Saturday, August 25, 2012
302. What are the essential elements of the sacrament of Reconciliation? (part 1)
(Comp
302) The essential elements are two: the acts of the penitent who comes
to repentance through the action of the Holy Spirit, and the absolution of the
priest who in the name of Christ grants forgiveness and determines the ways of
making satisfaction.
“In brief”
(CCC 1440) Sin is before all else an offense against God, a
rupture of communion with him. At the same time it damages communion with the
Church. For this reason conversion entails both God's forgiveness and
reconciliation with the Church, which are expressed and accomplished
liturgically by the sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation (Cf. LG 11).
To deepen and explain
(CCC 1447) Over the centuries the concrete form in which the
Church has exercised this power received from the Lord has varied considerably.
During the first centuries the reconciliation of Christians who had committed
particularly grave sins after their Baptism (for example, idolatry, murder, or
adultery) was tied to a very rigorous discipline, according to which penitents
had to do public penance for their sins, often for years, before receiving
reconciliation. To this "order of penitents" (which concerned only
certain grave sins), one was only rarely admitted and in certain regions only
once in a lifetime. During the seventh century Irish missionaries, inspired by
the Eastern monastic tradition, took to continental Europe the
"private" practice of penance, which does not require public and
prolonged completion of penitential works before reconciliation with the
Church. From that time on, the sacrament has been performed in secret between
penitent and priest. This new practice envisioned the possibility of repetition
and so opened the way to a regular frequenting of this sacrament. It allowed
the forgiveness of grave sins and venial sins to be integrated into one
sacramental celebration. In its main lines this is the form of penance that the
Church has practiced down to our day.
On reflection
(CCC 1442) Christ has willed that in her prayer and life and
action his whole Church should be the sign and instrument of the forgiveness
and reconciliation that he acquired for us at the price of his blood. But he
entrusted the exercise of the power of absolution to the apostolic ministry
which he charged with the "ministry of reconciliation" (2 Cor 5:18).
The apostle is sent out "on behalf of Christ" with "God making
his appeal" through him and pleading: "Be reconciled to God" (2
Cor 5:20). (CCC 1443) During his public life Jesus not only forgave sins, but
also made plain the effect of this forgiveness: he reintegrated forgiven
sinners into the community of the People of God from which sin had alienated or
even excluded them. A remarkable sign of this is the fact that Jesus receives
sinners at his table, a gesture that expresses in an astonishing way both God's
forgiveness and the return to the bosom of the People of God (Cf. Lk 15; 19:9).
(CCC 1444) In imparting to his apostles his own power to forgive sins the Lord
also gives them the authority to reconcile sinners with the Church. This
ecclesial dimension of their task is expressed most notably in Christ's solemn
words to Simon Peter: "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and
whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on
earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Mt 16:19; cf. Mt 18:18; 28:16-20).
"The office of binding and loosing which was given to Peter was also
assigned to the college of the apostles united to its head" (LG 22 § 2). [IT
CONTINUES]
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