But I Think It's About Forgiveness

In the last few posts we talked about the Sacrament of Baptism.  While original sin and its effects are washed away in baptism, most of us are able to realize that we are human and we all fall short of the glory of God—meaning, nobody’s perfect.  Because of this, Jesus instituted the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  When?  Did Jesus ever say, “I now institute the Sacrament of Reconciliation!”?  In short, no.  The labels of the sacraments are something we came up with a good time after Jesus’ death and resurrection to help us define and more easily discuss and experience concepts that Jesus spoke about during his life.  It was a very short time after his resurrection, though, when he commissioned his apostles to go out and forgive sins—as I pointed out in the quotation above from John’s Gospel.  So just because Jesus never used the term Sacrament of Reconciliation, doesn’t mean that he didn’t institute it.  We just gave it a label.  Just like the concept of Purgatory.  Jesus never said the word Purgatory, but he sure talked about it.  (See ‘Cause I Gotta Have Faith – Part XIII for more info on Purgatory.)

Want some specific Bible quotes that point to the Sacrament of Reconciliation?  Here you go:

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.”

Matthew 9:6—“’But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’—he then said to the paralytic, ‘Rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home.’”

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.’”

2 Corinthians 2:10—“Whomever you forgive anything, so do I.  For indeed what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for you in the presence of Christ…”

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…”

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.”

The Sacrament of Reconciliation might be called different things by different people, like conversion, confession, and penance, but in the end, these are all different names for the same sacrament.  The Sacrament of Reconciliation reflects for us Jesus’ call to conversion, which is the first step in returning to the Father after we’ve strayed from Him by sinning.  Think of it as sort of a reflection of the parable of the Prodigal Son if that helps (Luke 15:11-32).  The sacrament is called the Sacrament of Confession, since the confession of sins to a priest is a very important element of receiving all the graces of the sacrament.  The other meaning of the word “confession” also pops up here: acknowledgement and praise of the holiness of God and of his mercy toward sinful man. It’s called the sacrament of forgiveness, because by the priest granting absolution of the sins of the person receiving the sacrament, God grants that person pardon and peace.  It’s called the sacrament of Reconciliation, because it gives the person the love of God who reconciles: “Be reconciled to God.” 

Remember back when we were talking about the Penitential Rite in the Mass, we talked about the two types of sin—mortal & venial—and the differences between them and what they each do to our relationship with God?  Let’s have a little refresher:

When things are going well, God loves us fully and we love him back (as best we can), and our relationship with God looks something like this:

Then sometimes we might sin in a way that involves a “grave” (serious) matter, and we have full knowledge that what we are about to do is wrong, and we commit the sin anyway, completely under our own free choice.  This is called Mortal Sin.  When we commit a mortal sin, our relationship with God changes to look something like this:

Take a good look at how the relationship changes with mortal sin: we sever our love of God by deeply offending Him.  BUT, notice that God doesn’t stop loving us.  In fact, he doesn’t love us ANY less when we sin.  God loves us the same no matter what we do.  So if we completely sever that relationship, it would take something substantial on our part to get things back on track.  This is where the Sacrament of Reconciliation comes in, and it brings our relationship with God back to looking like this:

Now, sometimes we commit sins that are less serious sins, or more serious sins that are committed either without fully thinking about their consequences, or done by force of habit.  For instance, if we gossip about someone and completely destroy their reputation after we thought about it, knew it would destroy their reputation, and did it anyway, that would be a mortal sin.  But we can take that same sin of gossip in a less serious way (say, if we whispered to our friend that the person sitting across the restaurant from you was wearing the most hideous shirt you’ve ever seen), and since it was a less serious matter, and you probably didn’t think about how you’d hurt this person’s reputation before you said it (especially if you’re in the habit of doing this kind of gossiping all the time), and you’ve just committed what’s called a Venial Sin.  When we commit a venial sin, our relationship with God is not broken, but strained, and it ends up looking something like this:

Again, notice that although our side of the relationship has changed, God loves us just the same: perfectly.  Now, we CAN confess our venial sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, but we also have a way of reconciling ourselves to God after venial sin built right into the Mass!  By fully participating in the Penitential Rite and receiving the Eucharist, our relationship with God is restored back to:

So that’s the purpose of the Sacrament of Reconciliation—to fully restore our relationship with God after us doing something that really showed God that we stopped loving him…at least for a while.  When that relationship with God is restored through Reconciliation, we’re back on track and ready to receive him in the Eucharist.

In the next few posts, we’ll talk a little more about the Sacrament of Reconciliation and what to do when you actually go to confession.  We’ll also touch on a few big points like why we confess our sins to a priest, instead of going directly to God; and what happens if you either forget to mention something in confession, or if you purposefully leave out a sin or two during your confession.  ‘Til next time!