RECONCILIATION: FEBRUARY 2009

By his suffering, death, and resurrection, Jesus reconciled us to God and made possible the forgiveness of our sins and the hope of a human life marked by justice, peace, and unity (Rom 5:1–11; Col 1:19–22; 2 Cor 5:18–19)

Scripture stories on forgiveness:Matt 5:28-30Leave your gift at the altar

Matt 11:28-30An invitation from Jesus to lift burdens

Matt 16:13-20The authority of the church to forgive sins

Matt 18:10-17The Lost Sheep

Matt 18: 21-35Refusal of the debtor to forgive

Mark 2:1-12The Paralytic

Luke 15:11-32The Prodigal Son

John 8: 3-11The Adulterous Woman

BACKGROUND & HISTORY

The sacrament’s origins lie in theearly need to deal with the reality of sinful members in a community called to be holy as sign of God’s saving power in Christ (e.g., Acts 5). Though healing could come through others’ prayer (Jas 5:16), some communities considered prayer inappropriate for certain sinners (1 John 5:14–17). In some cases, disciplinary action was called for, sometimes even shunning the serious sinner in the hope that the sinner would return to the Christian way of life

During the fourth century, the number of sins requiring public reconciliation went up, the harshness of the penances increased, and works of penance were required even after readmission to the Eucharist. People who were guilty of public sins preferred to abstain from the Eucharist until very late in life (when they might reasonably expect clemency from a bishop) because if they relapsed after having been publicly forgiven they were not allowed to seek liturgical reconciliation a second time. Thus the number of people who actually sought public reconciliation went down and the liturgical practice fell into disuse.

However, only serious sinners were required or able to take advantage of this unrepeatable process of rehabilitation. Others continued their conversion in the church in a variety of more informal ways: they sought change through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving; they turned to holy men and women for individual guidance and support; they experienced God’s transforming power and community support in the Eucharist. Though these were less formal and public than the order of penitents, they were still official means of experiencing conversion and reconciliation.

What started out as a means of reunification to people who were alienated from the Church, however, eventually became so legalistic that this practice itself caused alienation from the Church. In the meantime, aquite different practice was developing in monasteries, where novices in the religious life confessed their faults to older monks who were assigned to them as mentors. In fifth-century Ireland, monks carried this practice beyond the monastery walls and made confession available to the recently converted tribes-people in the hope of gradually converting them from their unchristian ways. In contrast to the older practice, this mode of reconciliation was administered by a priest(or even by a layman, for not all monks was priests) rather than by a bishop, it could address hidden sins as well as publicly sinful behavior, and it could be repeated as often as needed

The prominence of the confession of sins (which enabled the confessor to assign appropriate satisfaction) led to the procedure being called “confession” from the 8th and 9th centuries on.

The transition from medieval to modern penance began with Lateran Council iv (1215) which focused on confession and absolution as the means of ecclesiastical forgiveness and required it annually before Easter communion. The obligation bound all who had reached the age of discretion. (The council probably had in mind fourteen, the age for marriage.)Other means of experiencing divine forgiveness thus declined in importance.After the 15th century the modern system of penance was complete: confession and absolution were the dominant symbol of post-baptismal conversion and the only normal form of the sacrament. It operated as the church’s means of disciplining sinners and supporting the repentant, although it was often used in a rather mechanical fashion. The Protestant reformers generally rejected this confession-and-absolution format, often claiming Lateran iv had invented it.

The Council of Trent saw the priest acting like a judge and his absolution as effecting forgiveness . Unaware of the sacrament’s historical development, Trent spoke as if the familiar practice of private confession had existed from the beginning and regarded it as consistent with Christ’s will for the church and required by God for the forgiveness of serious sins. The Rituale Romanum of 1614 provided a simple ritual that minimized prayer and ecclesial elements, highlighted the penitent’s confession of sins and expression of contrition, and climaxed in the priest’s absolution. Private confession thus grew in importance throughout the era of the Counter-Reformation as a mark of loyalty to the church and the means of forgiveness from guilt but also as a means of sanctification (gaining grace). Even when there were no specific sins to be forgiven, devotional confession was a significant act of piety.

