Ticket to hell

"The proud, heaven rejects. The humble, hell rejects".

That is the phrase that Father wanted me to repeat during my confession. I am proud (see lah!) to say that my pride is the root of all my sins: from blaming others and God when things are not going my way to having a huge inflated head and completely forget about God when things are going great. I am impatient, temperamental, and can be quite rude to colleagues and family too. Sigh.. 

Knowing and realising that it is a problem is a step towards the light but I am always having the problem to change. Sigh.. I think it was very obvious that I am a very proud person and Father spent the whole time to advice me to be humble and not so much about me skipping masses occasionally and not having sufficient time for prayers.

Some of the words he said perfectly described my state of mind: feeling angry for not being promoted because I thought I had done a lot, getting scolded for trying to do the right thing, and it is very difficult for a clever person to be humble. With the level of pride I have, it is obvious that I am nowhere near to heaven. After all, the cause of Lucifer's downfall is pride.

You realise how sinful you are when you are fearful to go to confession. It is not easy to confront yourself and admit your failures in front of a stranger, even if that stranger is a minister of God on this earth. Although I was so excited yesterday when I heard about penitential service today, I got very discouraged when I realised skipping mass is even considered a mortal sin. Gosh... I am so glad and thankful that in the end I went and I had a good and meaningful confession today. 10x Our Father and 1x I Believe are too light for penance as compared to the gravity of my pride. Every morning I pray for patience and to be able to be God's blessings to the people I meet but every day without fail, I will explode just after 1 rude encounter. Not to mention how I fail daily in setting aside quiet time for prayer..