This Lenten Season: Part III--Confessing the Essential Vice

One week left of Lent. Easter is on the horizon, which for me means Confirmation into the Catholic Church, participating fully in the Eucharist for the first time, preparing to say goodbye to my parents and sisters, and hopefully seeing all the darkness of the past 40 days suddenly flee before the echoing dawn of Christ's resurrection. But first, this one more week. This week for me began with participating in the sacrament of Reconciliation for the first time. Most people erroneously refer to this experience as "Confession".

Not that there weren't confessions involved, but to call the whole experience confession would be like calling the construction of a house "drafting". I found that confession is only the preparatory phase of Reconciliation. But now I'm getting distracted from what I really wanted to write.

Confession--in preparation for Reconciliation--turned out to be more difficult than I expected. I have always been under the impression that the greatest accuser of me is me. It turns out, when I try to call myself out for the sinner I am, I am a lot more lenient on myself than I thought I would be, and infinitely more lenient on myself than I am on the faults of others. C.S. Lewis (or, St. Clive, as some have called him)referred to this as "The Essential Vice", the root from which all other individual faults derive: Pride, and not a justifiable pride that could be described as satisfaction with the good results of one's work. No, this is the sort of Pride which is constantly in a state of war against anyone or any thing that may have more glory than itself. This is conceit on a competitive level, never content unless it is--not *has*, but *is*--the most. Most important, most honor-worthy, most beautiful, most to be feared or respected, most listened to, most agreed with, etc. This is Eustace's dragon-skin, glorious and magnificent and forever only external, though impossible to strip yourself of, rendering you both great and pathetic in the eyes of all. This Pride is the inability to keep good humor when insulted, snubbed, or mocked. This Pride is what I came to terms with in myself as there, confessing for the first time that I was starting to implode with the weight of my self-confidence that was not supported inwardly by Christ, I had ceased to acknowledge that a loving God had always been hearing my prayers. A heart that looks down on everything and everyone around it cannot see what is infinitely and immeasurably above it.