Welcome to our daily rosary meditation. Let's begin in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen. Let's call to mind all those we've promised to pray for.

Yesterday we meditated on the beauty of the sacrament of reconciliation, but one thing we may struggle with is that

maybe you've had the experience that I have, that we confess the same sins over and over and nothing seems to change.

And it can make us wonder, so why keep going to confession?

What's the use?

So let's deal with this. Let's assume you've confessed all the grave sins you're aware of and you're in the state of grace

then why is it that we can't seem to get over our sins once and for all?

Well there's a good reason and the Catechism explains it to us.

The Catechism tells us that we punish ourselves by our sin in two ways. First, grave sin

deprives us of communion with God and makes us incapable of eternal life.

But, thankfully, by the sacrament of reconciliation, God forgives our sin,

restores our relationship with Him, and removes the eternal punishment of sin.

And he also gives us an increase of his divine life to strengthen us.

But the second way we punish ourselves by our sin

is that every sin, even small sin, creates an unhealthy attachment to things of this world which turns us away from God.

And these unhealthy attachments are what we call vices.

Pride, vane glory, envy, sloth, anger, greed, gluttony, lust, etc. v. restores our relationship with God and increases His grace in our soul, but what confession

does not do is remove the bad habit.

It doesn't remove the vice, And vice is like the roots of the weeds of sin.

And if we don't pull up the roots, the weed will grow back.

If we don't root out the vice, the sin keeps coming back and we have to confess it over and over.

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