Showing posts with label confession. Show all posts
Showing posts with label confession. Show all posts

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Gospel For Today: 2nd Sunday of Easter

SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER (B) - SUNDAY OF DIVINE MERCY

In the Jubilee Year of 2000 Pope St. John Paul II declared the second Sunday of Easter to be celebrated each year as a feast to Jesus' Divine Mercy.  And now 15 years later, Pope Francis has declared another Jubilee Year -- a year devoted to Mercy, to be celebrated from Dec. 8, 2015 (the feast of the Immaculate Conception) to Nov. 20, 2016 (the feast of Christ the King).  In his very first Angelus address as Pope, Francis reminded us, "Let us not forget that God forgives, and God forgives always."  This extraordinary holy year is a needed reminder to the world of God's great and loving mercy that can be found in the Catholic Church.

Recently I had the pleasure of escorting several students on retreat, the theme of which was "Reasons Why."  Each student on retreat was asked to reflect on the reasons why they were Catholic.  For some a decision was made to become Catholic as an adult.  For those born into the Church the decision must still be made in adulthood to remain a Catholic.  Why make that choice?  What does the Church have to offer?

When the English writer G. K. Chesterton was asked why he became a Catholic, he famously answered, "To get my sins forgiven."  Chesterton had a way of getting to the heart of the matter.  Truly, if the Church is stripped down to its core, the only reason for its existence is to mediate God's mercy to sinners so that they (we) may be reconciled to Him.  That is it.

The whole drama of salvation history has been all about this.  God's covenant relationship with the people of Israel.  The Incarnation.  All the teachings of Jesus. His passion and death.  His glorious resurrection.  The establishment of the Church.  All this has been about one simple thing: reconciling man to God by means of His mercy.

In our gospel today the Risen Christ appears to the Apostles one week after that first Easter Sunday. They are locked away in a room, hiding in fear.  But Christ does not want them to be hidden.  He does not want them to be fearful.  So He gives them His peace.  And He sends them on a mission.

"Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent me, so I send you."  And when He had said this He breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit.  Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them.  Whose sins you retain are retained" (Jn 20:21-23).  

And so Jesus, the Son of God and the only man possessing God's authority to forgive sins, passes that authority on to the first leaders of the Church; an authority subsequently passed on to every priest and bishop from that time to this.  This is the origin of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, or what is commonly called Confession.  We humble sinners come before the priest, that minister of mercy, to confess our sins.  The priest, not on his own authority but with the authority granted by Christ through the Holy Spirit, conveys God's forgiveness.  

Elsewhere in scripture St. Paul tells us:

"All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them.  And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation.  We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us.  We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God" (2 Cor 5:18-20).

God wants nothing more than to shower His mercy upon us, but because His mercy comes from love it cannot be forced.  It can only be accepted.  Each time we come to the confessional we accept God's gift of mercy.  Each time a soul comes back to the Church, God rejoices at the reconciliation.  This is why He established the Church -- to open wide the gates of His mercy.

Come through those gates.  Come into the Church, the "community of believers that is one one heart and mind" (Acts 4:32).  To be reconciled to God is to be reconciled to one another.  Mercy is the mission of the Church and mercy is the mission of all in the Church.  The priest is the ambassador of Christ sacramentally in the confessional.  But every Christian is an ambassador of Christ in the world, helping to spread the message of His mercy to all who need it.  To receive God's mercy is to become yourself a conduit of mercy for others.  Every time you forgive someone in your heart, you are doing God's work.  Every time you hold anger or hatred in your heart toward another, you are doing the work of Satan.  Do not allow bitterness and anger to gain a foothold in your life.  Be an ambassador of forgiveness.  Show mercy to others, and you will know God's mercy all the more.

Let us pray for an increase of mercy in the world and in our hearts, today on this day of Divine Mercy, during the extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, and for all years to come.

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Sunday, February 15, 2015

Gospel For Today: 6th Sunday of Ordinary Time

SIXTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)

Click here for readings

In today's gospel from Mark 1:40-45, we find a leper kneeling before Jesus pleading, "If you wish, you can make me clean."  Jesus stretches out His hand to touch the man and says to him, "I do will it.  Be made clean."  The gospel tells us that "the leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean."

Why all this talk of cleanliness? After all, if you or I were suffering from a horrible disease we would say, "please heal me," or "make me well."  We would not ask to be cleaned.  If we want to be clean, we take a shower, we don't call a doctor. 

It is telling that the Church pairs this gospel with a reading from Leviticus.  In this reading the Lord tells Moses and Aaron (head of the priestly caste) that if someone has leprosy he should be brought to a priest and "the priest shall declare him unclean" (Lv 13:2).  And, "As long as the sore is on him he shall declare himself unclean, since he is in fact unclean.  He shall dwell apart, making his abode outside the camp" (Lv 13:46).