From then to the twentieth century, Catholic practice and theology of penance changed very little. Catholics were required by Church law to confess their sins to a priest at least once a year, and they were also required to go to Communion at least once during Easter time, so many Catholics combined these two obligations into what was popularly referred to as the “Easter duty.” An expansion of religious devotion in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries gave some Catholics the desire to receive the Eucharist more frequently—perhaps once a month—which also increased the perceived need for more frequent confession. When Pope Pius X in 1910 said that children should be allowed to make their First Communion as early as the age of seven, they were prepared for the Eucharist by learning how to go to confession. Penance was understood to be necessary for the remission of mortal sins, and it was recommended for the remission of venial sins before going to Communion. One could not enter heaven with a mortal sin on one’s soul, and unconfessed venial sins needed to be cleansed in purgatory.

Through the mid-1960s parish priests regularly heard confessions on Saturday afternoons, and confession lines in churches were a common sight. Then, within a decade, new ideas about sin and forgiveness (and a clearer understanding of many old ideas) led to a drastic decrease in the number of Catholics who regularly went to confession. Scripture scholars pointed out that in the Bible sin is more the breaking of a relationship (with God and with other people) than the breaking of a law. Moral theologians noted that to commit a mortal sin requires a deliberate rejection of God—which most people do not do when they disobey God’s commandments or the Church’s rules. Developmental psychologists suggested that seven-year-olds did not have sufficient self-awareness to commit a mortal sin. And even canon lawyers pointed out that any Catholic who was not in mortal sin could not be refused the Eucharist. As a result, Sunday Communion lines lengthened and Saturday confession lines dwindled.

The legalistic understanding of penance which developed during the Middle Ages and survived into modern times ritually effected reconciliation with God and brought a certain amount of emotional relief from the fear of punishment. Having abandoned a legalistic attitude toward sin, however, many Catholics feel less need for a church ritual to become reconciled with God.

In 1963 Vaticanii called for a reform that would clearly show the social and ecclesial nature and effects of the sacrament. ). Related reforms came first: the discipline of fasting, abstinence, and personal penance

During the pontificate of John Paul ii, efforts have been made to revitalize the sacrament, primarily by emphasizing individual confession. John Paul stresses that both Christ and the penitent have the right to the personal encounter that individual confession makes possible. He has been critical of communal celebrations where there is no individual confession and has downplayed the significance of community celebrations. He has also prohibited postponing first confession until after first communion

CONTEMPORARY THEOLOGY, MINISTRY, AND CELEBRATION

The rationale for the customary treatment of the history of the sacrament in terms of public and private penance lies in the fact that theology and ministry in the ancient period saw individual conversion and forgiveness in relation to the community of the church, while theology and ministry in the medieval and modern periods has centered on the forgiveness of the individual’s sins. As a consequence of the rediscovery in history of “forgotten truths” (Rahner, Th. Inv., 2), contemporary theology seeks to bring individualistic theology and ministry to a more deeply personal character and to resituate it within a broader ecclesial context.

Both penance and forgiveness are personal, but neither is simply individual. Reconciliation, the broader term, gives priority to God’s gracious love which, in Christ, draws sinner-disciples into a lifegiving communion which transforms them into the likeness of Christ and frees them from sin. It thus includes penance or conversion, the human struggle to be transformed, and the forgiveness of sins, liberation from the obstacles to such transformation.

Very different is the case of one who is responsible only for those minor failures that are inevitable in the course of daily life. With contrition, these faults can be overcome by means of prayer, sincere acts of repentance and charity, and the support of the community. Tradition refers to such faults as forgivable or venial sins. They are negative factors in the lives of individuals and the community. But since they do not constitute a posture of turning away from Christ and the church, the believer’s participation in the eucharistic life of the church continues uninterrupted and is a powerfulmeans of inspiring and strengthening repentance(ITC, IV.b.1; John Paul II, 17, 31). (unless otherwise noted, excerpts are from the NEW CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA and DICTIONARY OF CATHOLIC THEOLOGY)

AS A RESULT………..

