THE PASCHAL MYSTERY AND THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE

 

THE PASCHAL MYSTERY AND THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE

            On the evening of the day of Jesus’ Resurrection, after passing through the closed doors of the Upper Room, where the apostles were hunkering down, Jesus said to them, “Peace be with you.”  He showed them his wounds, which caused them to recognize him and be glad.  Jesus repeated the greeting, and affirmed their vocation: “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you” (the word “apostle” means “sent”).  Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (cf. John 20:19-23).  At that moment, Christ gave the apostles the power to forgive sins.  The Church has come to call this the Sacrament of Penance, also known as the Sacrament of Reconciliation or simply Confession. 

            The Sacrament of Penance was the second gift of Christ to the Church after he completed his paschal sacrifice.  It was given with the breathing of the Holy Spirit upon them, which was the first gift (praise God!).  This manner of instituting the sacrament unites it closely to the Paschal Mystery and reveals that its saving power comes from the Holy Spirit.  Only God can forgive sins.  Jesus had said of himself at the beginning of his public ministry, “The Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins” and he himself said on more than one occasion, “Your sins are forgiven” (Mk 2:5-10).  Amazingly, this authority is now shared with the men who had run away when he was arrested.  It is given to imperfect men, but its power is of the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life.  This is true, of course, for all the sacraments.

            In my first article on the relationship of the sacraments to the Paschal Mystery I indicated that in Baptism we sacramentally participate in the death, burial and Resurrection of Christ.  St. Paul writes that in Baptism, “You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor 6:11).  All sins are forgiven by Baptism, both original sin and, for those who have reached the age of reason, personal sins.  However, the frail humanity and the weakness to which human nature is prone is not abolished, nor is the inclination to sin which dwells within the lower appetites of the human person, which seek to be satisfied in an unreasonable manner.  The tradition calls this effect of original sin “concupiscence” and views its persistence as an opportunity for the baptized, with God’s help, to prove themselves through ongoing conversion.  In consequence of God’s respect for human dignity and freedom he calls human beings not to be passive recipients of his grace, but to struggle for holiness and eternal life, always with his help (cf. Catechism 1426).

            One of the greatest helps in the Christian struggle is the Sacrament of Penance.  It is the remedy for excommunication.  A person who commits a mortal sin breaks communion with God and the Church.  In order to restore communion a person who in an official capacity can represent both God and the Church is needed.  Such representatives are priests, who by their ordination are what the New Testament refers to in Greek as presbyteroi (presbyters), the “elders” of the Church.  The power to “bind and loose” which Jesus first gave to Peter, and then to the other apostles, is passed on in the apostolic succession, as well as the power to forgive sins (cf. Mt 16:19; Mt 18:18; Jn 20:23).  The penitent is reconciled both to God and the Church by the absolution of the priest.  One cannot be reconciled to one without the other, as St. Cyprian said: “He cannot have God for his Father who has not the Church for his mother.”

            The words of absolution by the priest clearly reveal the source of the power to forgive sins, which is the Paschal Mystery.  It also alludes to the necessary role of the Church.  Finally, it has the priest speak in the very person of Christ, since Jesus said “Whose sins you forgive will be forgiven, and whose sins you retain will be retained.”  The one with apostolic authority is a true actor, not a puppet, and he acts as judge, deciding to loose or to bind.  Although he is human, when he pronounces the absolution, his words are infallible, because by the power of the sacrament of holy orders, and his communion with his bishop, who is a successor of the apostles, he is one with Christ as head and shepherd.  That is the guarantee which the merciful Father wished to give to his wayward children, so that they would have no doubts about the remission of their guilt:   

“God the Father of mercies, through the death and Resurrection of his Son, has reconciled the world to himself, and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins.  Through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you of your sins, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”