October 26, 2025: Humility, Confession, & Self-Sacrifice
Dear Parishioners of Our Lady of Divine Providence,
The Scripture readings for this weekend remind us of the relationship between self-forgetfulness (aka, humility) and the accomplishment of the highest goals. The “self” is the part of us that seeks validation, comfort, and gratification. Listening to it will keep us stuck, or spiritually complacent and stagnant. Psychologists tell us that without accepting and processing negative emotion for what it is, we cannot achieve our goals. This is why many people fail to follow through on their New Year’s resolutions and the like. As an aside, if you want to get better at successfully completing your goals, learning the WOOP method might help, which incorporates negative emotion into the success process.
St. Augustine said, “The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.” That is why the Mass begins with a confession of sin, and why we should all frequent the sacrament of confession, so that we can avoid the attitude of the Pharisee and instead go home justified like the penitent in our Gospel story. That story illustrates the best science of how the mind works to accomplish goals. If we are not aware of our sinfulness, it means that our aim is not high enough and we are not humble enough (cf. 1st John 1:8-10), but if we recognize and confess our faults, there is no limit to God’s forgiveness and the success that we can accomplish.
This lesson is very relevant to our situation today. If we want to build a thriving parish community, we need to begin by acknowledging our problems, and then humbly embrace the sacrifices required of us. We cannot work towards the best outcome for the most people for the longest possible future term by focusing on ourselves, and what would make us feel comfortable, deferring work and pain. Instead, we need to start thinking about how, right now, we can make sacrifices that will produce the most fruit in the future. This question is really the same as God’s call to Abraham to enter an adventure for his life, and the same call that we can embrace as part of our pastoral planning process. If we stop thinking about ourselves, and instead embrace voluntary self-sacrifice, we will produce life and abundance.
I recognize that staff transparency and staff organization are still not where they need to be, and I continue to work to improve that. Most of us are now familiar with the financial hurdles and the facilities issues that some of our campuses are facing. I am confident that if we act with faith, like Abraham, we will begin to live an adventure characterized by voluntary self-sacrifice and confession of our sins. We can address these issues and become better, stronger, and more united because of them.
Continuing our practice of consecrating ourselves to Jesus through Mary, we look forward to celebrating together as a family on November 19th, the feast of Our Lady of Divine Providence. Remembering that October is a month dedicated to the honor of Mary, let us renew our devotion to her, as followers and siblings of Her Son, and as her children. She will guide and inspire us and fill us with her radiant hope.
Yours in Christ,
Fr. Henry Hoffmann
