a pressing call to us to conversion as the best way to prepare our hearts for the coming of the Lord. “

“It’s like making a thorough cleansing of our souls so that when Jesus is born he feels at home in our hearts and so we can also live that intimate joy that doesn’t throw a noisy and consumerist party that so many have turned Christmas into, but that intimacy of the heart to which Jesus comes to fill with peace, sweetness, joy and love,” he said.

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.