A Man’s “Ponderous Chain”…and how to be unshackled.

Charles Dickens was a master story teller and had great insights to the plights of men.  In Dickensen’s Christmas Carol, Scrooge is confronted by his old partner, Marley, who is 7 years dead.  Marley is living in eternal Hell of his own making, drawn, harried, muted and dragging around a 1000 pound chain.  Here, we see Scrooge played with scroogeness by George C. Scott.

Each man alive has the burden of chain-making due to Original Sin.  Many men are high production blacksmiths, toiling on our chains every day.

Each of us, make a link or two (or ten or a hundred) a day.  We just can’t help it.  We are sinful beings who are constantly tempted by Satan, often giving in.  The vast majority of men ignore the chain they bear, like Marley and Scrooge.

Some realize the effects of their personal “Ponderous Chain” by the desperation and compulsions that consume them in their lives, the simmering anger and resentment men hold and the feeling of being “dead” inside.  Some are strangled to the point that they simply continue on in an intoxicated state (with the intoxicants of preference, be it alcohol, drugs, sex, rock and roll, commerce, thrill seeking, etc.); others kill themselves more quickly.

75% of Catholic men don’t go to Confession in a given year, some 35% never go to Confession.  Despite the fact that 60-70% of Catholic men view pornography on a monthly basis, only about 6 percent of Catholics go to Confession during any given month.

What does that mean?  Perhaps the majority of Catholic men are forging an increasingly Ponderous Chain, a mortally lethal chain. What is your Ponderous Chain?  What can you do about it?

Jesus Christ knows about the Ponderous Chain of Sin and what to do about it.  This why He gave us Confession.  In Confession, Christ removes the Ponderous Chain and frees man.

Tom Peterson, a new friend over at Catholics Come Home offers this video for men to understand the impact of their Ponderous Chain (in this case, a sack of granite) and how Confession frees the man.

Catholic men:  Battle the Devil.  Thwart the manipulations of the Evil One.  Don’t be a sucker, allowing darkness to win you over.  Fight.  Go to Confession.  Christ will remove the shackles and strengthen you to resist evil. Be a man and fight.