"Nothing is a sin anymore!" has become the worried comment of a significant number of Catholics. The Church seems to have become very lenient--or at least many Catholics have decided to be rather lenient with themselves.
One cause of the new outlook, among many contributing factors, is this: While the "requirements" for mortal sin are still the same (serious matter, full awareness, full free consent of the will;), these have now come to be seen in their full depth of meaning. "Full awareness" means at least an implicit knowledge of the fact than my sin is actually rupturing my relationship with God; "full consent" means that, knowing this, I go ahead anyway with a freedom that is not seriously damaged by emotion. Mortal sinfulness is seen as a kind of life-choice. It isn't something people can "zigzag" out of.
Pope John Paul II called a synod of bishops in 1983 to consider the problems facing the Church in the Sacrament of Reconciliation ("confession" is only part of the sacrament). They wrestled with the subject for weeks. Later the pope issued an exhortation that summed up his own conclusions and those of the bishops.
As if answering the complaint that "nothing is a sin anymore," he describes the evil that is rampant in the world: the trampling of the rights of persons, above all the right to life and to a decent quality of life; the attack on freedom, especially that of professing one's faith; racial discrimination, violence, torture, terrorism; the piling up of weapons in an arms race which spends billions that could ease the undeserved misery of many human beings. The pope sees divisions in a shattered world: Between individuals and groups, nations and blocs of nations. And he says that the root of all these things lies in our inmost self. In the light of faith we call it sin.
The pope uses two Bible stories to illustrate the meaning of sin: (1) In erecting the tower of Babel, humanity sought to be powerful without God--a rival of God, in fact. (2) We find the same rivalry in Eden, when human beings set themselves up as being somehow self-sufficient, as powerful as God.
All through history this has been sin, in all its forms: exclusion of God, the rupturing of relationship with God. Sin is the disobedience of a person who by a free and knowing act does not recognize the sovereignty of God over his or her life, at least when the sin is committed.
All Christians need, in view of all this, a renewed sense of sin--a spiritual thermometer whereby we are sharply aware of the seeds of death contained in sin as well as the thousand disguises under which sin hides itself.
THE MEANING OF SIN
We try to describe the Church at its best at Eucharist. The community returns to try to re-create that ideal every Sunday. At the same time, it is a community that always needs to be saved because it is always a weak and sinful community. Some members of the Body may have become lifeless; others are seriously ill; all may have at least a slight fever.
How does sin happen in the very Body of Christ? A gradual lessening of warmth between members occurs, aided by repeated experiences of the limitations and faults of others; a willingness not to look too hard for the truth or at the truth grows. One by one people slip into a life that is partly a lie, a disorder they will not face; they are overtaken by the heady wine of freedom, the satisfaction of pleasure divorced from purpose. Things become little gods instead of creations; people become things for use and enjoyment apart from the great purposes of life.
And so it is possible gradually to move back from the circle of the community and from the Lord who gives that circle a center.
Sin is a way of life. It is an attitude that grows--just as love envelops in giving and receiving. Nothing human is instantaneous. What happens at 12:00 was already begun at 11:59 and at 9:00, growing toward fullness yesterday and last week and perhaps last year. The growth is not unnoticed--for then there would be no fault--but it is not admitted.
Often we choose sin by default: I do not do the right and reasonable thing. I need not stamp my feet and shake my fist at God; I just don't decide to do the good thing. I will not do what the words of Jesus are calling me to do. His meaning is obvious, but I refuse to hear. There is a terrible scene in the book and movie Leave Her to Heaven, in which a woman sits calmly in a rowboat, her eyes hidden by sunglasses, watching a rival drown. She sits very still, watching, doing nothing.
Sin-fullness becomes this sinful act, gradually, just as one can become drunk by letting his glass be filled again and again and never objecting.
It really isn't serious for a while. This is literally true but has led to the foolish view that something is "only" a venial sin. But nothing is just "a" sin; it is a point along the ramp going down. All sin is a gradual slipping from life to death, so gradual that when one crosses the line it is scarcely noticed--for the willingness to cross the line was present long before. The woman who watched her rival drown had come to be a murderer by many slow, sly steps.
So the community that is spoken of is not ideal because there are empty places at the table. Some may have moved their chairs to private cliques (Paul had trouble with that at Corinth). Some, in John's words, must hear Jesus say, "You have lost the love you had at first" (Revelation 2:4b).
