Sacrament of Penance

The church is incredibly blessed. What we pray is what we believe, and what we believe is what we pray. It is up to each and every one of us to be a symbol of God's love for us; it’s the primary ministry of the church. Every Sacrament celebrated by the church makes Jesus’ Passover sacrifice real for each of us here and now. God is timeless, and although he saved the world once and for all 2000 years ago, we make it real here and now because we are the body of Christ, his Church.

God is seen most fully in and through Jesus' Christ, who was both fully human and fully divine. Jesus is the sacrament of God and the church is the sacrament of Jesus; the Church is the sacrament of salvation. Each of us is meant to be living sacraments of salvation. Unfortunately, sin separates us from God and community, and reconciliation is meant to bring us back to God and community. Officially, sin in general is anything that damages charity (love). Mortal sins destroy charity and take us away from God, while venial sins wound charity and turn our attention away from God.

Signs tell us what to do, like stop or go, but sacraments actually do what they say, like the Baptismal gift of the Holy Spirit. The rite of reconciliation is all about the love of God. Jesus is the source, agent, and goal of the sacrament of healing or penance. Sin is committed against the community, which is us, and the priest is the representative of the community. The object of penance is grace, which comes from the idea of gratitude. It is “an offer from God that we cannot refuse”, and invitation to a loving relationship with our God. A life of grace is ultimately a union with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is a loving relationship between us and the Triune God.

It’s important to remember that sin isn’t complicated; it’s simply choosing to do the wrong thing. Sin isn’t simple however, because it is anything that separates us from God. It’s different for everyone; money, fame, cars, or even that new TV can each contribute to our occasion of sin. Anything that turns our attention away from God is a sin, and it not only affects us personally but it affects our community, because we are the body of Christ.

Jesus gave the ritual of penance to the church in community, not to individuals. A personal confession of sin is missing the ritual component of community which is suggested in the lines, "wherever two or more are gathered in my name". Confession requires intention. An authentic celebration of penance requires a personal sense of sorrow, the communal prayer of absolution, and a personal willingness to conversion.

Public penance was practiced by the early church, during which the penitent was excluded from Eucharist for a period of time, while they performed works of penance. Private penance eventually became the norm, and may involve a spiritual director who can help us live a more conscious reflection of our baptism. Thankfully, our priests are graced with amnesia; they rarely remember the subject of another’s confession.

We the people are the "Body of Christ" and when we miss a Sunday the body of Christ is not complete. You cannot stay at home and pray with the family because it dislocates the body. It denies the ministry of the church, and you are unable to “take this bread and take this wine” as commanded in the Last Supper. We live in a “me first” world, but Christians know that it’s not about the world helping me; it's about me helping the world. Part of our ministry is to pray for our brothers and sisters,and one of the greatest heresies in our world today is the "I'm only human" excuse. To be fully human is to realize our divinity as the sons and daughters of God.

And with your Spirit

Excerpts from the book, A Guide to the New Translation of The Mass written by Edward Sri, S.T.D. and printed by Ascension Press in 2011.

One of the most noticeable changes in the Mass is the people’s response to the priest’s greeting, “The Lord be with you.” This new response more adequately reflects the Latin text of the Mass and the language of St. Paul (see Galatians 6:18; Philippians 4:23, and 2 Timothy 4:22). It also more fully expresses an important theological point. When we said, “And also with you”, our response seemed to express an exchange of personal greetings or reciprocal good will.

There is much more to this response. When a man is ordained a priest, the Holy Spirit comes upon him in a unique way, enabling him to perform the sacred rites of the Mass and consecrate the Eucharist. By responding, “And with your spirit”, we acknowledge the Spirit’s activity through the priest during the sacred liturgy.

Begining on the 5th of November, I'll present an indepth look at the Mass in a new section below the Written Assignments section in the right hand column. For now, I'll continue presenting short weekly posts detailing some of the more obvious changes.

