Tag Archives: Penance

Our Lady of Fatima and the Rosary – October 2, 2022

One overlooked aspect of Our Lady of Fatima is in the final October 1917 apparition is a trifold vision of the three mysteries of the rosary.  As most of the tens of thousands of onlookers witnessed the “dancing of the sun,” the three children Lucia, Francisco, and Marta witnessed visions of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.  More precisely, Lucia saw a mystical triptych in the sky of the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious Mysteries of the rosary.  Lucia describes the vision of the first scene of the Joyful Mysteries and the Holy Family:

“We beheld St. Joseph with the Child Jesus and Our Lady robed in white with a blue mantle, beside the sun.  St. Joseph and the Child Jesus appeared to bless the world, for they traced the Sign of the Cross with their hands.”  

In the next scene, Lucia alone saw the Sorrowful Mysteries represented by Our Lady of Dolors:

“I saw Our Lord and Our Lady; it seemed to me that it was Our Lady of Sorrows.  Our Lord appeared to bless the world in the same manner as St. Joseph had done.” 

In the final scene, Lucia witnessed the Glorious Mysteries represented by Our Lady of Mt. Carmel:

“and I saw Our Lady once more this time resembling Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.”

The Blessed Virgin Mary had foretold to the shepherd children a month before in September that they would see this threefold vision of mysteries of the rosary:  “In October, Our Lord will also come, as well as Our Lady of Sorrows and Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and Saint Joseph with the Child Jesus, to bless the world.”  

Joyful Mysteries

In the first vision of the Joyful Mysteries, Mary and Joseph are present with the Christ Child—the Holy Family.  Heaven is emphasizing the dignity of marriage and family life.  Family life is one of the central messages of Fatima.  Heaven calls us to sanctify marriage and our families.  St. Joseph is present as the father figure and husband who blesses the world.  This shows the critical importance of the role of fathers and the family as a whole, especially in our age of endemic broken families and absentee fathers.    

Sorrowful Mysteries

In the second vision of the Sorrowful Mysteries, Lucia sees Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary as Our Lady of Sorrows.  Heaven shows that we must be willing to take up our daily Cross and follow after Christ.  This involves daily penance and reparation for our sins and the sins of others.  The Blessed Virgin Mary told the shepherd children in the August 13 apparition to: “Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them.”  The central message of Fatima is prayer, penance, and reparation for sin in order to save souls.  

Glorious Mysteries

In the third and final vision of the Glorious Mysteries, Lucia sees Our Lady of Mt. Carmel—Mary as the Queen of Heaven.  Our earthly lives of struggle and death are not the end of us.  We have the glorious hope of attaining salvation and the heavenly crown of eternal life.  Sister Lucia described Our Lady of Mt. Carmel as emblematic of total consecration to God.  As Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Mary came bearing the brown scapular offering it to us to wear it as a sign of our consecration to her Immaculate Heart.      

Sister Lucia would later affirm, according to Carmelite priest Fr. Howard Rafferty in an interview on August 15, 1950 that: “The rosary and brown scapular are inseparable. You cannot have one without the other.” 

It was not by accident that in each monthly apparition at Fatima, the Blessed Virgin Mary asked the children to pray the rosary every day. This daily recitation is part of our path to Heaven.  In the October apparition, she also described herself as: “I am the Lady of the Rosary.”

Years later, in Pontevedra, Spain on December 10, 1925, Jesus and Mary again appeared to now Sister Lucia.  The Blessed Virgin Mary showed Sister Lucia her Immaculate Heart covered with thorns “which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment.”  She asked Lucia to make reparation for these offenses by fulfilling the Five First Saturdays devotion.  The Blessed Virgin Mary promised her:

“I promise to assist at the hour of death, with the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, shall confess [their sins], receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the rosary, and keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.”  

This is an amazing promise!  October is a time to re-consecrate ourselves to the Blessed Virgin Mary through daily prayer of the mysteries of the rosary, wearing the brown scapular, and making the first Five Saturdays devotion. Heaven deemed these practices of eminent importance for the salvation of souls to have emphasized these truths in one of the most miraculous apparitions in Church history.  Surely, these holy practices are beneficial for our salvation.   

