The common
thread running between the healing in the Reconciliation and Anointing of the
Sick sacraments is the increased awareness of our human frailties, desire to
return to or remain in the good stead of the fold of the human community and
God, and humble receipt of expressions of compassion by those we have harmed or
those to whom we entrust our care, both humans and God. Both sacraments assume
a posture of humility that requires an emptying of one’s ego and any assurance
of control over one’s life and receiving the protective embrace of God’s
forgiveness and acceptance offered while alive and in death. The healing
offered by both sacraments is restfulness and reunion with humanity and God
when our weaknesses and vulnerabilities are exposed, even to the point that we
may receive pity from another for our deteriorating physical, emotional and/or
spiritual states. Through these sacraments, God invites us to expose our needs
and even our baseness. Our human conditions are not something of which to be
ashamed; they unite us and bring us into the body of Christ; all of humanity;
all of creation. As such, following the Second Vatican Council’s decree, the
new Rites for Penance and Reconciliation were “drawn up to emphasize the
relation of the sacrament to the community” (Johnson, 283).
Sunday, April 19, 2015
The Second Coming Comes About with Community
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Laura,
ReplyDeleteI have spent some time thinking about this blog since going to confession on Good Friday. I went, after many, many years in order to reconcile with the church. My experience of confession was not what I hoped for and I was left saddened. This was, unfortunately, similar to other confessions that led to years of not going. The priest, after hearing how long it had been since my last confession questioned me and said, “Stop there and let that be your confession” and I was not able to confess what, after an examination of conscience, weighed on me. Not having attended confession was not on my radar of transgressions but apparently was most offensive to the priest because he spent the duration of the time talking about that. It was humbling, which in itself is a positive and rich experience, however, it also felt incomplete and I was annoyed that I not able to say what was on my heart or mind. After reading your blog however, my response, which was most likely going to be angry, is tempered. I appreciate what you said about community. “ Redemptive suffering is the pain of working, creating, constructing, building – a community job. We are only saved with community”. In the blog on Eucharist Daniella also invited me to think in a “broader public context” of ritual. Clearly this is an area for me to grow.
My natural gifts are in introspection and empathy toward individuals, however, I am being called to look at ritual and sacrament through the eyes of community. It is natural for me to understand how to show hospitality rather than to view myself as a member of a larger community where my participation in sacrament helps the church rather than just me. You spoke of psychology and the movement from the emotional response to action. For me the lesson is identifying that my participation in Eucharist, confession, confirmation, etc is more than how these rites act on my personal relationship with God, but how my participation helps build up the Church by proclaiming my belief that we are reconciled to God through the paschal sacrifice and that the sacraments are public proclamations of this.
Before reading your blog the following writings stood out to me and was what I planned to expound on.
Cooke and Macy (116) … rituals of reconciliation should teach us not only love but humility, God is present to us mainly in and through other people. The loving God proclaimed by Jesus is no more powerfully present than in a ritual of reconciliation.
Cooke and Macy (117) One of the greatest gifts one can offer another is forgiveness.
Johnson (281) But we do not want to expel any, but rather to receive , not to amputate , but rather to heal; not to discard, but rather to win back; not to grieve but rather to comfort; not to condemn but rather to save.
These passages are at the heart of reconciliation for me and do require an emptying of self and ego in order to love, forgive, reconcile. The challenge will be for me to integrate my personal experiences and relationship with God with my role as a member of the broader community. I do strongly feel that the church also has work to do as well to make members feel welcomed. I hope to be a spiritual director to help others to reconcile their relationship with God and church.
Thank you for your eloquent blog which has given me much food for thought.
After re-reading your post, it struck me that the priest was trying to make it easy for you. He was being Christ to you - Christ who accepts us in all our sinfulness. It doesn't matter WHAT we've done, he accepts our repentance wholeheartedly and lovingly - forgetting and forgiving all our sins. Really, what he did seems beautiful to me. But, for your own sake, you will probably need to make what you consider to be a "good" confession.