An Evening of Prayer

Tonight we didn't have the usual class, instead we met at Most Holy Trinity Church for an evening of prayer. This was an opportunity for us to be attentive to another area of our formation - our spiritual formation. The invitation said, "We have gathered for class and now we pause to gather as a community of faith, to give thanks and praise to God".

We sang a gathering song called "O Love of God" which is one of the songs that I really like. It begins, "Oh Love of God, gather us, amor de Dios, haznos uno, that we may share the gifs we are given; para construir la comunidad, para constuir la communidad". The first reading was from Ephesians 3:14-21 which begins, "For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he may grant you in accord with the riches of his glory to be strenghtened with power through his spirit". It was actually read three times, slowly, Lecto Divina style, by different readers who put emphasis on different words and phrases.

The Psalm was also the theme for the ILM Evening of Prayer, "Let my prayer be incense before you". "Even before a word is on my tongue, Lord, you know it all. Behind and before you encircle me and rest your hand upon me". After this there was a prayer for the faithful, then an Our Father, a conluding prayer, a blessing and dismissal.

Why is The Mass Changing?

From the time of the apostles, the Mass has been the central act of Christian worship. On the night before he died Jesus instituted the Eucharist as the memorial of his death and resurrection, and as a pledge of his love. When Jesus said, “Do this in memory of me,” he was commanding the apostles to make present as a biblical memorial the sacrifice offering his body and blood at the Last Supper.

Although the Mass itself is not changing, some of the wording within the Mass is. When Vatican II authorized Mass in the common language, the Liturgy was translated from Latin into English which was then printed as the Missle we have been using since 1972. Unfortunately, unlike other languages, the English translation included wording that fails to accurately convey the meaning behind our Catholic traditons or the Biblical references from which the Liturgy comes. This is being corrected in the New Translation of the Missle, which we will begin using the first Sunday of Advent (November 27th, 2011). This New Translation better aligns the English to the original Latin and to other non English translations.

The Mass is, and will remain, nothing less than the celebration of the Eucharist that Jesus instituted at the Last Supper. The saving mystery of Jesus’ death and resurrection is foreshadowed and concentrated forever in the gift of the Eucharist. Jesus, at the Last Supper, was already anticipating his sacrifice on the cross when he referred to his body and blood being offered like a Passover lamb being sacrificed.

Begining on the 5th of November, I'll present an indepth look at the Mass in a new section below the Written Assignments section in the right hand column. For the next few weeks, I'll present a few short posts detailing some of the more obvious changes.

Sacrament of the Eucharist

Possibly the most important idea in theology, is to understand that Jesus was Jewish, and He was raised in Jewish theology and perspective. Memory was very important to the Jewish people, which isn’t to say that they have difficulty remembering their history. They heard God speak to them in two great saving events: the Exodus, and the giving of the covenant at Mount Sinai. Both of these were great saving events for the Jewish people, which for them transcend time and history, because each was a divine act of the saving power of God.

The Jewish people today believe that these events really happened, and if they really happened, how can they personally connect to these events? The answer was and is to gather the people in community, and proclaim what happened, such as when they celebrate the Seder Meal together. God said, “I will be truly present” and you will encounter the original event. The Jewish people believe that they will experience the same saving power of God, even if it looks different for them today. Their saying, “Our ancestors walked through the red sea and our feet are wet” is an example of this idea. It is God, who is divine, who initiated these events.

The English language is a bit weak in understanding this idea of memory. The Hebrew word zikkaron is translated into two separate English words, memorial and remembrance, which miss the importance of this idea. Both of these words seem to suggest thinking about what happened in the past. For the Jewish people, to make memorial is to participate in and encounter the event today, not to think about it as a past event.

Our Eucharist came from a family table with family dynamics; where one presider and the others celebrated the meal, which today is celebrated as a memorial of the Paschal Mystery. This is the full saving event of Jesus Christ’s passion, death, resurrection, and ascension, which might also include his conception and birth. Christ’s Paschal Mystery is what we encounter as the saving event.