CHURCH:THE RECONCILING COMMUNITY
By the very fact that Jesus joined people into a visible Body to be his sacrament, he "automatically" created the Sacrament of Reconciliation. For the Church is the sign of Christ's love, and therefore God's endless willingness to forgive. The Church is given the ministry of reconciliation not just for the rebirth of Baptism, but--such is the "bind" God gets into by being God--for the seventy times seven times one may lose the life once gratefully received (see Matthew 18:12).
The words of Jesus, "Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained" (John 20:23), affirm the community's power to reconcile sinners. Reconciliation with the Church means reconciliation with God.
The community--somebody--must carry out the ministry of reconciliation in such a way that sinners can first be sure they are welcome back. To the sinner--miserable and alone in the most crowded room, caught in the trap of greed or hate, cold stubbornness or pride, must or mere sufficiency--someone must bring back the memory of the Father's table.
If sinfulness is a way of life, so is the life of grace. A new--the former--way of life must be entered.
First, and hardest of all, must come the admission of sinfulness: not a "mistaken judgment" or a "forgetting" or an "I didn't think...," but a simple, factual statement, with the Prodigal Son, "Father, I have sinned...; I no longer deserve to be called your son" (Luke 15:21z,c).
Real sorrow must follow--not just remorse for the self-inflicted pain and misery (for punishment is built into sin itself) but a genuine sorrow that God's love has been ignored, God's trust betrayed. Something holy and valuable has been spoiled. A consecrated body-spirit, a mind made for truth, freedom made to love, a body made to share and show the spirit's faith, a heart meant to experience the beauty and purity of life--all have been infected, abused, prostituted.
The sinner turns back to God for healing and new life."...God was [and is] reconciling the world to himself in Christ" (2 Corinthians 5:19a). God brings the sinner back to the table, knowing how he or she has hungered for that place. God gives the determination to change, the power to take the necessary steps, to leave the foreign country where the inheritance was squandered, to do practical things like repairing and restoring and apologizing.
The Sacrament of Reconciliation of the sign from God that the sinner is absolutely forgiven. The sign is the welcome of the community, the kindness of the priest, the certainty of acceptance, the grace of God made visible.
CONFESSION
One who has been truly guilty of mortal sinfulness must ordinarily confess the sinfulness to a priest, individually and privately, even though God's forgiveness has already been given and experienced. (Ordinarily--unless, for instance, one is unable to confess because of physical or moral impossibility such as sickness, the danger of being overheard or the like.)
This is a sticking point for many--once for Protestants, now for some Catholics. Why go to a man, the argument goes, when God has already acted? Or, in the words of the more liturgically minded, why do we need anything more than the community's forgiveness, expressed in its welcome?
We are speaking, remember, of one who truly separated himself or herself internally from the Body of Christ. It seems only common decency that one does not resume a place at table as if nothing had happened. Even the most loving of families would expect something more than that.
Confessing, like any external physical act, makes the interior act fully human. If a resolution or feeling is genuine within me, it will out. It may not even be fully mine--of me, this body-spirit unity--until I have done something external, until I have created words that make me realize what I truly mean.
Confessing is a "public" statement (even in the privacy of the confessional or reconciliation room) that (1) I am truly a sinner; (2) only God can forgive my sinfulness (3) I want and accept God's forgiveness; (4) I mean to do something about my sinfulness.
Most important of all, the voice of Christ himself becomes audible in confession--speaking to us individually about our individual sinfulness. It is the sign which, being human, we desperately need.
The actual words of absolution said as the priest holds his hands on or over the head of the penitent are:
God, the Father of mercies, by 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. By the ministry of the Church, may God give you pardon and peace. And I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
THE NEW RITE
Vatican II called for a revision of the rites of the sacraments to make their nature and purpose clear. In the case of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The sinner who has been away comes back. It is no humiliation to return, for now the pain of self-imposed isolation is over. The sinner confesses privately to the priest in the course of the sacramental celebration and God gives the assurance of forgiveness through the priest's words of absolution. The community welcomes the sinner back to the table.
