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Sacrament of Reconciliation
Reconciliation
Christians the world-over believe in the forgiveness of sins. To my knowledge, only Catholics celebrate
Confession, or Reconciliation, as a sacrament. The way I see it, Reconciliation has three steps: Confession, Penance, and Forgiveness.
Confession
At Reconciliation, the sinner can sometimes choose whether he/she wants to be face-to-face with the priest or not. If not, then there is some kind of screen placed between the sinner and priest. This seems to be the practice at most churches.
After entering the Confessional, a room where people confess their sins (or a designated area for Reconciliation), the sinner then crosses him/herself and says, "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned." The sinner then states when his/her last confession was and begins to tell the priest his or her sins.
Confession is essential to Reconciliation because it forces sinners to seek forgiveness to openly admit they have sinned in front of God, who the priest is supposed to personify (this is known as Persona Christi). Some might make the argument, "Why should I confess to a collar when I can just tell God directly?" Simple, but long. On a supernatural level, Jesus gave the power to confess sins to the apostles, who gave that power to the bishops, who then passed it onto the priests. Also, a priest cannot forgive something that they don’t know about. Plus, the normal form of human communication is speech. We speak our confessions and hear the absolution of our sins. Another thing is as members of the Mystical Body of Christ, when we sin, we have offended the Lord and the Church. So, to be reconciled with both, we tell our sins to a priest who is the representative of both (as before sort of mentioned). On a natural level, it is human nature to want to tell someone what we’ve done because of our guilt and shame, and we need to know that we are still accepted by society. It is also comforting to know that we have been absolved when we walk out of the confessional rather than just hoping we have been forgiven when we talk to God in our own privacy. A good thing about confessing to a priest, is the Seal of the Confessional. Even if we have murdered someone, the priest cannot tell anyone, not even in a court of law.
Penance
After confessing his or her sins, the priest will then charge the confessor with a special act or duty. It can be anything from a simple "Our Father" to a simple Rosary, or an act of kindness or mercy. Each priest has his own style of giving Penance, so it can be almost anything. Some might argue, "Psh! I can do any good thing after I tell my sins to God", but aren’t people already supposed to follow their faith and perform good works? How can a person be sure this make-shift confession counts? Like mentioned above, it is probably better to go to Reconciliation and get a proper one done. Anyway, after performing Penance, a confessor finally receives what he or she is seeking, forgiveness.
Forgiveness
Forgiveness is the final stage. After performing Penance, the confessor’s sins are wiped away and destroyed. But it is very important that the confessor is sincere, otherwise, it won’t count. Sometimes we commit the same sins, but that doesn’t mean we are failing to examine our consciences. We just need extra help with those sins and they should come up in Reconciliation most importantly. There is more behind Reconciliation than this; I encourage you to go out and learn more.
Published: March 24, 2007
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