This is our saving event which actually happened in history. We as Christians believe that these things really happened. On the night that Jesus introduced the Eucharist to His disciples, He changed everything. He used this idea of memorial, not thinking about it or being nostalgic about it but truly encountering it. The question is how are we going to be transformed by this saving event? The Jewish pattern of memory is the same for us as Christians. The challenge is that it looks different today, because the world around us is different. Nevertheless, we too gather the faithful to proclaim the Word to the community. We encounter, participate in, and proclaim what happened; Jesus’ saving event transcends time and we can be saved and transformed by it.

This is the saving event of our own lives, and the full power of that event is present in our midst. The body and blood of our savior is a true sacrifice, and although it isn't physical because it only happened once, it is nevertheless real. It is the same sacrifice brought to us in sacramental form, to perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross as a memorial of his death and resurrection. This is what saves us, and the challenge is that it looks different because it is us encountering it today. Within this sacrament, we truly encounter the saving reality of the original event. Christ is truly in our midst, even though Jesus died 2000 years ago. This event is present, alive, active, healing, and reconciling each of us every week.

Mass is necessary because of this encounter, but every Christian needs a personal relationship with Christ. There are lots of ways to encounter Christ, such as prayer, mission work, community, supporting each other, and scripture, etc. As a Church, we don't always present Jesus well. He said, “This is my body”, my whole self, my entire person. In this broken bread is everything that I am which is for you. “This is the cup of my blood”, the cup of suffering, the cup of my covenant, which is the new and eternal covenant for all. Sealed by my death and poured out for you, so that sins may be forgiven.

Jesus’ question for each of us is “Will you drink this cup”, die with me, and be ready to give up your life for me? Will you gather together as my people, claiming God's word, and “Do this in remembrance of me”? What you are encountering is not the first covenant, but what you are encountering is the eternal covenant; filling you with peace and joy. We need to do a better job of including the people in this celebration, and of expressing the significance and power of who is truly present. Both the body and blood are used because He asked us to. The bread symbolizes the unity that we all share with each other and Christ, and the Blood symbolizes how that unity with Christ and life comes to us; through his death.

In addition to the familiar traditions of the Last Supper found in the three Gospels, John’s Gospel is slightly different. In John, Jesus washes the disciple’s feet, and then says, “As I have done so you must do for each other”. We must be the Eucharist for others, as we go out at the end of mass we go out to wash the feet of those we meet; family, friends, co-workers, and strangers. Eucharist means thanksgiving, and we must be especially thankful for the saving deeds of Jesus Christ, our savior. As lectors, ministers, presiders, and deacons convinced of the teaching, we must be washed and live as it is handed down; we must call this food thanksgiving and be what we have received.

You are a member of the body of Christ and if you are not present you scatter the body. You, owe it to the community as a member of the body of Christ to be present, really present. How you talk, sing, walk, and gesture, etc speaks volumes to those around you, because it’s about the community connection.

Those who are made partners with the paschal mystery will go forward to the hope of the resurrection. All this holds true, not just for Christians only, but for all people whose hearts are active and visible. Christ died for all, and all people are called to the same destiny; to be divine. We Catholics must proclaim with others as partners, the saving justification of Jesus Christ. Catholics see the Eucharist as a celebration of those who already hold an understanding of what it means. It is the saving Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

Transformation

Supposedly, Aristotle coined the phrase "The whole is more than the sum of its parts", but in fact there is no place in Aristotles's Metaphysics where that phrase, or anything similar, can be found. The Gestalt theory of Max Wertheimer maintains that there are experienced objects and relationships that are fundamentally different from the mere collections of sensations, parts, or pieces. What Gestalt theory actually says about relationships is that "The whole is different from the sum of its parts". With that in mind Kurt Koffka wrote that it is more correct to say that "The whole is something else than the sum of it's parts", because summing up is a meaningless procedure, whereas the releationship between the whole and the parts is meaningful. In the natural world, synergistic phenomena are ubiquitous of course, ranging from the synergies of scale in multi-cellular organisms and the many different kinds of synergies produced by socially-organized groups, from honeybee colonies, to wolf packs, to human societies. In the context of organizational behavior, following the view that a cohesive group is more than the sum of its parts, synergy is the ability of a group to out perform even it's best individual member. This has been true from the begining, and the early hominins who became systematic big-game hunters is one primoridal human example.