We may read this and think this was simply a way of preventing the spread of contagious disease by removing an infected person from the community.  And it partly was that.  But more importantly, an unclean person was cut off from the Temple, and thus from the ability to give worship to God in the way that the Mosaic law mandated.  This is why it was the purview of the priest to declare a person unclean, as it had to do more with ritual purification than with health or hygiene.  

The leper was cut off from his people, but even more importantly, he was cut off from his God.  This is why the leper in today's gospel is on his knees before Christ saying, "If you wish, you can make me clean."  His desire is for more than healing; it is for the reconciliation that his healing will bring about.  And so, after Jesus makes the man clean, He tells him, "Go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed."  Now cleansed, the man could again offer ritual worship.  Jesus was reconciling the man to the religious community, and through the community to God.

Those of you at Mass last Sunday heard Father say in his homily that all of Jesus' healing miracles come with "an expiration date."  This is true.  Everyone whom Jesus healed eventually died.  The eyes of the blind man cured by Christ years later ceased to see.  Lazarus, raised by Christ from the dead, died a second time.  The healing miracles of Christ are but signs of the greater miracle Christ performs, which is the forgiveness of our sins, the cleansing of our hearts, and our reconciliation to the Father.  This miraculous healing has no expiration date.  To borrow another phrase from the marketplace, "the offer is still valid."  Christ has left with the Church this "ministry of reconciliation" (2 Cor 5:18).  

We suffer from spiritual leprosy.  Sin is a disease of the heart, a malady of love.  Like the leper, we long to be made clean.  We today can still kneel before the Lord and say, "If you wish, you can make me clean."  We can hear Christ's voice spoken to us, "I do will it.  Be made clean."  We can go to the priest, just as Christ commanded the leper to do, and offer the cleansing prescribed.  That is, we can make a good confession and receive the absolution of Christ through the sacrament.  By the grace God offers through this sacrament, we will be reconciled to the religious community, the Church.  And more importantly, through the Church, by the cleansing power of Christ, we will be reconciled to the Father.  We will be made clean.


ABOUT CONFESSION (SACRAMENT OF RECONCILIATION)
If you have been away from the sacrament for some time, it can be a daunting thing to go back.  It helps to remember, though, that the focus of the sacrament is not really on your sin -- it's on God's forgiveness.  And that's a very positive thing -- a cause to rejoice!  If it has been a while since you have received the sacraments, we encourage you to come back.  To help you out, click here to download a brief guide on "How to Go to Confession" offered by the US Catholic Bishops.



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WCU Catholic Campus Ministry
Matthew Newsome, MTh, campus minister
  
(828)293-9374  |   POB 2766, Cullowhee NC 28723

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Sunday, April 27, 2014

Gospel For Today - 2nd Sunday of Easter (A)

SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER (A) - SUNDAY OF DIVINE MERCY

Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you.

As the Father has sent me, so I send you."
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,
"Receive the Holy Spirit.
Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,
and whose sins you retain are retained."

With these words, Jesus grants the Church the authority to carry out her most urgent and fundamental mission in the world, which is to reconcile sinners to the Father.  On the evening of His Resurrection, Jesus appears to the Apostles and tells them, "As the Father has sent me, so I send you."   So if we want to know why Christ sent the Apostles (and why God sent us the Church) we must know why God the Father sent His Son into the world.

The scriptures are abundantly clear on this point. From the beginning of the incarnation narrative, the angel who announced the coming of Christ to Joseph said, "and you shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins" (Mt 1:21).  Jesus in His own words said, "I have come to call sinners" (Mt 9:13) and, "For the Son of Man came to save what was lost" (Mt 28:11).   In so many of Christ's parables, including the story of the Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan, and the Good Shepherd, our Lord describes His mission to call sinners to repentance and to grant forgiveness.  And on many occasions we see Christ granting that very forgiveness to individuals including Mary Magdalene, Zacchaeus, the thief crucified next to our Lord, and the Samaritan woman at the well.  

Very plainly, when Jesus heals the lame man who had been lowered through the roof, He says He did so, "so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins" (Mt 9:2-8). This was Christ's chief mission, without a doubt.  It was the purpose of all that He suffered through on Good Friday, and here on the eve of the Resurrection we find Christ passing that divine authority on to the Apostles.

In our gospel, we read, "When He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.'"    We must remember that it was the breath of God that gave life to Adam in the beginning (Gen 2:7).  The word spirit itself derives from the Latin word for breath.  This also anticipates the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, 50 days later (Acts 2:1-4).  In fact, Christ expressly says, "Receive the Holy Spirit," while breathing on them. 