Our path to Heaven is through prayer, penance, sacrifice, conversion, Confession, and worthily receiving Jesus in the Holy Eucharist.  The mysteries of the rosary are our daily help to bring us step-by-step, and bead-by-bead, to our Heavenly home.  Our Lady of Fatima promised us.    

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We’re All Protestants Now – April 2, 2020

With many of the sacraments effectively shutdown across the country and world the Catholic faithful have become de facto Protestants. All dioceses are on lockdown with the coronavirus pandemic afflicting the world. In practical terms, this means no Mass, no reception of the Eucharist, no confession to a priest, no Baptisms, no Confirmations, and no marriages. It is less clear, if, or where the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick is proceeding. The sacrament of Holy Orders is obviously still going forward with men in the seminary. The sacraments for the laity, however, have, for all intents and purposes, stopped. Bishops have generally either stopped them outright, or allowed for pastors to decide, or given specific caveats of “in case of an emergency” of death. The Church without her everyday, normal sacramental grace has become, at least temporarily, Protestant.  

The cessation of large gatherings as at Mass is the correct decision for right now. Coronavirus must be curtailed as quickly as possible. The Church has appropriately recommended that the faithful, in lieu of sacramental confession, try to make regular perfect acts of contrition. One prominent Protestant teacher, who I generally like and appreciate, recommended that Catholics use this moment to give up sacramental confession altogether. Not good! The sacrament of divine healing is a pillar of our faith and a bulwark of grace for the delicate state of our souls. 

Protestants have been advocating for ending sacramental confession ever since Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses on to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, Germany on October 31, 1517. Luther’s second thesis addressed penance directly: “This word cannot be understood as referring to the sacrament of penance, that is, confession and satisfaction, as administered by the clergy.” In other words, Luther was declaring that Jesus did not intend for us to reconcile ourselves to God through the Sacrament of Confession. Our current plague-riddled world of 2020 that has squashed sacramental grace is the realization of Luther’s thesis. We know this is temporary, but it does not dull the pain of our present predicament.      

We, as a Church, must embrace this moment of the Cross, and accept the will of Christ in this crisis. Yes, we should make perfect acts of contrition, and yes, we should make spiritual communions. These are good things. Using this time in “corona-purgatory” to reform our daily lives with repentance and penance is a great use of our time. This is perhaps an opportunity to push again in these final days of Lent for our heartfelt metanoia and turning away from sin. This passion in our Church should draw us closer into the Passion of Christ. It does not, however, mean we should jettison our sacramental life. Rather, once this crisis is over and we return fully to the sacraments, I believe, our sacramental life will be so much more alive. This pandemic, which has deprived us of the sacraments, will make us appreciate them all the more. Perhaps, this is the silver-lining in the whole saga: we will as a Church rediscover, like never before, Christ and the real presence of his grace in the sacraments. 

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A Stiff-necked People, Plague, Penance, and the Promised Land – March 24, 2020

“Then if you walk contrary to me, and will not hearken to me, I will bring more plagues upon you.” (Lev. 26:21)

The stoppage of ALL public Catholic Masses in the United States, and in many places around the world, is unprecedented. We know that private celebrations of the Mass by priests continue, but nevertheless, public Masses have ended. One has to go back to the 300’s A.D. in Rome, before Christianity became legal with Emperor Constantine, to find a time when no public Masses were offered anywhere. The Eucharist and the Mass are the source and summit of the Catholic faith. Yet, there is a blackout of public Masses everywhere now. This should grab our attention. 

The Old Testament offers many examples when God grabbed the undivided attention of his people by sending plagues upon them too. This does not mean that plagues are synonymous with sin. There is not a one-to-one correlation, as Jesus said in the New Testament (John 9:3). It does not mean someone suffering from the virus, or any other ailment for that matter, has sinned in some way. No, not at all – think of the righteous, but long-suffering, plague-afflicted man, Job. 

However, the Bible does make it abundantly clear that plagues can be a tool that God uses to discipline his people and to draw them back to himself. A good father chastises his children when they make bad choices, or are doing something harmful to themselves or others. The global size, scope, and unprecedented nature of the current COVID-19 pandemic suggest something unique is happening. 

