At the NCRegister: Living Mercifully

My latest at the National Catholic Register:

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I was in the confessional, feeling particularly bad about my list of the usual sins, when a priest gave me one simple prayer for a penance. I wanted to say, “But wait, I have been doing the same things over and over and over again. Didn’t you just hear all the things for which I deserve a just punishment?

And then it struck me: This was mercy.