Reconciliation - A Sacrament Necessary for Our Growth

Reconciliation – the Sacrament that creates controversy among my friends because several – both Catholic and Protestant – do not understand why we must confess our sins to a priest. After all, as they say we can always confess to God. In the Sacrosanctum Concilium, Vatican II attempts to clarify the purpose of Reconciliation by revising the rites and formulas so that they “clearly express the nature and effects of this Sacrament” (141). Clearly this to me meant that Reconciliation was important enough to the bishops at the time of Vatican II that they wanted to figure out a way to help Catholics better understand the meaning and significance of this Sacrament. As I had written about and we learned about earlier, Reconciliation had been a hot topic of debate since the Reformation; Martin Luther actually counted it as a Sacrament, whereas other Reformists disagreed.

A major reason why priests have the authority to forgive sins is because as I had learned about not only in this course, but also as a teacher of Religion, that priests are able to act in the person of Christ. In the Gospels, there is evidence that the Apostles witnessed Jesus claiming the authority to forgive while the letters of St. Paul write more about Reconciliation as part of the heart of Jesus’s ministry. When Jesus died and then rose again from the dead He was able to forgive us, and He alone has the power to forgive (Cooke and Macy 110).  Therefore, if we went alone with the evidence in the Bible, then because Jesus gave the Apostles the first authority as priests, then they could also forgive people’s sins. However, a major problem was the Penance itself.

Early on, the Penance had been public – if a person was deemed to be forgive then he or she would have a very strict penance such as temporary excommunication or fasting before the person was solemnly and publicly reconciled with the Church. It would not be until later when the idea of private confession and penance ritual – which first stemmed from Ireland – really came to be more common in Europe (Cooke and Macy 112).  I prefer the private confession and penance because for me, the hope with Penance is that we grow in our faith while being held accountable for our sins. When we are excluded from Communion, even after confessing, for some people, that may not help them truly grow in their faith – in some cases they may feel more alienated. It is why when I go to confession I find priests who I know can give a penance that is directly related to how I am feeling or what I am going through. Penances can range from reading the Book of Job to simply saying the Liturgy of the Hours for a week. This penance is effective because people are able to show the community that they are truly sorry and show real evidence for growth (Cooke and Macy 114).

Reconciliation is a Sacrament that I personally hold dear because we are able to really hold ourselves accountable and grow in our faith. While we should talk to God anyways in our prayers and apologize to Him, as I have learned in class as well as from retreats and my ministry, Reconciliation helps us be accountable. When we are able to understand the purpose of Reconciliation – that we may ultimately grow to be better children of God – we understand Jesus’s role in this Sacrament.