We, as a Church and a society, continue to stubbornly embrace a moral turpitude against the sanctity of life and marriage and the family. Furthermore, there are unresolved ecclesiastical sexual scandals within the hierarchy of the Church. Others have even made the connection to the public, fertility-goddess ceremony of the pachamama idol in the Vatican during the Amazonian synod last fall and the current outbreak. There is no denying that a certain laxness has crept into the Church in belief and in practice. We see this reflected in flippant casualness in regards to the Real Presence of Christ in Blessed Sacrament. This same lessening of the faith can be discerned in the other sacraments as well, like infrequent Confessions. Worse still, some have left the Church all together. In short, there has been a general falling away from the faith.

In similar instances in the Old Testament, God called his people a “stiff-necked people” (Ex. 32:9), because they were stubborn, obstinate, and recalcitrant in their sins and unbelief. When they refused to repent, God did at times send plagues upon them. In the Book of Exodus, God dealt with the hard-heartedness of pharaoh by sending ten plagues upon him and the Egyptians for not letting his people, the Israelites, go free to worship Yahweh. The last plague, the death of the firstborn sons, led to the freeing of the Israelites, and the institution of the Passover sacrifice. Out of the plagues, God ultimately brought something good, as pharaoh finally relented and let his people go. 

The plague that brought the first Passover is the same Passover sacrifice that Christ celebrated at the Last Supper, or the first Catholic Mass. The Passover sacrifice was a prefigurement to the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, the true Paschal Lamb of God, and the Eucharist. It is the same public sacrifice that God permits now to be stayed by a plague.

It was not just the Egyptians who had to contend with plagues because of their hard-heartedness. The Israelites, too, in their wilderness wanderings often times strayed from the will of the Lord, descending into idolatry and immorality. Even at the foot of Mount Sinai, the mountain of God, as Moses was receiving the Law, the Israelites worshipped the golden calf and “rose up to play,” a euphemism for sexual immorality. God immediately answers this with a plague: “And the Lord sent a plague upon the people, because they made the calf which Aaron made.” (Ex. 32:35) 

There are numerous other instances throughout the Old Testament that God chastises his own beloved people through plagues:

  • “While the meat was yet between their teeth, before it was consumed, the anger of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord smote the people with a very great plague.” (Num. 11:33) 
  • “behold, the Lord will bring a great plague on your people . . . ” (2 Chron. 21:14)
  • “they provoked the Lord to anger with their doings, and a plague broke out among them.” (Psalms 106:29)

We get the point. Plagues are one means that God turns us away from sin and leads us back into obedience and sanctity. It is a wake up call. Sin has consequences. This is not something our sophisticated modern ears really want to hear. To our insulated Disney World perspective of life, if you will, these are foreign concepts. The reality of sin and just punishment is something we wrestle with. Yet, here we are. 

This corona event may be a necessary prick to our consciences. But, one may ask, for what reason? Perhaps, it is a reminder that God is in control, and he has established his unchanging law and commandments that we are obliged to follow. The coronavirus has been an earthquake to our society, to the world, in terms of our collective health, economy, and way of life. It is an unmistakable call to penance. We avoid activities now that would endanger our mortal bodies, but what about preserving our immortal souls? This is a spiritual event. It is like a large, blinking, neon yellow “CAUTION” sign to stay on the straight and narrow path to eternal life.    

The physical crisis is a symptom of our underlying spiritual crisis. It is meant to wake us from our spiritual slumber. We know that God only allows evil for an ultimate, though mysterious, greater good. Scripture tells us that God “desires all men to be saved.” (1 Tim. 2:4) Our heavenly Father wants every single one of us to be in Heaven with him. We must play our part though by turning away from sin, and offering repentance and prayer. This great momentary pause in things is an opportunity for us. It is our monastic moment, cloistered in our homes, to examine honestly the state of our souls. Perhaps, if we loosen our stiff-necks and turn away from sin, then later, like the Israelites, we may enter into the Promised Land.  

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The Only Thing that Matters – September 11, 2017

Life is fleetingly short. The minutes and seconds of our earthly lives are trickling down inexorably like grains of sand falling through the hourglass. Christ on his judgment seat holds the hourglass for each of our lives, watching, and waiting for that moment when we shall, at last, appear before him. Only he knows how many grains of sand of time are left for us. We must be ready at any moment. That is why Christ declares “behold, now is the day of salvation.” In a world where “all is vanity,” we must cut through the fog of sin and meaninglessness, and seize the weightiest of matters, in fact, the only thing that matters – the salvation of our souls.

