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(Grant Whitty/Unsplash)
By Regis Martin, Crisis Magazine, October 12, 2025
Regis Martin, S.T.D., is a professor of theology and a faculty associate with the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. He podcasts at In Search Of The Still Point and is the author of Looking for Lazarus: A Preview of the Resurrection. His most recent book, published by Sophia Institute Press, is March to Martyrdom: Seven Letters on Sanctity from St. Ignatius of Antioch.
We tend to gallop through the Sacred Mysteries, forgetting the silence meant to gather the broken pieces of our lives before God. True stillness prepares the soul for mercy.
In talking to a pious young priest the other day, one who strives for punctilio in keeping all the rubrics in place while saying Mass, I asked about the length of the pause he observes before beginning the Penitential Rite. I was curious to know why he doesn’t stretch it out a bit, allowing the rest of us more time in order actually to call to mind our sins as Mother Church enjoins us to do. Do we really want to shorten the drama of self-examination to a nanosecond?
The point is, some of us have got rather more than just a few sins to recollect before making a public admission of our wickedness. Before expressly telling God, that is, how greatly we have sinned, repeatedly striking our breasts for all that we’ve done or failed to do, mightn’t a little more time be spent working up a list of our iniquities? Otherwise, we risk entering the Sacred Mysteries in an ill-prepared state. ….
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