Refresh My Soul! Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Lent

I am the light of the world, says the Lord;
whoever follows me will have the light of life.

Brothers and sisters, at the start of Lent, one of the formulaic options for the priest, as he imposes the ashes is:

              Repent, and believe in the Gospel.

This fourth Sunday of Lent, we are offered the same message by St. Paul in his epistle to the Ephesians, deepening the purpose of Lent, to repent for our sins, and draw close to the light of the Gospel, and the kingdom of Our Lord.

Having been ordained less than a year ago, in the past few months I have had the extraordinary privilege to now observe the Catholic faith through the eyes of this sacred office. Through this office I have encountered, as I would not have before, penitents who come to the sacrament of reconciliation, i.e. to confession. I was recently greatly moved by little children confessing their sins. At that moment I was struck by how great our faith is, realizing how from a young age, Catholic children, as in the words of St. Paul today, are taught to:

Try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.
[and to] Take no part in the fruitless works of darkness

What is great is that not only are they taught to distinguish right from wrong, but also to not hide these infractions of the law, but

expose them.

In so accusing themselves of their errant ways before God, they learn to grow in humility so that they may be reconciled with Him and then continue, as St. Paul teaches us today, to:

Live as children of light, 
for light produces every kind of goodness 
and righteousness and truth.

St. Paul goes on to offer us a logic that most South Asians know, that when things that have been in the dark for too long – as happens after the long monsoon rains – are exposed to light, they are purified. And so, St. Paul teaches us:

everything exposed by the light becomes visible, 
for everything that becomes visible is light.

In the sacrament of reconciliation, when we expose our most shameful sins before the priest, these sins are exposed to the light, they are examined together with the priest, and then once absolution is offered, our souls are made clean and new again.

But it is a matter of concern for me, my dear brothers and sisters, that this beautiful sacramental encounter seems to have lost popularity among the Catholic faithful. Rather than become a weekly, or fortnightly, exercise, it has become something we engage in perhaps during the Exposition of the relics of, or novena to, St. Francis Xavier; in Advent, or during Lent.

Brothers and sisters, let me be very clear, the Lenten and Advent confessions that are organized in parishes across Goa while good, are a carryover from the time when people received communion less frequently. It was because communion was received only at Easter and/or Christmas, that the confession marathons were organized; to make sure that everyone was shriven before they received the Most Precious Body and Blood of Our Lord. These practices are not sufficient now that we receive communion every Sunday, at the very minimum.

Listen, my dear brothers and sisters, to the words of St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians (11: 28-29):

Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body [of Our Lord], eat and drink judgment against themselves.

The apostle is clear that we cannot go to communion, without first going to confession. Confession is the gateway, my dear brothers and sisters, to a proper communion. It is confession that allows us to be present at the wedding banquet dressed in the wedding garments (Mt 22: 1-14), without which we shall be bound hand and foot, and thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mt 22:13).

My dear brothers and sisters, Lent is a period of spiritual exercise, a period when we go into high gear for a period of forty days so that we can sustain ourselves for the rest of the year, and go higher the following year. Even if we have been lax this Lent, there is still time, on this Laetare Sunday, to regird our loins, and determine that we will take up the blessed exercises of Holy Mother Church, going for frequent confession, so that come Easter, and eventually at judgement, we may rest comfortably in the warm embrace of our Saviour.

For those who are napping instead of exercising in the faith, I make my own the words of the apostle:

  Awake, O sleeper,
    and arise from the dead,
    and Christ will give you light.

(A version of this homily was first preached to the faithful at the Cathedral parish of St. Catherine of Alexandria on 15 March 2026.)

(Image reference: The Healing of Naaman, anonymous artist of the Mosan school, c. 1150-1160, The British Museum.)