Humility | Holy Smack

That’s right… even the Joker is serious about the Sacrament of Confession and Reconciliation! Have a listen to his conversion story!

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Here’s the transcript:

Hi…

Most of you know me as the Joker. When Evan heard about my conversion, he contacted me and asked I could share my experience on Holy Smack. I said, I’d love to, but only if I could say whatever I wanted. He said okay. So here goes…

Last time you saw me, I wasn’t in a really good mood.
I killed people.
For fun.
I almost destroyed Gotham.
For fun.
And I tore down Gotham’s White Knight.
But her Dark Knight… oh, that Bat Man flipped my life around.
You see, while I was in prison, I was kept in isolation, and for good reason. I was insane.
And I never had any visitors. Except for one man.
He was a Catholic priest.
And he told me something I’ll never forget. In fact, I’m gonna tell you what he said, and I hope you’ll never forget it either:

You see, in confession, all your sins just… disappear.
You go into the confessional, and there’s the priest. Just sittin there. You can be anonymous to him, and he doesn’t care. You can tell him anything, even everything, and he doesn’t care. You think you’re sins are special? Original? Yeah… right… there was only one original sin, and Adam and Eve beat you to it long time ago…

Anyway, the priest can’t tell other people what you confess. What’s spoken in confession, really does stay ONLY in confession. He can’t tell your friends (if you have any), he can’t tell the police (yup, separation of Church and State at its best and original form), he can’t tell a recording device, he can’t tell another priest (not even the Pope!), and he can’t tell even your own sweet mother…

That’s called the seal of the confessional. And whatever you confess stays between you and Jesus. In fact, most priests even forget your sins as soon as you walk out the door. The Holy Spirit gives them a holy amnesia, otherwise, can you imagine living life knowing all the sleaze people do? It’d drive you crazy! Not to mention that confession can even get boring after you hear the same sin for the thousandth time… but don’t go out and try to impress a priest now! Trust me, that’s beside the point.

But in confession, you’re in hand to hand combat with the devil. Satan is a fiend. Worse than what I ever was. And he doesn’t want you there. He doesn’t want you anywhere near confession, because in confession, you’re really near the Lord. Confession is actually more powerful than exorcism! And in confession, you’re humbling yourself, and the devil is one prideful, stuck up jerk. And in confession, he’s hiding in the shadows of your past.

And the closer you get to Jesus, digging up your history of sins (and it might me from 5 years back, 20 years back, or maybe even just 20 minutes back), the stronger the light breaks in. Oh man… that light burns, like 10,000 UVA and UVB. And it obliterates the shadows. That’s when you can see the worst sins trying to get away from confession — they want to hide from being exposed. They first try to convince you that they’re no big deal, small fry, no more sins here, just move on. But keep going after them, and they get nasty. Then they try to convince you they’re too big for forgiveness, way too big to be rid of, way too much and you can’t handle it… you’ll be so embarassed by them.

Don’t listen to those lies. In fact, that’s when you know for sure this festering thing has to be purged. So grab it, and it’s black greasy tentacles will freak out. Like some leprous octopus. So drag it out into the light, spit it out in confession, and it’ll scream: “Let me go! Jesus can’t forgive you! You’re disgusting! Leave me alone!”

But that’s it’s last words. Because Lumen Christi — the light of Christ, that’s right, I know my Latin — His light sears and cuts that demon down, and it fizzles off like a fart in the wind. Nothing left. Just… gone.

That’s the power of the priest’s absolution: Christ working through the obedient and docile man, so he can pluck off and chop up the leeches that sucked on your soul. If you need to know how ugly sin is, just look up images of leeches and lampreys and pelican eels, and remember that sin is even uglier.

And now, why am I telling you this? Well because it worked for me.

I went to confession. And I confessed a sin that was festering in me since I was a little 10 year old boy. No matter how much a tried to stop, I just couldn’t keep clean. It haunted me, perverted me, and I lost control of my childhood. I was addicted; I became evil. But I didn’t want to stay this way.

So thank God. Because after that confession, that sin no longer had any control over me, and today, I’m free. Even in prison, my soul is free. I feel stronger and better today than I can ever remember!

And if it can work for me, it can work for you.

Now, all I need to do is try and talk like a normal person again… baby steps… baby steps…

God love you.

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—SPOILER ALERT—

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And by Exodus I mean the film by Ridley Scott (starring Christian Bale as Moses), not the inspired history account of divine intervention by YHWH.

So I was very eager to see this film, and heard both criticism and awe in early reviews. I knew this was another film I had to see for myself. Here’s what I got:

—–1) Eh. For a 140 million dollar budget, I would’ve expected a story at least as engaging as the special effects. By leaving so much out (since nobody can cover Exodus entirely on film), what was left wasn’t portrayed creatively enough. I could sense myself actually getting bored during the movie! Everything felt too rushed. My eyes were in for a treat, but my soul was not impressed.

—–2) The soundtrack is forgettable. I don’t remember a single moment where I went: I gotta hunt this score down and put it on repeat ASAP!

—–3) Things missing include: Moses’ real mother, the pillar of fire, the staff’s importance, how angry God and Moses get with the golden calf, and that’s only what I can remember…

—–4) But there are good things too about the film: Moses must be humbled before God. The ways humility is taught and represented is interesting. In Moses’ first encounter with God’s messenger, he is stuck in quicksand up to his face. Nothing else is visible but Moses’ eyes, nose, mouth and cheeks: he is literally dirt and mud. And that’s the root word of humble: humus (Latin for earth, soil, etc.).

Being humble means being grounded in reality, close to the soil, because we are dust and will become dust again. We must remember our mortality and finitude, and let God be God. Moses in this film had to learn this, and for good reason since he was a spoiled prince of the ancient superpower called Egypt.

—–5) God’s messenger (aka: angel) is portrayed as a boy. I don’t see anything wrong about this. In fact, probably a good way to teach Moses more humility! A grown warrior prince humbled to obedience to a child who represents the Almighty.

—–6) Perhaps one of the few best parts of this film was the emphasis on marriage and family, especially fatherhood. Moses and his wife, Zipporah, share beautiful vows together, and the respect they show for one another is a good example of marriage. Fatherhood is shown through how Moses cares for his son, and even in how Ramses loves his own.

—–7) Another part well done are the plagues. I enjoyed seeing how the plagues were set up to be more naturalistic, including the parting of the Red Sea. As the audience, we could relate easier to the doubting Egyptians and Pharaoh who brushed aside the calamities and pushed on with their goals and lives. They saw everything as explainable by nature, and we moviegoers could too… until the coincidences got so stretched that it could NOT be mere coincidence anymore: oh… the sea level just happened to lower when the Hebrews needed an escape? Oh… the fact that only Egyptian first born children died during the first Passover? Hmmm… something tells me this was all guided by an intelligence. Wonder who that could be…

—–8) All in all, Exodus: Gods and Kings failed to insult me, and also failed to impress me. I wish it actually did one or the other, because I’m glad I don’t have to write more about this because there ain’t much here other than superficial visuals. Go ahead and watch it, but don’t be surprised if it’s underwhelming. If you’re in a mood for a more intense version, check out the original in the Bible or even the Prince of Egypt, and you’ll wish Hollywood would’ve been more creative. We were promised an epic, but got eh… Wasted opportunity, I think.