Jesus said what does it profit a man to gain the whole world but forfeit his life? Our goal is not this world or this life. Our goal is eternal life in the world to come. Jesus spoke of this often, comparing it to a wedding feast. In the great revelation given to St. John, he was caught up into heaven and beheld the joy of the saints at the wedding feast of Christ. An angel spoke to him “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” (Rev. 19:9) St. John wrote about these blessed ones of the Church as the Bride of Christ, saying she “has made herself ready; it was granted her to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure.” (Rev. 19:8) The saints are ready because of the way they are “clothed.” But, what is this clothing and why is it “fine linen, bright and pure?” Simply put, this is the divine, sanctifying grace of Jesus Christ.

We must be covered and clothed with the supernatural grace of Christ. Those with the proper “wedding garments” are saved, and those without them are condemned. Jesus himself alluded to this in a disturbing aspect of the wedding banquet parable:

“But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment; and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.’ (Mt. 22:11-13)

Time is short to be ready for the eternal wedding feast. The only thing that matters is that at the moment of death we are clothed with sanctifying grace.

The opposite of being clothed is being naked. We find nakedness in the Garden of Eden. When Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, Original Sin, their eyes were opened “and they knew that they were naked.” (Gen. 3:7) They were exposed and ashamed before God. There is a curious scene too, in another garden, the Garden of Gethsemane, the night Jesus was betrayed and seized by the Roman soldiers. As all this happened, scripture says, “And a young man followed him, with nothing but a linen cloth about his body; and they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked.” (Mk. 14:51-52) Sin has left us all naked and exposed to damnation. St. Paul spoke of this too, saying “Here indeed we groan, and long to put on our heavenly dwelling, so that by putting it on we may not be found naked.” (2 Cor. 5:2-3) Yet, it matters not what sins we may have committed in the past. Nothing is beyond the mercy of God, as long as we sincerely seek his forgiveness through the repentance of our sins.

So, we must be clothed from on high by the Holy Spirit, but how?

Sanctifying grace is conferred onto us through faith in Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit in the sacraments of the Church, which are necessary for our salvation. (CCC 1129) The seven sacraments of the Church are, of course: Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Penance, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony. These are the means by which we put on our wedding garments of fine linen, bright and pure.

All of the sacraments are eminently efficacious and necessary for the life of the Church. However, I would like to focus here on just three sacraments, which are so necessary for the world today, and for our individual souls, and yet, are so sorely neglected. Jesus’ prayer from the Cross is apt “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” Or, in our case, we know not what we squander.

As far as we know, St. John was the only Apostle to hear these words from the Lord as he was crucified. He remained at the foot of the Cross, and did not flee like the other Apostles. He was the disciple whom the Lord loved. He was entrusted with the care of Mary the mother of God after Jesus died. He rested his head close to Jesus’ Sacred Heart at the Last Supper. He was the only Apostle not martyred, and so, lived to a wise old age, reflecting deeply for his whole life on the words of Christ. This deep meditation poured forth in the pages of his gospel when he wrote about the sacraments, especially Baptism, the Eucharist, and Confession.

In the third chapter of John’s gospel he writes about Baptism and being “born again.” The conversation, of course, is between Jesus and Nicodemus. Jesus tells him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” (Jn. 3:5) Baptism is the basis for the whole Christian life and “the gateway to life in the Spirit.”

Three chapters later John writes about the Eucharist in the Bread of Life discourse. In it, Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” (Jn. 6:53-54) The Eucharist is our food of immortality.

Later in his gospel he writes about Confession and the power to forgive sins. He says about the Resurrected Jesus: “And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” (Jn. 20:22-23) This sacrament of divine mercy renders us into a state of grace. Baptism, the Eucharist and Confession are so vital, so necessary in the everyday life of a soul. These are the channels of sanctifying grace by which we put on the wedding garments of Christ. To neglect these is to neglect the state of our souls, and to jeopardize our place of eternal life in heaven.

