Our renewal, our conversion, our turning back to God, is a central part of our Lenten journeys. This Sunday and next we hear the wonderful Gospel episodes of the Prodigal Son and the Woman Taken in Adultery. Each speaks to us of a healing and forgiving encounter with the Lord. I have found them to be two of the most powerful passages in my ministry, capable of transforming people’s lives in themselves.

To express and put into words the Lord’s desire to make us whole, we have the wonderful sacrament of Reconciliation (also known of course as Confession or Penance), which flows from Our Lord’s promise to Peter and the Church that whatever we bind is bound in heaven, whatever we free is freed from heaven.

As announced in recent weeks, the priests of the Cardiff deanery have arranged for local parishes to set aside in a special way 8 – 12 April for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Therefore each weekday there will be Confessions in one of the churches of our deanery in the afternoon 2 – 3pm and the evening 7 – 8pm. At each session there will be a minimum of 2 priests in the afternoon and three in the evening. The places are as in the table below. In some locations there will simply be private confessions, in others there may be a very brief liturgy to help us recollect ourselves, as at St Brigid’s.

This is a very special opportunity. For some it may be quite a time since you celebrated this Sacrament. Is it a long time since you celebrated this Sacrament? Visit aleteia.org/2017/08/12/how-to-go-to-confession-when-you-havent-gone-in-years. Have no anxiety – the priest will be there to help you, and has already heard it all before!