Now that we have a good overview of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, here we’ll start to dive into the history of the sacrament a little more.
The first thing we need to understand is what the earliest Christians would have thought about the sacrament. Even today, if you believe that Jesus’ death and resurrection was in order that our sins would be forgiven, you have to wonder why we need to worry about our sins at all. Well, it’s true—Jesus died for the forgiveness of our sins and so that we could have a chance at eternal life with God in heaven. But that’s only half of it. Since the “original sin” of Adam, man’s possibility of living with God in heaven was taken away when Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden/Paradise/Heaven. With Jesus’ death, descent to “the dead” and his resurrection, he broke open the gates of the underworld in order to win for us the POSSIBILITY of living in Heaven. The rest is up to us. We have to ACCEPT God’s love and forgiveness so that we can have clean souls worthy of being united in a state of Heaven with God for all eternity. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is our way on earth of accepting God’s love and forgiveness.
So why do we go to a priest for the Sacrament of Reconciliation rather than just confess our sins to God? Well I hate to repeat what I said last post, but it’s all pretty important:
Matthew 18:18—“Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
John 20:22-23—“And when he had said (‘Peace be with you’), 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.’”
James 5:16—“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful.”
2 Corinthians 5:18—“And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation…”
Hard to argue with Scripture. At least I think so. Anyway, if we know that there are direct scripture verses that at least point to the overall concept of reconciliation…including one from St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians that mentions reconciliation by name…it’s not hard to realize that this concept was developed incredibly early in the history of the Church. The early Christians dove into their greater understanding of the sacrament and the overall idea of the forgiveness of sins because of something that Jesus said in three of the Gospels:
Matthew 12:31-32: Therefore, I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.
Mark 3:28-29: Amen, I say to you, all sins and all blasphemies that people utter will be forgiven them. But whoever blasphemes against the holy Spirit will never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an everlasting sin.”
The early Christians realized that the idea of “unforgivable sins” gave light to the possibility of forgiveness of sins (a.k.a. “absolution”) after baptism. This set of verses is also where the Catholic Faith gets the concept of Purgatory from. No, Jesus didn’t use the word Purgatory, itself, but that doesn’t make it any less real of a concept for us to deduce from the Scriptures. When Jesus says, “Whoever speaks against the holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come,” we can use a little common sense to realize a fuller truth that Jesus was talking about: some sins are able to be forgiven in the age to come. Since God is perfect, and nothing imperfect can be in full union with him in a state of eternal peace that we refer to as “heaven,” we can put two and two together to understand that there is some state of being after death where we can be sorry for what we’ve done, ask for forgiveness, and have our soul cleansed of its imperfections. Over time, we just gave this concept—a concept which Jesus, himself pointed to—the name Purgatory. Anyway, back on topic…
By the end of the 3rd century, the idea that all sinners without exception could be reconciled once in their lifetime by undergoing some sort of spiritual penance was generally accepted in the whole church. The procedure began with a private confession to the bishop, reception into the status of “penitent,” laying down of form of penance, and excommunication from Eucharistic celebration, or in certain cases, only from Eucharist. From this practice, there were different “degrees” of Penitents:
· Weepers—obliged to stand at the narthex and beg those going in for their intercession
· Listeners—allowed to stand at the church door, but had to leave with the catechumens before the celebration of the Eucharist.
· Kneelers—had their place inside the church door, but likewise had to leave with the catechumens
· Standers—allowed to assist at the whole celebration with the faithful, but without receiving communion
After going through all these stages, a person was considered back “in full communion” with the Church.
The High Middle Ages recognized public penance. One form of this was pilgrimage undertaken as penance, and then private confession of sins. Confession, itself, largely has roots in monastic life (life of monks living in communities) when it took place as part of spiritual direction (a sort of one-on-one spiritual counseling with a wiser person), and did not necessarily have to be with a priest; however, if actual forgiveness/absolution was desired, a priest was necessary. The 9th century Irish Celtic Churches presented idea of Confession with absolution given only after fitting penance was assigned and carried out. Because of “inconveniences” (it was time-constraining to give someone a penance, have them leave and actually DO the penance, then return for the rest of the sacrament), a penance was assigned, and absolution was given with the understood promise that the person going to confession would actually carry out the penance later. This became universal norm at end of millennium. The 4th Lateran Council (1215) decided that every believer must go to confession once a year. Reconciliation was declared an official sacrament at the Council of Trent and took form as it exists today on December 2, 1973.
Sorry for putting on my mental tweed coat with leather elbow patches for this post, but with a Church that’s nearly 2,000 years old, history is bound to play a vital role from time to time. Tomorrow we’ll dive into who can receive the sacrament and what the “formula” of the sacrament looks like today, and more importantly why you shouldn’t worry about following that formula “to the letter.”
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