July 20, 2025
As our picnic shelter takes shape and commands its existence on our landscape, I keep thinking about Yogi Bear and his love of picnic baskets! It was one of the cartoons I was allowed to watch as a kid, and it was about a bear in the Jellystone Park with his accomplice Boo-Boo, who stole people’s picnic baskets and lied to the Park Ranger and of course concealed his agenda. Boy, I am not sure what I was being taught!!
And then I have been also reminded of a time when at the age of 16, I was a laborer for a brick mason in Norfolk. He was working that summer on a home in Alanton in Va. Beach. I had packed my lunch that day and carefully place my bag on top of a cube of bricks in the garage where it was cooler. When the boss-man asked me if I needed anything from Burger King, I was proud to say that I had my lunch with me. When he returned with his lunch we took a lunch break and I walked into the garage to retrieve my food but only found bits and pieces of a shredded bag. I had seen a Dachshund running around earlier, but the physics of his short stature ensured my lunches safety, or so I thought. His will must have overcome his size!! Little Boo-Boo stole my lunch and didn’t own up to it!
It takes an effort to pack your lunch or prepare a picnic basket and it takes an effort to be a Christian, every day, every hour. Listen to where St. Paul calls our attention today: “Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor the evil, and cleave to the good. Be kindly affectionate with brotherly love toward one another, in honor giving precedence to one another; in zeal, hesitate not; fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, persevering in prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, pursuing hospitality. Keep on blessing those who persecute you; keep on blessing, and not cursing.” [Rom. 12:9-14]
These are some good reflections as we prepare our basket for confession and Holy Communion. And of course we all prepare with the Prayer Rule before Holy Communion found in the Jordanville Prayer Book on page 334. And at the confessional, I want to draw your attention to one of the reflective examples that asks if we have concealed sins at confession. This is not a place to hide sins from our confessor; if we practice concealing sins we are consuming a recipe for our death. This sin is if we have forgotten to confess something at a previous confession, and I did say forgot! His Eminence of Blessed Memory, Holy Hieromartyr Anastasios the Younger wrote: “Do you not see how Judas, after partaking of the Body of the Master unworthily and treacherously, was immediately condemned and gave more room to the Evil One? For, Scripture says: “And when he had taken the sop, Satan at once entered into him” (John 13:27); not because the devil disdained that Bread, but so as to convict the partaker of communing to his own condemnation. For with what conscience, tell me, do you approach the Mysteries? In what state of soul, with what thoughts, having your conscience within you as your accuser? Tell me, if you were carrying dung in your hands, would you dare to touch the king’s robes? And why am I saying this? You would not touch even your own clothes with dirty hands, but you would first wash them and dry them, and then you would touch your clothing. Why, therefore, do you not render to God the honor that you accord to mere clothing? And tell me, what forgiveness will you enjoy? For, it is not entering into the Church of God and venerating the sacred figures on the Holy Icons and the Precious Cross that is pleasing to God; nor is it washing one’s hands in water that constitutes cleansing, but, rather, avoiding and washing away the filth of sins both by confession and by tears, and purging away the stains of sins by means of a humbled soul. Only thus may we approach the Immaculate Mysteries.” [Holy Hieromartyr Anastasios II, Patriarch of Antioch (599-610)]
My childhood cartoon had it wrong; Yogi was not smarter than the average bear because we can’t steal heaven, everything little thing will be revealed! (Ecclesiastes 12:14) We cannot let pride, laziness or embarrassment separate us from the Holy Sacrament of Confession. For it is written: “He who covers his sins will not prosper, But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.” (Prov 28:13)
Fr. Gabriel Weller 7-2-2025
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