Archbishop Cushley has encouraged Catholics to get to confession as part of preparing for Christmas.

In his homily at today’s Sunday Mass, he said: “(Today) we listen to Isaiah and John the Baptist telling us to wake up, to rekindle our hope and get ready for what’s coming next.

"Valley’s filled in and mountains laid low, cliffs become plains and ridges valleys! In other words, it seems that everything is going to be the opposite of what it is right now - a complete turnaround.

"And how does that happen? Because, Isaiah says (and later John the Baptist), “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all mankind shall see it”.

Get radical

"In other words, when the Lord appears, everything is going to be changed radically. And if he is about to appear soon at Christmas, we need to get radical ourselves as well.

"We need to turn our lives upside down, recognise our sins, change our lives and then we’ll be ready to look the Lord in the face, we’ll be ready to welcome the Lord with a full heart when he comes.

"So let’s take Isaiah and John’s advice to heart: repent, make a good confession and, with the Baptist, wait with renewed hope and humility to greet the Lord at Christmas."

Confession at St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh is on every day from 1.15pm until 2.00pm (weekdays) and from 10.30am-12noon and 5pm-6pm on Saturdays.

Going to confession

If you are nervous about coming to confession either because of what you have on your conscience, or because it has been a long time since your last confession, have no fear; what awaits you in the confessional is the joy and peace of God’s loving mercy and the priest will gently help to discover that.