The Sacraments: Seven Sacred Crown Jewels Of Our Faith

No this is not going to be a theological discussion on the sacraments. It is more of a relating of a personal experience this past week. I posted about this experience over at my Blessings For the Day blog. If you haven't read my Friday post, I'll Take You Back, you may want to do that first to give you the basis for what I am going to write about here.
Why post about this on both blogs? Because the close call I talk about in that post can happen to any of us if we are not careful.
The span of time leading to the events of last week was about four months. That's how long it had been since my last confession. Don't worry, I am not going to make a public confession; thankfully those days are a thing of the ancient past. My point here is that Christ knew we would need all the help we could get while on this earth; more specifically, He knew we would need all the grace we could get. He instituted the seven sacraments as a means for obtaining that grace. Two of those sacraments we can receive almost as often as we like, The Holy Eucharist and the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Frequent reception of both of these is an endless fountain of grace if we are properly disposed. I lost sight of this in regard to frequent or at least regular confession. As you will see from my above mentioned post, I was on a slippery slope and the devil was waiting for me at the bottom of it!
If I couldn't see where I was headed, God sure could, and in hindsight I could see He was sending me all kinds of signs which I seemed to ignore or at the very least, put off. Mercifully, He was not going to let me slide back into Satan's slimy clutches without a good fight, and mercifully, I finally listened.
Looking back on all of this, I can learn much from it. I know I certainly don't want to sail into that type of near shipwreck again, and I am ready to begin again and do all that it takes so I don't.
I began this post by talking about the sacraments as the crown jewels of our faith. I think sometimes I allow myself to get lulled and don't see these gifts of channels of grace for all that they are.
In addition to my own experiences this past week, this was also brought to mind by several posts from other bloggers. These too are also worth reading. I will include their links at the end of this post.
Our Lord loves each of us more than we can ever imagine and He has given us all that we need in the sacraments to keep us in His grace. We live in a crazy, busy world and it is easy for any of us to let too much of it get in the way of our living our faith.

Other Good Related Posts
Avoiding Shipwrecks from Secret Harbor
My Friend, Judy's post on my Friday Meme, Touch of Our Savior's Hand. In her post today she talks about her powerful experience of studying the sacraments with her daughter.
Two posts by Abbot Joseph at Word Incarnate: Divine Mercy and the Horror of Sin and
Root Sin

I know I've led you to a lot more reading than just this post, but this is an important topic and all of the related posts are worth the time.