The purpose of Christ transmitting the Holy Spirit to them at this moment was to empower them - to grant them the divine authority - to fulfill their mission.  And what was that mission?  "Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained."  Christ says quite plainly that the mission of the Apostles, and by extension the Apostolic Church, is to forgive sins.  He has granted them God's authority to do so.  He has instituted the Sacrament of Reconciliation, or what we commonly call Confession.

How do we know this authority continues on in today's bishops and priests?  We know this because Christ intended that the mission of His Church would continue until the end of time.  If the Apostles did not have the ability to transfer that authority to others, then Christ's mission of forgiveness would have ended with that first generation of Christians, and extended only to those with personal contact with the Apostles themselves.  Forgiveness of sin would have come to an end with the death of St. John.  The forgiveness of sin must continue to be available to us for as long as there is sin in the world, which will be until the end of time.  And so the Church's divinely instituted mission continues on.

But why confess out loud to a priest?  Can't the Church just universally grant forgiveness without us having to go through the act of confessing?  Note that Christ grants the Apostles the authority both to forgive and to retain sins.  How are they supposed to know when to grant and when to withhold forgiveness?  They have to know what it is they are forgiving, the disposition of the sinner, his or her resolutions for the future, their willingness to make amends for any harm done by their sins, and so forth.  All of this requires that the penitent sinner actually confess those sins, and his or her repentance, to the minister of the Church.

The Sacrament of Reconciliation is a great mercy of God.  Through it the sinner is brought into renewed friendship with God.  Your sins are forgiven.  You receive sanctifying grace.  The everlasting punishment due because of your sins is remitted and God's grace will strengthen you to help you avoid future sin.  Plus, you get the chance to receive spiritual advice and instruction - all freely given!  

Christ will come at the end of days as the Just Judge.  But when He came to us in the Incarnation it was as the Divine Physician; it was as the Good Shepherd searching for His lost sheep.  The prescription for our ailment is repentance and forgiveness.  The Shepherd's voice is a voice of mercy.  The greatest tragedy in our lives would be to not take advantage of Christ's abundant mercy. 

The Divine Mercy devotion is based on the writings of an uneducated Polish nun, St. Maria Faustina Kowalska, who kept a diary of some 600 pages in the 1930s.  In one passage of her diary, she has Jesus saying, "He who refuses to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of My justice" (Diary 1146).  

The door of Christ's mercy is the door of the Confessional.  The key to unlocking that door is our own repentance.  The only cost of entry is to trust in His mercy and love.  

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--
WCU Catholic Campus Ministry
Matthew Newsome, MTh, campus minister
  
(828)293-9374  |   POB 2766, Cullowhee NC 28723

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Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Confession and Examination of Conscience

I pray that each of you is having a holy and spirit-filled Lenten season, and that you are each striving to grow closer to God through whatever personal disciplines, devotions and sacrifices you are making to mark this penitential and holy season.

Remember that Lent is a time of penance.  We had a wonderful Credo discussion after Mass this past Sunday on the sacrament of Reconciliation, aka Confession.  Fr. Voitus made the comment that he recommends people take advantage of this sacrament at least once per month.  Remember that while it is necessary that we confess our mortal sins, it is a good practice to confess even our venial sins.  If you do not think you have anything to confess, it is helpful to think of the examples of people such as Mother Theresa, John Paul II, and our current Holy Father Pope Francis, each of whom confess weekly.  

If you are having trouble identifying your sins, it's a good bet it is not because you are completely sinless!  We all fall short of God's ideal of perfection for us, but God wants to help us grow in perfection, and has given us this sacrament to help us along that path.  We need to learn to identify our sins so that we can be aware of them, repent of them, confess them, and with God's grace avoid them in the future.  To that end, a good examination of conscience is a great tool.  Here are a few designed especially with college students in mind:

So once you have made a good examination of conscience and want to make a good confession, then what? How do you find Father?  Do you need to make an appointment?  You can if you choose to, but it is not necessary. Most priests have regular confession times on the parish schedule.  If you need to, you can also ask when you see the priest before or after Mass (though five minutes before Mass starts is not the best time to expect him to hear your Confession - but you can ask him to hear your confession after Mass is over)  Remember, it is NEVER an inconvenience to a priest to be asked to hear a confession.  This is his vocation, to reconcile souls to God.  So be not afraid!

And if it has been a while, don't let that stop you.  Just let the priest know approximately how long it has been and if you don't remember exactly what you are supposed to do, he'll help walk you through it.  The priest, as God's ordained minister standing the person of Christ, is never going to condemn you for being away from the confessional for so long - instead he will rejoice like the Father in the story of the Prodigal Son, that "my son was lost and now is found!" (Lk 15:11-32).

May God bless you in this Lenten season!
Pax Christi,
Matt

--
WCU Catholic Campus Ministry
Matthew Newsome, MTh, campus minister
  
(828)293-9374  |   POB 2766, Cullowhee NC 28723

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