The Sacrament of Reconciliation
The
Sacrament of Reconciliation, also known as Confession, involves Catholics
thinking about what their sins are (examination of conscience), resolving to
avoid the sins in the future (the desire for amendment), confessing their sins
to a validly ordained priest, and performing the penance the priest assigns to
them. The purpose of confessing their sins is to mend their broken relationship
with God and receive sanctifying grace to heal their souls and repair that
relationship, allowing them to enter back into communion with the Church.
Faithful Catholics obtain absolution for the sins that they’ve committed
against God and their neighbor upon making their confession.
During
Confession, Catholics enumerate all the sins that they can remember and are
manifested to their minds by the voice of conscience. In order to make a good
or beneficial confession, the faithful must confess all mortal or “deadly” sins
(cf. 1 Jn 5:17). These are the sins that they have committed since their last
confession, including the same sins that may have been committed by habit
(habitual sin). Catholics are bound to go to confession at least once a year,
preferably during the Easter season. But the Magisterium of the Church strongly
encourages the faithful to receive the sacrament regularly and as often as is necessary
because of mortal sin.
We read
in the Catechism of the Catholic Church that this sacrament is also called the
“sacrament of conversion” since Jesus is made present to us in the sacrament
calling us to the conversion of heart and return to the Father from whom we
have strayed in sin. The sacrament is also called the “sacrament of penance”
since it “consecrates the Christian sinner’s personal and ecclesial steps of
conversion, penance, and satisfaction” to God (1423). The sacrament is a
“sacrament of forgiveness,” since, by the priest’s absolution, God grants the
penitent soul “pardon and peace.” This sacrament is essentially called the
“sacrament of confession” and the “sacrament of reconciliation” since we are
“called to acknowledge and confess our sins before God” in recognition of
“God’s loving mercy” and be restored to friendship with him and be reconciled
with our neighbor (1424).
Jesus
calls us to conversion. This is an essential part of his proclamation of the
kingdom of heaven. “Baptism is the principal place for the first and
fundamental conversion. It is by faith in the Gospel and by Baptism that one
renounces evil and gains salvation, that is the forgiveness of all sins and the
gift of new life” (CCC,1427). We are “washed, sanctified, and justified” when
we are baptized (1 Cor 6:11). However, the initial cleansing and regeneration
of life in the Spirit haven’t eradicated the frailty and weakness of our human
nature nor the inclination to sin (concupiscence) that remains in the baptized,
such that they rely on the grace of final perseverance from that time on.
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Catholics
believe that “Christ’s call to conversion continues to resound in the lives of
Christians.” This daily need for conversion or “second conversion is an
interrupted task of the Church, which… is at once holy and always in need of
purification, follows constantly the path of penance and renewal. The endeavor
of conversion is not just natural human work. It is the movement of a contrite
heart drawn and moved by grace to the merciful love of God who loved us first”
(1428).
True
conversion is a conversion of the heart or interior conversion. Without this,
acts of penance are sterile and serve no purpose. Exterior observances are
unfruitful if unproduced by a conversion of the heart. But interior conversion
calls for an “expression of visible signs, gestures, and works of penance
(fasting and mortification)” since, after all, actions speak louder than words
(1430). The Catholic Church has always taught since ancient times that interior
repentance is a “radical reorientation of our whole life, a return to God with
all our heart, and end of sin.”
Interior
conversion involves the genuine desire of “turning away from evil, with
repugnance toward the sins that we have committed” as baptized Christians. Simultaneously,
a conversion of the heart “entails the desire and resolution to change one’s
life” or continue to grow in holiness despite the occasional backsliding. What
makes doing penance fruitful is the “conversion of heart that is accompanied by
a salutary pain and sadness” and the desire to restore equity of justice in our
relationship with God (1431).