But even when only priest and penitent meet (in private confession), the community is there. The priest represents the reconciling community. The confessor must make a judgment for the Church. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the judgment is that the penitent is truly sorry. But it is possible that a priest may be forced to conclude that a given person is nowhere near real sorrow or purpose of amendment. The priest has the great responsibility to try to show the sinner the love as well as the truth of God; but he cannot make a mockery of the words of absolution and pretend the sinner has really returned to community life when in fact it may merely be a case of empty ritual.
Besides this emphasis on community, the revised rite insists that the word of God be an integral part of every sacramental celebration. the Bible is a kind of sacrament of God's actual living word to us today. It is not a collection of choice sayings, an interesting religious anthology. The reading of Scripture in sacramental celebrations is, or should be, a striking emphasis on the fact that the sacraments are God's actions, God's self-communication, and involve some definite expectations of us.
So the reading of Scriptures focuses our minds on God's presence and action. The words of Scripture are a communication from God, and a personal response must be given. In this sacrament, it is God giving reassurance, healing, forgiveness--but, insofar as necessary, a restatement of the DIVINE WILL and a WHOLESOME WARNING.
Finally, there is a renewed emphasis in the new rite on deepening our awareness of the full meaning of sin and grace. Confession need not be made face-to-face, but this method gives priest and penitent a better chance to get beneath the surface of sin to its roots and to make the reconciliation a felt and grace-full experience.
The priest is not a psychiatrist. He is a fellow Christian who can help the penitent see things in faith again and make personal the present love of God. He can sympathize as well as speak the unyielding truth.
It is easy to make fun of the old "grocery list" confession, but who knows what depths of real sorrow and full awareness of the grace of reconciliation and of the need of penance accompanied by that list? At any rate, the emphasis today is where it always has to be--on the motives and attitudes that run beneath the surface, the traits of temperament that are the filter of both sin and virtue.
It is hoped that the sacramental rite can help even so-called "venial sinners" sense the seriousness of sacramental reconciliation. Even if I have not left the table, I may have pulled my chair back: I can't stand this person, or I don't want to share with that one, or I don't want to have to adapt to that one. I am thereby refusing to love my neighbor, and the life of the community is made a little less healthy. The pulse and flow of the life of the Body has be restricted.
When a community gathers for the sacrament, each member is saying to all, "I have hurt you by what I have done and by what I have not done. Show me the forgiveness of Jesus." And each member also says to all the rest by the very coming together, "I offer you the forgiveness of Jesus, who call us to be one in Him." This is reconciliation, turning away from sin and turning to God by joining the community again or joining it more generously.
PENANCE
Finally, there is "penance" to be done by each individual after celebrating the sacrament. It is not "satisfaction" in the sense of "making up" to God for our sin, for we can never do that. We can only accept divine forgiveness.
Penance is letting God change my life, particularly in the area in which I have sinned. An individuals "Penance" is balm for his or her particular needs and difficulties: to learn charity by performing an act of kindness for a person the penitent dislikes, for instance.
Thus the healing of Christ is given to all who have thrown aside their baptismal garment or have soiled it, who have let their candle go out or burn low, who have wiped the oil of their dignity off their brow.
If we acknowledge our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us form every wrongdoing.
RECONCILIATION IS WORSHIP
The celebration of the sacrament ends with a proclamation of praise to God. Sacraments are worship, and the most natural thing for a reconciled sinner to do is to be happy about the mercy of God. This is not like leaving a courtroom where one was barely acquitted and perhaps subjected to humiliation. Rather it is the celebration of the family, especially the reunited members. No longer does it matter what I was or what I did. Shame and scandal are forgotten. Joy comes from what I am: loved to life by God.
This post is taken from Catholic faith based reading. I had wanted to put up this particular post for a long time and decided to do it today. We as humans are created in God's image and are expected to conduct ourselves in a Christlike manner. We are all sinners, as our first parents caused us to be, but that doesn't mean that we are immediately resolved of our sins merely by making a declaration to God in our hearts. That is one way to be absolved of our sins and the preceding paragraphs emphasize the other ways. Simply telling ourselves that what we have done is wrong and then thinking that God will forgive us, and then immediately resuming the same sinful actions and thinking by internal prayer that everything is forgiven is dangerous. God wants to and does forgive us, but through the Sacraments of Confession Penance & Reconciliation and a sincere desire to become the person that God intended us to be and to fulfill God's Master Plan and Purpose that He intended for all of us.
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