Looking for Reconciliation

Conversation within the Church community pretty much matches what we read about the decline in the celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. People freely admit to very infrequent confession or the absence of this sacramental rite in their life. Parents of children preparing for First Penance have many questions about how to teach their children and form them about Reconciliation. “How often should we go to confessions?” “What’s the difference with the practice in the confessional and this face-to-face confession?” “How do I explain sin to my child?”

There are also many humorous stories about confessions, whether authentic from their childhoods or jokes about imagined conversations between priest and penitent. Also shared in Catholic conversations are shared bad experiences of dark confessionals and grumpy pastors! These are usually in the context of long lines and waiting nervously for one’s turn. All this is to say that confession, for good or ill, was part of the fabric of our Catholic life and spirituality.

What happened over the last forty years to change our confessional practices? Did people just stop sinning? Or did they lose their sense of what sin is? Have they become religiously indifferent? Have we adjusted our view of how individuals are joined to social groups like families and communities?

The movement away from confession is probably a combination of all of the above situations. Certainly people have not stopped sinning. They view sin differently, or, at least, express the reality of sin and moral failure in contemporary vocabulary. People still look for God in their lives. Social patterns have changed. Psychology and psychiatry have changed and become more acceptable in our mental health lives. People seek to be reconciled with themselves, within their communities and families, and with God. Human and spiritual alienation look to be remedied.

Liturgical Renewal
A possibly unexpected answer may be found in liturgical renewal. More precisely, the answer may be in the renewal of the practice of the Eucharist as the “source and summit” of our Christian life. Catholics have come to discover through “full and active participation” the richness of the Eucharist.

Historically, the initiation process of the Church always brought the faithful through conversion celebrated in baptismal washing and the giving of the Spirit in Confirmation. The newly baptized and confirmed ended their journey at the Lord’s Table, surrounded by the Body of Christ, the Church. This was the ultimate conversion and reconciliation of the believers within the Body of Christ itself.

The practice of the early Church of clinical baptism or reconciliation as “second baptism” witness to an overly positive assessment of the conversion process. In “clinical baptism,” baptism was deliberately put off because of a fear of failing to live out one’s conversion. Baptism and conversion, which is to say initiation, were permanent and once for all. “Clinical baptism” from the Latin “clinicus” or bed, was put off until one’s death bed!

After the early persecutions in the Church, the scandal was that some had denied the faith. The question became how to reconcile those who had denied their conversion process in the face of opposition. The response was “second baptism,” or a reconciliation process to reincorporate those who had sinned against the Body of Christ. “Second” presumed that only one additional chance would be given to stay permanently in communion with the Church.

Eucharist in the early Church was seen as the permanent and lasting way of remaining in communion with Christ and the community, his Body. It was the sign and cause of our unity and peace in Christ. Perhaps the renewed Eucharist has given us a taste of the same reality. As “source and summit” of our Christian life, the Eucharist is the beginning and the expression of pardon, peace, and reconciliation in Christ.

From the Eucharist, the Sacrament of Reconciliation derives its ritual power to celebrate our pardon and peace in Christ. Those separated from the Table fellowship find a way to re-approach the Body of Christ. Those reconciled in the Christ at his Table offer that communion of life and love to those separated through sin from the community.

Eucharist as Reconciling Action
In our times we have discovered the richness of the Eucharist as forgiveness and peace. To see this reality, the Eucharist with its penitential aspects should be seen as a whole. Believers find reconciliation as they are called to the Eucharist:

• The Father invites all of us in Christ to gather at his Table.
• A penitential rite is celebrated in the beginning where the Lord’s mercy is the source of his forgiveness among us.
• An alternate sprinkling rite recalls our baptismal conversation and our immersion in Christ. This leads to continued living in the life of grace.
• The entire liturgy of the Word is an invitation to new life and hope in Christ. This Word is primarily a word of forgiveness inviting us to unity in Christ.
• The Eucharistic Prayer gathers all of us before the Father in Christ by the power of the Spirit. This gathering brings us through the Lord’s Prayer, where we pray for forgiveness.
• Immediately before communion we sing about the Lamb of God as bringing mercy and peace.
• The invitation to communion ends with the congregation’s confession of unworthiness, but the surety of God giving a word of forgiveness.
• The very moment of communion is the ultimate reconciliation with the Body and Blood of Christ. Our response is “Amen”.

The whole of the Eucharist is reconciling and proclamatory of the Lord’s peace. Maybe the community has learned all of that, which is, in comparison, grander and more intense than sacramental confession.

CDH