Hence,
penance involves a heaviness of heart brought about by God’s cooperative grace
that turns the heart of stone into a heart of flesh. It is God who takes the
initiative and causes our hearts to return to him, but not without our
cooperation (Lam 5:21). God gives us the strength to be renewed by the
outpouring of His Spirit. Moved by the Spirit to repent, we confess our sins
and make acts of reparation that are ultimately the work of the Holy Spirit,
whom we have initially received in Baptism. It’s by the agency of the Holy
Spirit that “our heart is shaken by the horror and weight of sin and begins to
fear offending God by sin and being separated from Him” (1432). It’s our love
for God that cleanses us of all sin. If we love God, we’ll demonstrate our love
by doing acts of penance to restore the equity of justice in our relationship
with Him.
Christ
initiated the sacrament of Penance for all sinful members of his Church,
especially for those who have fallen into grave sin after their baptism. We
lose the sanctifying grace that we initially received in baptism by
committing a mortal sin. The sacrament of Penance “offers a new possibility to
convert and to recover the grace of justification.” The sacrament of
Reconciliation is incomplete without disciplinary acts of penance and
restitution. Penitential acts are necessary for us to be fully reconciled to
God (commutative justice). So, these are
the essential elements that make the sacrament one of forgiveness and
reconciliation: “contrition, confession, and satisfaction” (1446-1449).
Since
Christ entrusted to his apostles the ministry of reconciliation, “bishops who
are their successors, and priests – the bishops’ collaborators – continue to
exercise this ministry. Indeed, bishops and priests, by virtue of the sacrament
of Holy Orders, have the power to forgive all sins ‘in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit ’” (1465). The priest fulfills the
ministry of the “Good Shepherd” when he performs the sacrament of
Reconciliation or Penance by “seeking out the lost sheep” in the fold. He acts
like the “Good Samaritan who binds up wounds,” like “the father who awaits the
prodigal son and welcomes him on his return (reconciliation with the Church),
and like the “just and impartial judge whose judgment is both just and
merciful. The priest is the sign and the instrument of God’s merciful love for
the sinner” (1464).
The
confessor isn’t “the master of God’s forgiveness, but its servant. He must
“unite himself with the intention and charity of Christ” (1466). A priest is in
persona Christi because he acts as Christ and as God with an authority invested
in him by Christ. Bishops and priests are given the power to act in the person
of Christ when they exercise their sanctifying, teaching, and ruling functions
for the sake of the members of Christ’s body, which is the Church. Through the
grace of the sacrament of Holy Orders, bishops and priests are incorporated
into the person of Christ, the Head of the Church.
Like all
the sacraments of the Church, the Sacrament of Reconciliation is supernaturally effective. The penitent is forgiven of their sin and restored to the life of
grace even though the minister of the sacrament might be depraved and sinful.
The righteousness of the minister doesn’t convey the power of the sacrament,
but Christ does through the Holy Spirit. The priest is a covenantal mediator
just like Moses was when he pleaded with God to forgive the sin of the
Israelites after they had constructed and worshiped the golden calf. A mortal
sin is essentially an act of idolatry in that the sinner places their
disordered desires before the will of God.
Thus, St.
Paul instructs us: ‘Respect those who labor among you and are over you in the
Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their
work’ (1 Thess 5:12-13). The Sacrament of Reconciliation is just as efficacious
as any other sacrament, including Baptism since the true minister is always
Christ our High Priest in whom and through whom our Catholic ministers work.
All seven sacraments act ex opere operato by the very act of the actions
being performed.
Jesus
granted his apostles the authority to forgive sins. He said to them prior to
his ascension into heaven, “As the Father sent me, so I send you” (Jn 20:21).
As Christ was sent by the Father to forgive sins, our Lord commissioned his
apostles and their ordained successors to forgive sins in his name. We read in
the gospel, that Jesus breathes on his apostles and gives them the power to
“forgive and retain” sins (Jn 20:22-23). Jesus speaks of “the sins of any”
meaning the personal sins of individuals. From this phrase, we can infer that
the penitent must first confess their sin to an apostle or successor of his in
the ministry of the priesthood before their sin can be forgiven or retained
judging by the genuineness of conversion. Although he is a divine Person, Jesus
forgave sins in his humanity through the power invested in him by his heavenly
Father. He did this to convince the scribes and Pharisees that he had, in fact,
the authority to forgive sins though he isn’t the Father (Mt 9:6; Mk 2:10; Lk
5:24). Jesus transferred this authority to his apostles, and they in turn to
their appointed successors in the ministry or divine office.