This is the only thing that matters: When we die, will we be clothed in the wedding garments of Christ, or not? This requires us to earnestly pursue the weightiest of matters: repentance, conversion, sanctity, holiness, and saintliness. We are men and women of God, called to strive to enter through the narrow gate, to pray ceaselessly, to cling to the truth always, and to serve one another. The way of the disciple is to renounce the vanities of this world and to embrace the Cross of Christ.

St. John quotes Christ in the Book of Revelation about keeping our garments white and clean: “He who conquers shall be clad thus in white garments, and I will not blot his name out of the book of life; I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.” (Rev. 3:5-6) And again, concerning our garments and Christ’s Second Coming: “Lo, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is he who is awake, keeping his garments that he may not go naked and be seen exposed!” (Rev. 16:15) It is up to us to keep our wedding garments of fine linen, bright and pure. We do this by taking refuge in the sacraments of the Church; and going to Confession frequently, and receiving Jesus in the Holy Eucharist often.

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Running to Win the Spiritual Race – May 19, 2016

William Shakespeare famously wrote “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players,” and so it is with us. Each of us “performs” each day on the world’s stage before the spectacle of our fellow man, and before the saints and angels in heaven, and under the watchful eyes of God. We act out our lives from moment to moment, for good or for ill, before the human and the heavenly audience. St. Paul says, “..we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men.” (1 Cor. 4:9) The letter to the Hebrews depicts us as competing in a packed stadium filled with all the saints and heroes that have gone before us, cheering us on, competing in a race around the track. “..since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses . . . let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us..” (Heb. 12:1) St. Paul urges us to shed “every weight” of sin that slows us down so we can persevere and win the race. The cloud of witnesses, the saints in heaven, are not only cheering us on but also offering personal intercession for us. (CCC 2683) St. Paul must have been a great admirer of runners and athletic competitions, such as the Isthmian and Olympiad Games; he uses the running metaphor a number of times in his letters. To the Corinthians he says, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.” (1 Cor. 9:24-25) St. Paul compares the spiritual life to an athletic competition, in which we should strive not for a laurel victory wreath but for the crown of eternal life.

How should we compete for this crown of eternal life? Much in the same way that an athlete must plan his or her exercise regimen each day to prepare for the race, so should we plan our spiritual regimen each day. We can exercise our souls with a schedule of daily prayer. In this way we can grow in faith and holiness, pleasing to God, and on the path to eternal life. First, we must discipline and train our spiritual selves. This can be difficult. It can be so much easier to sit back and watch a TV show or surf the internet rather than pray. I can find a million excuses not to pray at any given moment, but I have found my day is so much better if I do pray. My day is given direction and satisfaction, and a sense of purpose and connection to God. It sacramentalizes my whole day. The best way to approach our spiritual training is to have a simple, fixed schedule of prayer. Basically, we need a plan. It should be a simple one, accommodating our individual circumstances and responsibilities. The key is to faithfully stick to the plan as best we can, and repeat it each day and each week. If we do this, we can “pray without ceasing.” (1 Thess. 5:17) We can become, as St. Josemaria Escriva described, “contemplatives in the midst of the world.”

Here are some suggestions for us to include in our daily spiritual exercises:

  • The Morning Offering upon waking up
  • Pray the Rosary
  • Attend Mass and receive Communion
  • Pray the Angelus at noon
  • Pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet (maybe at the 3:00 hour)
  • Small acts of penance or mortification throughout the day
  • Grace before meals
  • Attend Adoration
  • Pray the Liturgy of the Hours (particularly, in the morning and evenings hours; see phone apps to assist with this)
  • Short conversations of mental prayer (a “heart to heart” talking and listening to God)
  • Spiritual Reading (Bible or other spiritual reading)
  • Meditate on the Stations of the Cross
  • A Nightly Examination of Conscience and Act of Contrition before bed

Of these, I have found it particularly important to never miss the Morning Offering or the Nightly Act of Contrition. These help frame our day and orient it completely towards God, sanctifying the hours of the day from morning to night. I also find saying the Rosary and the Chaplet of Divine Mercy particularly powerful, but this is my own particular spiritual affinity. Each of us should determine what we are drawn to personally.