Name change: Reconciliation, not Penance or Confession, brings out the positive quality

Location:Reconciliation rooms, not “closets”

Ritual:Not emphasized, though the primary elements must still be there (confession of sins, contrition, penance, absolution)

Frequency:Penitential seasons (Advent & Lent) & mortal sin occasions

Penance Services: Centered on communal aspect of Reconciliation

Excerpts from “Confession”(Msgr Vincent Ryan, Living Faith Publication)

It used to be that certain things—like skipping Mass—were mortal sins. Now it seems as if they’re not. What happened? How can I trust what the Church says is sinful if it keeps changing its mind?
You probably taught your young children rules like, “Don’t ever try to cross the street without holding Daddy’s or Mommy’s hand.” That’s the way children learn things. But what you meant was, “Cross safely,’ and you do that as a grownup. Most of us learned moral rules as children, but we didn’t always grow up to understand their points. A habit of skipping Mass does spiritual damage to the person who skips and thus fails to deepen their friendship with God. It also affects the community, which misses out on that person’s participation and gifts. Missing very occasionally with a good reason is a whole different thing and is harmless or perhaps even necessary. Think of the Mass as an important family dinner: You can miss, say, one Thanksgiving with the family if you have a good reason. But just to blow Thanksgiving dinner off again and again and then come back without offering any apology or explanation—well, that’s something else. I’ve heard some people talk about scrupulosity regarding sin. What does that mean?
Priests hearing Confession have been aware for centuries that few of us have a balanced attitude toward ourselves, our humanity and our failings. We either err by letting ourselves off the hook too easily—which is technically called “laxity”—or by holding ourselves overly accountable, often for things that may not even be sinful but just parts of our humanity This is what we call scrupulosity For example, an admiring glance at an attractive person might seem to a scrupulous person to be a sin of lust. Or missing Mass because of illness may leave the person feeling guilty Someone suffering from scrupulosity often feels the need to confess the same thing over and over, fearing that it wasn’t confessed properly the last time. Conditions like obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) can also make us scrupulous. It’s easiest to find the balance point between laxity and scrupulosity by finding a competent priest as a confessor and trusting his guidance. Why can’t I just confess to God directly? Why do I need a priest?
Of course you can confess to God directly, and the Church encourages you to do so regularly. But confessing to a priest is a different human experience. We’re made to connect with others. Hearing “God forgives” from another person is simply more powerful than saying it to yourself. In addition, the priest represents the community that has been hurt by your sin. Just as you’d apologize to someone you had hurt rather than just think about it in your mind, confession to another person is the proper human response to doing damage to others. As Catholics we believe that God works in us through physical, material signs that touch us as embodied beings. The sacramental absolution given by the priest in the name of Christ reflects our belief in how God works most powerfully in us. How does my sin hurt the community if it’s private?
No sin is really private. The Church community is the sign of God’s presence on earth, and so should be holy to help others find God. Every sin weakens our sign of God’s presence and makes it harder for others to become holy. What should I expect from a priest at a good celebration of Reconciliation?
If that’s not what’s happening, how can I change that?
You should expect a priest who is committed to listening to you with respect and attention. And he should expect of you that you’ve done some work to prepare and are willing to join in a brief conversation, not simply to run through a list that you may not have changed since grade school. The priest should try to understand what challenges you face, perhaps suggest deeper roots to the actions or attitudes you confess, and offer a penance that has some connection with your struggles. If you’re not getting what you want, ask for a conversation during your confession or, if there’s not time for that, at another time. Say what you hope for, and what you’re willing to do on your part. Many priests would welcome that sort of shared work for your spiritual growth. If the priest doesn’t respond positively, find another priest.