As we gather together today we are invited as the people of God who come in need of God's healing. The integrity of God's creation has been broken by sin. Fr. Benedict Groesche often uses the analogy of the destruction and regeneration of Mt. St. Helens the volcanic eruption in Washington State back in the 1980s.

Our focus in week three of Renew is to continue to develop our relationship with Jesus as a personal friend and healer who seeks to restore all that is broken, mis-focused, and out of harmony with the plan of God. As one good sister said to her third graders on a Friday afternoon during Lent - "Boys and girls look up at the crucifix and say thank you to God for doing that for me." If you were the only one who committed one sin Jesus died on the cross to be your savior.

A true commitment to God. A living out of our Baptismal relationship can bring us into conflict with the attitudes and the laws of a pluralistic society. But if we are to live as Christians we have responsibility to make choices as difficult as they may be. And we are challenged today to reflect on the kinds of choices: To whom do we pay tribute by our time, energy, and resources? Who are the real masters in our lives?

We are challenged not only to make correct choices but to admit and to repair in so far as possible the damage done by our unhealthy choices. Jesus gave us this sacrament for expressing our accountability in what we have commonly called confession. But the name reconciliation suggests there is something much deeper. It's not just unburdening the secret/shame. It's the grace of healing and regeneration or reconciliation that God effects.

Further we have access to God's reunifying grace in Communion or Eucharist, access to unique and intimate sharing of God's very own – "I Amness." Faith in this Divine sharing can never be separated from our experience of the Body of Christ in community. Wherever two or three are gathered in His Name, and in the Eucharist, where we share our most intimate communion, we experience the living healing presence of Jesus.