It does not take much time to speak to God each day, even mere minutes. Yet, it can still be difficult. Much like our regular muscles, we need to exercise our prayer muscle to improve. The more we exercise our prayer life, the stronger and easier it will become. Prayer is our connection to Him. Our relationship with God will take on a much more personal flavor and commitment. God calls us friends and His children. He is personally interested in us, even down to the most minute details of our lives. Jesus said, “Even the hairs of your head are all numbered.” (Mt.10:30) This should give us comfort. God knows our hearts and thoughts. He hears everything we ask and tell Him. He cares about us more than we could ever imagine. We just need to make the time to speak and listen to Him. Our daily prayer schedules are part of our commitment to Him, and proof that we love Him. If we live this way, each and every day, and continue this over our lifetimes, a “compounding interest of prayer,” if you will, this is the stuff of saints. Then, we can come to the end of our lives, the end of our race and competition, and declare as St. Paul says, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (2 Tim. 4:7)

 

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The Sacrament of Divine Mercy – October 9, 2015

“then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.” (Gen.2:7)

“When He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” (Jn. 20:22-23)

The sacraments are the very heart of Christianity. They are the manifestation of Christ in the world. In them, Christ truly becomes present to us. They are the visible sign and the real symbol that are the very inward grace they signify. They signify the grace they cause, and cause the grace they signify. God’s grace is present efficaciously. (CCC 1084) They are our gateway to communion with God as well as our lighted guideposts to remain in communion. To stray from them is to risk walking in darkness and death. For, the seven sacraments are imbued with the sanctifying grace of Christ’s eternal act of redemption. In receiving the sacraments, that sanctifying grace of redemption is applied to our soul. It is the supernatural power that God uses to act in our lives. Sanctifying grace is what saves us. In the sacraments, Christ’s redemptive act is transmuted into a symbolic reality and transferred directly to our souls. This is miraculous and amazing. It is also the foundation of orthodoxy. The Church, as the administrator of the sacraments, is the holder and the dispensary of Christ’s miraculous grace. Although the priest acts in persona Christi, we know that it is truly Christ Himself, through the priest, who confers sanctifying grace. (CCC 1088)  This sacramental grace allows us to enter into an immediate relationship with the living God.

Yet, the application of that redemptive grace varies from sacrament to sacrament. In Baptism, we gain our initial entry into Christ’s salvific action. Our souls are cleansed of Original Sin and incorporated into His death and Resurrection. It is our entrance into eternal life, and makes possible our lifelong communion with God. In the Eucharist, Christ’s redemptive grace actually comes to us in bodily form. The very body and blood of Jesus are made present physically. In consuming Him, we are continually sanctified and remade into His mystical body. He is literally our sustenance to eternal life. In Reconciliation, Christ’s sanctifying grace restores our relationship to God and the Church through the forgiveness of our sins. In our fallen human nature, still beset by frailty, weakness and concupiscence, we regularly regress back into sin. Christ knew our nature, and so, afforded us His sacrament of forgiveness. Repentance becomes linked to life. In the book of Genesis, it says God formed man from the ground and breathed life into him. The Hebrew word used for breath is רוח (ruach), which also means “spirit.” When God breathed into man, He made him a living spirit. We see that same word רוח repeated when the Resurrected Jesus appears to His disciples and He “breathes” (רוח again) on them, and thus, institutes the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Jesus is implicitly, or some might say, explicitly, linking His sacraments and the Holy Spirit with God’s life giving spirit at Creation. Immediately after He breathes on them, He says, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” and any sins you forgive are forgiven, and any you retain are retained. Jesus transfers His divine power, the power to forgive sins, to His Apostles. Now, with the capacity to forgive sins, the Church has another restorative power to heal our spirits. Just as Adam was, originally before the Fall, a living spirit, a pure man in communion with God, so too now, we can be restored as living spirits through our Redeemer. We pass from death into life as new creations. God again breathes into man and reanimates us. Through grace in the sacraments He not only brings us to life, but also, sustains that life with His on-going and unlimited forgiveness found in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