DeleteLaura and iamtheclay,
ReplyDeleteThe line from the reading onto which I have really hung is the passage from Cooke and Macy about humility (116) that you both cite as well. I have managed to slink into the confessional every couple of years for the past decade or so, but there was a time when I attended with much greater frequency. It is humbling to realize that the habitual sins that I was dealing with 20 years ago are still among those that plague me most now. I used to believe that more frequent confession would provide me the strength or shame requisite to triumph over my shortcomings once and for all. Now, I imagine that on the contrary it would more likely give me the grace to forgive myself by transforming the shame.
It is interesting however to consider the changes in Roman Catholic participation in this sacrament in particular. The new rituals initiated since Vatican II seem not yet to have become broadly popular even as private confessions have also waned. Your attention to the community as the location of suffering, love, and healing is well-placed. Even the deeply personal transgressions known only to the sinner diminish that person’s integrity and therefore their full involvement in community. It is never “just between me and God.”
I wonder if the tangential involvement in parish life that many urban and suburban Christians experience plays a part in their (dis)interest in communal reconciliation services. On the other hand, I have noticed a growth in interest in restorative justice processes for dealing with conflict and transgressions in communal, school, family, and even civil settings. Cooke and Macy mention the South African and Chilean national attempts at reconciliation. I believe these are other examples of healing the wounds bind individuals in their communities (see locally, in New Orleans, the Center for Restorative Approaches). These reconciliation processes often conclude with a ritual of a meal to cement the new-found friendship between disputing parties. For those sins, or hurtful situations, that are publicly done or developed, it seems prudent to address them publicly. For those that are private, I can see the practicality of having a trained person listen well and guide penitents where necessary. I regret to hear that your experience, iamtheclay, was one in which the confessor failed to listen. Obviously humility is a practice even the ministers must also cultivate.
Thanks Jay Aychem. We use restorative circles in the schools. We don't necessarily seal it with a meal but I wonder if lunch together would continue the healing. I think reconciliation is a two part process: awareness and admission of the harm and a meaningful action to restore it. Prayer is good but I learn better and integrate more meaningfully when I "do".
ReplyDeleteDear All -
ReplyDeleteLaura, thank you for beginning this discussion with a creative and profound reflection on the communal reality of reconciliation.
Iamtheclay, my contribution to the issue you share will be a practical one. Because of my own understanding of the sacrament of reconciliation as a communal, ecclesial act, I have also increasingly looked for the more communal or relational ways to experience this sacrament. Jay Achem alludes to the reformed rites, particularly the communal reconciliation service with opportunity for individual confession, which we see in many parishes especially around Advent and Lent. This is a great retrieval of the communal context and I am wholeheartedly in support. But this still does not capture for me the relational aspect I am talking about..I am pointing to a context where one can have a real and honest conversation with a confessor without feeling rushed, embarrassed or as a stranger. In the communal reconciliation services, because so many people turn out for these communal services, the individual confessions can be rushed or impersonal, because the parish will bring in a team of priests to assist and they can be total strangers. (For some this is actually a benefit though!) In terms of a rushed pace, I recall one such celebration where the individual confession part was to stand in a moving line to approach a priest, go up to him, say the sins in the most basic form, them move on to the penance. The priest's eyes were not on me but on the line behind me and how long it still was. Not an ideal context for a soul-bearing conversation, at least not for me.
My point is this, and this is coming from personal experience, and in some ways it is personal opinion. When it comes to the sacrament of reconciliation, the most fruitful ways I have experienced it has been through going face-to-face to a priest who at the same time was also a spiritual director to me. Times in my life when this was available, this was always a conversation, an honest and respectful discussion, in which I felt known, understood, and gently challenged. It felt relational, because the spiritual director knew me more than just a voice behind a screen. As a spiritual director to me, it was also a solid boundary and a relationship well-defined and comfortable - he was not my parish priest, not someone I would see in a professional context or serve on a committee with. Sometimes people appreciate the screen so as to maintain some anonymity for this reason.
Considering the sacrament of reconciliation in the context of a relationship with a spiritual director priest to me has provided the practical context to bring myself most fully to this sacrament, to feel heard, and to approach the experience as an encounter. I realize this is not always available to people, but when it is, I believe it is a gift.
Blessings,
Daniella