Yesterday I was blessed to have some time with my spiritual father for confession. Afterwards I was filled with such happiness that I said to him, "How could anyone dread going to confession when it's such an abundant source of God's love and of sheer joy?" As I was thinking more about this later in the day and thanking God for His wonderful sacrament of mercy, freedom and healing, I remembered a certain passage from Kenneth Grahame's delightful children's classic,
The Wind in the Willows. It's a treasure for children of all ages, and I must dig out my copy and reread it again as it's been a while since I've visited with Mole, Rat and Toad. I feel a road trip coming on -- toot toot!
So what do these characters have to do with confession? Patience, now, you'll see. Little Portly of the Otters, who has a tendency to stray off and get lost, was missing again. He couldn't yet swim very well, which was making the Otters nervous about his well-being. It was night, and Rat and Mole couldn't sleep with Portly on their minds, so they went looking for him. After a fruitless search, day broke, then Rat heard "the thin, clear, happy call of the distant piping," such music he never dreamed of, "and the call in it [was] stronger even than the music is sweet!" Rat urged Mole to row on, telling him that "the music and the call must be for us." Mole rowed steadily, until "that glad piping broke on him like a wave, caught him up, and possessed him utterly....And the light grew steadily stronger, but no birds sang as they were wont to do at the approach of dawn; and but for the heavenly music all was marvellously still." Mole and Rat then arrived at an island, where they moored their boat.
'This is the place of my song-dream, the place the music played to me,' whispered the Rat, as if in a trance. 'Here, in this holy place, here if anywhere, surely we shall find Him!' Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe fall upon him, an awe that turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to the ground. It was no panic terror— indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and happy— but it was an awe that smote and held him and, without seeing, he knew it could only mean that some august Presence was very, very near. With difficulty he turned to look for his friend. and saw him at his side cowed, stricken, and trembling violently. And still there was utter silence in the populous bird-haunted branches around them; and still the light grew and grew.
Perhaps he would never have dared to raise his eyes, but that, though the piping was now hushed, the call and the summons seemed still dominant and imperious. He might not refuse, were Death himself waiting to strike him instantly, once he had looked with mortal eye on things rightly kept hidden. Trembling he obeyed, and raised his humble head; and then, in that utter clearness of the imminent dawn, while Nature, flushed with fulness of incredible colour, seemed to hold her breath for the event, he looked in the very eyes of the Friend and Helper; saw the backward sweep of the curved horns, gleaming in the growing daylight; saw the stern, hooked nose between the kindly eyes that were looking down on them humourously, while the bearded mouth broke into a half-smile at the corners; saw the rippling muscles on the arm that lay across the broad chest, the long supple hand still holding the pan-pipes only just fallen away from the parted lips; saw the splendid curves of the shaggy limbs disposed in majestic ease on the sward; saw, last of all, nestling between his very hooves, sleeping soundly in entire peace and contentment, the little, round, podgy, childish form of the baby otter. All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.
Rat!' he found breath to whisper, shaking. 'Are you afraid?'
'Afraid?' murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love. 'Afraid! Of Him? O, never, never! And yet— and yet— O, Mole, I am afraid!'
Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads and did worship.
Rat and Mole had come upon the great god Pan, and they did the only thing they could possibly do -- they bowed low in humble worship. And yes, Rat was afraid. So am I, in a way, when I go to confession. Oh, no, I am never, never afraid of Him who is my Friend and Helper! And yet, I am afraid -- afraid of "Love so amazing, so divine, /[that] demands my soul, my life, my all." I am afraid because I know how unworthy I am of Him who is all Goodness and Love, I know how fickle and unfaithful I can be, I know how imperfect my contrition and and purpose of amendment are. Still, the clear, happy call is for me, just as it was for Rat and Mole, and I must row on until I come to that holy place where I will surely find Him whom my heart seeks. And when I go to confession, sure enough, He is there, and I am filled with great awe, "wonderfully at peace and happy." Then, "eyes shining with unutterable love," I bow my head and worship Him.
Read the entire chapter, "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn," here.