One of the most poignant stories in all of scripture is Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son. It is so poignant and moving because Jesus gives us a glimpse in detail of the immense and unconditional love God has for us. In the parable, a son takes his inheritance early from his father, goes off to a distant land, and spends it all on “dissolute living.” After he had nothing left and was dying from hunger, he finally comes to his senses. He decides to repent of his sins and go back to his father’s house. As the son says, “I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.” (Lk.15:18) As the son is penitent and returning to his father’s house, we see the great mercy of the father: “But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.” (Lk.15:20) Even as the son was “still far off,” the father hurriedly went out to embrace him. And Jesus shows how great is the mercy of the father, who is superabundantly generous to the son. He says: “But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.  And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.” (Lk. 15:23-24) Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son is rich in the underlying truths of forgiveness and divine mercy. In the parable, we are the prodigal son, and God is the father. We, through Original Sin and committing sins during our lives, have lived lives unworthy of God, and consequently, squandered our inheritance, that is, eternal life. We were dead in our sins; outside of the Father’s house. Yet, when we recognize our own destitution and repent of our sins, God notices this, even while we are still struggling with sin “far off.” As soon as we repent and turn back to God, the Father embraces us immediately. As the son did, we must admit and confess our sins to Him with heartfelt sincerity. We should confess to God as he did, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.” Then, look at the response of God to our repentance and confession. God immediately welcomes us back into His divine friendship and adorns us with grace. This is represented in clothing the son with his best robe, putting a ring on his finger, and sandals on his feet. God immediately calls for a celebration. He orders the fatted calf to be killed so they can have a great feast. Jesus gives us a revelation.  He reveals God’s reaction to our repentance: He is ecstatic. Jesus mentions this in similar parables, on finding the lost coin and finding the lost sheep, that there is so much “joy in heaven,” even over one sinner who repents. (Lk. 15:7) We were dead in our sins, but when we repent, are made “alive again.” The prodigal son parable shows the compassion and forgiveness God offers us. It reveals the superabundant grace God waits to lavish upon us, if we but turn back to Him.

The Christian life is one of constantly turning away from sin and back towards God. The bible uses the Greek word “metanoia” [μετάνοια], or “a turning away” from one’s sins. We are called to a constant state of conversion. In Pope John Paul II’s encyclical, Dives in Misericordia, “Rich in Mercy,” he describes how when we come to see God’s tender mercy, we “can live only in a state of being continually converted to Him.” (DM, 13) This should be our “permanent attitude” and “state of mind.” Our consciousness becomes increasingly branded by our offenses against God, and this should lead us to repent. In the analogy of the prodigal son story, the son says to the father “I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” (Lk.15:19). As Pope John Paul II points out in the encyclical, we begin to realize our lost dignity in the severing of our relationship with the Father. He writes, “at the center of the prodigal son’s consciousness, the sense of lost dignity is emerging, the sense of that dignity that springs from the relationship of the son with the father.” (DM, 5) So too, should our consciousness reflect that deep connection between our sinfulness and lost dignity. Our sins sever us from our relationship with the Father, and we lose that inherent dignity as children of God. In the same way, turning away from sin, repenting, restores our dignity as sons and daughters of God. Jesus Himself preached this saying, “the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” (Mk.1:15) Jesus calls us to an interior conversion of the heart; a contrite heart moved to penance and renewal, in order to be reconciled to God. (CCC 1428) So that, in this way, we can “be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:27), and “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Mt.5:48)

But, how do we do this? The most effective, secure and efficacious way is to receive absolution in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. In the sacrament, we know that Jesus is truly present. We know it is an act that embodies our conversion, penance, confession, forgiveness and reconciliation. (CCC 1423-1424) These are Jesus’ requirements to regain eternal life. In Reconciliation, we receive sacramental grace with the absolute assurance of the forgiveness of our sins. In the Gospels, Jesus gives Peter and the Apostles the “keys of the kingdom” and the power to “bind and loose.” Jesus said to them, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Mt.16:19) As such, the Church has the authority directly from Christ to forgive sins. It is Christ, under the guise of the priest, there in the confessional who forgives our sins. How much better is life if we maintain that intimate friendship with God by regularly turning away from sin and turning towards God in the Sacrament of Reconciliation? Here, we find divine mercy. We are like the paralytic who Jesus healed, and whose sins He forgave. “He personally addresses every sinner: ‘My son, your sins are forgiven.’” (CCC 1484; Mk.2:5) What a wonderful assurance!

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