Date: April 10, 2014
Journal Standard
By: Jane Lethlean and Chris Green
FREEPORT — Ted and Norma Stamm went to St. Thomas Aquinas Church to confess their sins and get right with God.
They were among Catholics throughout the Diocese of Rockford who answered Bishop David Malloy’s call to return to church for Wednesday’s Day of Reconciliation.
Lent kicks into high gear next week, with Palm Sunday and the Triduum: Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil.
“We came today to prepare for Easter,” Norma said. “Confession offers me stability in my faith and, I guess, to be right with the Lord.”
“It gives me peace of mind,” Ted said. “Confession takes a load off of my shoulders.”
That’s the same analogy the Rev. Ken Anderson used to teach second-graders about the sacrament while he was serving a parish in DeKalb before he became pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas last year.
He’d fill students’ backpacks with rocks to illustrate the heavy weight of sins. Confession, he said, is like emptying those rocks from the backpack, it’s “Jesus’ way of lifting the weight of one’s sins.”
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