St. Paul
forgives sins in persona Christi as a validly ordained minister (2 Cor
2:10). The “ministry of reconciliation” or the ministering of the sacrament was
given to the “ambassadors” of the Church (2 Cor 5:18). Soon after returning
from Jerusalem to Antioch, Paul and Barnabas were formally invested with this
new commission by the laying on of hands and receiving the Holy Spirit (Acts
13:3). In Acts 14:23, St. Paul established presbyters (ordained priests) in
every place on his return through Asia Minor on his first mission (Acts 14:23). In 1 Thess 5. 12-13 he told the
people to obey the religious authorities (1 Thess 5:12-13).
The
apostles, and therefore their appointed successors in the priestly ministry,
were given the power to “bind and loose” (Mt 18:18). The authority to bind and
loose included administering and removing the temporal penalties due to sin. As
Jews, the apostles would have understood this for it was the power that the
priests in the Temple had until then, which included defining divine
revelation. Jesus ordained the apostles as priests at the Last Supper by
performing the Levitical ordination ritual of the washing of feet (Jn 13:1-20).
Jesus told Peter he couldn’t have a share in his priesthood or have a part of
him (in persona) unless he allowed our Lord to wash his feet after he
objected to this. Peter then replied by saying, ” Lord, not my feet only, but also
my hands and my head.”
The
washing of the head and hands was included in the Levitical ordination
ceremony, but Jesus focussed only on the washing of feet which symbolized
humility and service in the ministry. In the midst of the “consecration” of Aaron
and his sons, Moses “washed them with water” (Lev 8:6-10). We also see Aaron
and his sons washing their hands and their feet (Exodus 40:30-32). Moreover,
the mention of having a “part” (meros) in John 13:8 recalls the priestly
Levites having their portion (meris) in the LORD or in persona (Num 18:20; Deut
10:9, LXX).
Jesus
concluded this part of the Last Supper by telling his apostles that they should
do as he had just done in his ministry by being as humble and loyal in their
commission, and he added, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who receives whomever
I send receives me; and he who receives me receives him who sent me” (Jn
13:20). Thus, Jesus did, in fact, transfer his priestly authority to his
apostles, and they were to act in his name in persona Christi for the
dispensation of his grace. With this authority, they could also ordain
Matthias, Paul, Barnabas, and countless others who, in turn, would do the same
up to our present-day in the Catholic Church by the laying on of hands in an
unbroken physical chain or line of apostolic succession through the Sacrament
of Holy Orders.
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Orally
confessing sins to other people and not strictly privately to God was practiced
and considered necessary in the infant Church and would continue in
post-apostolic time in the early Church. James explicitly teaches us to
“confess our sins to one another” (Jas 5:16). This passage must be read in
context with Vv. 14-15 which refers to the physical and spiritual healing power
possessed by the priests to whom we should confess our sins in the Sacrament of
Reconciliation for the grace of forgiveness. Indeed, countless people came to
the apostles and their anointed associates to orally confess their sins (Acts
19:18). They didn’t go home and confess their sins directly to God in private
with indifference toward the divine authority of the apostles or elders and
presbyters. The faithful practiced professing their faith and orally confessing
their sins before human witnesses (1 Tim 6:12).
Our Lord
faithfully cleanses and forgives us our sins provided we confess our sins to
one another (1 Jn 1:9). Confessing one’s sin and making public restitution to
re-enter the community of faith was a practice of the ancient Jews (Num 5:7).
The Israelites stood before a public assembly to confess their sins and
intercede for each other (Neh. 9:2-3; Baruch 1:14). In fact, God desired that
His chosen people should confess their sins and not be ashamed to do it
publicly (Sirach 4:26). Many people who came to John the Baptist at the Jordan
river orally confessed their sins to him in a spirit of repentance and a firm
desire for amendment (Mt: 3:6; Mk 1:5). So, the Sacrament of Reconciliation has
its roots in ancient Judaism.
Mortal
sins lead to spiritual death and must be absolved in the sacrament if we hope
to be saved. Venial sins (that don’t incur spiritual death or cost us our
salvation) don’t have to be confessed to a priest, but pious Catholics include
them in the confessional in order to receive graces for spiritual growth in
holiness and avoid entering or spending more time in purgatory (1 Jn 5:16-17;
Lk 12:47-48). Breaking the least of the commandments is a venial sin (Mt 5:19).
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Finally,
repentance is incomplete if the debt of sin remains in the balance. God forgave
David for his mortal sins of murder and adultery after he sincerely repented
and confessed his sins with a contrite heart and broken spirit. But to offset
his transgressions and restore equity of justice, God took the life of the
child David conceived in his act of adultery with Bathsheba for having murdered
her husband Uriah: an innocent life for innocent life, or an eye for an eye.
And God also permitted the rape of David’s wives for his act of adultery (2 Sam
12:9-10, 14, 18-19). Only then could David’s broken relationship with God be fully
amended, provided he accepted his pain and loss as a temporal punishment for
his sins to restore equity of justice in his relationship with God.
The debt
of sin can be fully remitted only by having to do penance for it. Doing acts of
penance, whose pain and loss counterbalances the sinful pleasure one is
heartily sorry for or accepting the pain and loss that God permits because of
our sins, completes the temporal redemptive process. Christ didn’t suffer and
die so that we should no longer owe God what is His rightful due for having
offended His sovereign dignity (Mt 5:17; Job 42:6; Lam 2:14; Ezek 18:21; Jer
31:19; Rom 2:4; Rev 2:5, etc.). This is from Jesus himself: “No, I say to you:
but unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish”(Lk 13:3);
“Bring forth, therefore, fruit worthy of penance” (Mt 3:8). True repentance for
the forgiveness of sin calls for fruit worthy of our act of contrition. Our
outward acts (almsgiving/fasting) must conform to our inner disposition or
spiritual reality (charity/temperance) to offset our vices and sins
(greed/gluttony) which have been forgiven by the act of contrition pending full
temporal restitution. This is all part and parcel of our confession through the
sacrament given to the Church by Christ Himself.
EARLY SACRED TRADITION
“In
church confess your sins, and do not come to your prayer with a guilt
conscience. Such is the Way of Life…On the Lord’s own day, assemble in common
to break bread and offer thanks; but first confess your sins, so that your
sacrifice may be pure.”
Didache, 4:14,14:1 (c. A.D. 90)
“Moreover, it is in accordance with
reason that we should return to soberness
of conduct, and, while yet we have opportunity, exercise repentance towards
God. It is well to reverence both God and the bishop.”
St.Ignatius, Epistle to the Smyraeans, 9
(c. A.D. 110)
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“Such are the words and deeds by
which, in our own district of the Rhone, they
have deluded many women, who have their consciences seared as with a hot
iron. Some of them, indeed, make a public confession of their sins; but others
of
them are ashamed to do this, and in a tacit kind of way, despairing of
[attaining to] the life of God, have, some of them, apostatized altogether;
while others hesitate between the two courses, and incur that which is implied
in the proverb, ‘neither without nor within;’ possessing this as the fruit from
the seed of the children of knowledge.”
St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 1:13
(A.D. 180)
“Father who knowest the hearts of
all grant upon this Thy servant whom Thou
hast chosen for the episcopate to feed Thy holy flock and serve as Thine high
priest, that he may minister blamelessly by night and day, that he may
unceasingly behold and appropriate Thy countenance and offer to Thee the
gifts of Thy holy Church. And that by the high priestly Spirit he may have
authority to forgive sins…”
St. Hippolytus, Apostolic Tradition, 3
(A.D. 215)
“The Pontifex Maximus–that is, the
bishop of bishops–issues an edict:
‘I remit, to such as have discharged (the requirements of) repentance, the sins
both of adultery and of fornication.’”
Tertullian, Modesty, 1
(A.D. 220)
“In addition to these there is also
a seventh, albeit hard and laborious:
the remission of sins through penance…when he does not shrink
from declaring his sin to a priest of the Lord.”
Origen, Homilies on Leviticus, 2:4
(A.D. 248)
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“For although in smaller sins
sinners may do penance for a set time, and according to the rules of
discipline come to public confession, and by the
imposition of the hand of the bishop and clergy
receive the right of communion:
now with their time still unfulfilled, while persecution is still
raging, while
the peace of the Church itself is not vet restored, they are admitted to communion,
and their name is presented; and while the penitence is not yet performed,
confession is not yet
made, the hands Of the bishop and clergy are not yet laid
upon them, the eucharist is given to
them; although it is written, ‘Whosoever
shall eat the bread and drink the cup of the Lord
unworthily, shall be guilty
of the body and blood of the Lord.’”
St. Cyprian, To the Clergy, 9 (16):2
(A.D. 250)
“For if any one will consider how
great a thing it is for one, being a man, and
compassed with flesh and blood, to be enabled to draw nigh to that blessed and
pure nature, he will then clearly see what great honor the grace of the Spirit
has vouchsafed to priests; since by their agency these rites are celebrated,
and
others nowise inferior to these both in respect of our dignity and our
salvation.
For they who inhabit the earth and make their abode there are entrusted with
the administration of things which are in Heaven, and have received an
authority which God has not given to angels or archangels. For it has not been
said to them, ‘Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven, and
whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven.’ They who rule on
earth have indeed authority to bind, but only the body: whereas this binding
lays hold of the soul and penetrates the heavens; and what priests do here
below God ratifies above, and the Master confirms the sentence of his servants.
For indeed what is it but all manner of heavenly authority which He has given
them when He says, ‘Whose sins ye remit they are remitted, and whose sins ye
retain they are retained?’ What authority could be greater than this? ‘The
Father hath committed all judgment to the Son?’ But I see it all put into the
hands of these men by the Son.”
St. John Chrysostom, The Priesthood, 3:5
(A.D. 387)
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“The Church holds fast its obedience
on either side, by both retaining and
remitting sin; heresy is on the one side cruel, and on the other disobedient;
wishes to bind what it will not loosen, and will not loosen what it has bound,
whereby it condemns itself by its own sentence. For the Lord willed that the
power of binding and of loosing should be alike, and sanctioned each by a
similar condition…Each is allowed to the Church, neither to heresy, for this
power has been entrusted to priests alone. Rightly, therefore, does the Church
claim it, which has true priests; heresy, which has not the priests of God,
cannot claim it. And by not claiming this power heresy pronounces its own
sentence, that not possessing priests it cannot claim priestly power. And so in
their shameless obstinacy a shamefaced acknowledgment meets our view.
Consider, too, the point that he who has received the Holy Ghost has also
received the power of forgiving and of retaining sin. For thus it is written:
‘Receive the Holy Spirit: whosesoever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto
them, and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained.’ So, then, he who has
not received power to forgive sins has not received the Holy Spirit. The office
of the priest is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and His right it is specially to
forgive
and to retain sins. How, then, can they claim His gift who distrust His power
and His right?”
St. Ambrose, Concerning Repentance, I:7-8
(A.D. 388)
“All mortal sins are to be submitted
to the keys of the Church and all can be
forgiven; but recourse to these keys is the only, the necessary, and the
certain
way to forgiveness. Unless those who are guilty of grievous sin have recourse
to the power of the keys, they cannot hope for eternal salvation. Open your
lips, them, and confess your sins to the priest. Confession alone is the true
gate
to Heaven.”
St. Augustine, Christian Combat
(A.D. 397)
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“Just as in the Old Testament the
priest makes the leper clean or unclean, so in
the New Testament the bishop and presbyter binds or looses not those who are
innocent or guilty, but by reason of their office, when they have heard various
kinds of sins, they know who is to be bound and who loosed.”
St. Jerome, Commentary on Matthew, 3:16,19
(A.D. 398)
“Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send
you.
“Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven;
if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
John 20, 21-23
Pax vobiscum