Recently, I've been thinking about the idea of transformation, which is a bit like synergy. As children our kids were always making something from clay, some of which we have kept to this day, and one of our daughters now teaches three dimensial art. Opening the door of a kiln is a moment of high expectation, anxiety and joy, and I would think a moment of transcendent surprise as well. A potter could describe the general process that results in a small work of functional art. An engineer would deconstruct the chemical interaction of the clay and glaze properties, as they interact with heat and time. A chemist could explain why metalic crystals are formed in the surface of the glassy silica under the condtions of oxidation and reduction in the kiln environment. As you've probably noted, I tend to find the spiritual in just about everything, partly I suppose because I'm usually looking for it, and you would probably agree with me that none of that information, knowledge, or truth really begins to express what one sees when the door of a kiln is opened for the first time.

There is something more at work here, which is a tranformation in the fire that goes beyond mere rationality and logic, although both have directly contributed to the process. All of the activity, sensations, and parts that make up this single piece of pottery, can't explain the transcendant creativity of the fire. Essentially, reducing it to numbers and formula doesn't describe beauty. Our modern minds try to reduce everything to what we can measure, weigh, and reproduce, but as important as the scientific method is there is "something more at work here". This is true of an art process, a relationship, ones sense of self, or our sense of God. Reducing life to the evolution of the chemical and biological interactions of self-conscious beings may be completely accurate, but it doesn't begin to define the moments of our lives. There is "something more at work here". The next time you stand in awe of a sunset, or the giggle of an infant, or the helping hand of a friend, take a breath and suspend the logic that seeks to limit such moments to what you and I can understand.

Sacrament of Confirmation

We began tonight with a short review of the changes in baptism. Both the East and the West began with a converged process of Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist (bce), but with the introduction of infant baptism, the West began a long process of separating the sacraments into distinct events. The result was Baptism as an infant, followed by penance and Eucharist at about the age of 10, which in turn was followed by confirmation at about the age of 13 (bec).

In the early Church the goal was the transformation of the disciple into the person of Christ, who in turn becomes poured out and broken for others. Paul’s model of, “No longer I live but Christ in me”, became the adult model and instruction of the catechumen was over a long period of time. It was for them a hearing and a commitment; it wasn’t about knowing the information about Christ or the rules of the church. It was about a personal commitment and relationship with Christ; it was about the Devine Person of Christ in their midst and in their lives.

Very quickly diversity in the ritual began to develop. The model continued to be what happened to Jesus, including immersion in water, recognition of the Holy Spirit, and the voice of God speaking to the believer; to represent the spirit of Baptism, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the proclamation of the word. Eventually, the sign of the laying on of hands became an anointing with oil, and penance was added to restore baptismal innocence. Still today, the result of giving our lives to Christ is living a life in community in the gospel, affected by the witness of others.

With the publication of the Second Vatican Council documents, the recovery of the catechumenate process was undertaken and the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (The RCIA) was published as a guide. This book is for everyone on the planet, and it is intended to provide consistency in the process. In the West, a second model now exists. There is the model for children which begins when they are infants and continues through childhood (bec), and the restored model for adults (bce). This second catechumenate model is a converged process of Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist, and it returns to the original model (bce), followed by the earliest Christians and still followed by the Eastern rite churches.

Originally baptism was to free one from sin and post baptismal confirmation was a sign of anointing by the Holy Spirit. Confirmation done much later is something else and today it includes two years of instruction, plus a retreat, plus a number of service hours. However, youth ministry and confirmation don't have to be a single process; they can be separated. Following the reasoning that parents don't wait for their children to understand the benefits of food before they feed them, it may be best to give it before they can comprehend it. Many people are requesting and some parishes are even adopting a restored sequence, which makes much more sense pastorally. Although it keeps infant Baptism it moves Confirmation, Penance, and Eucharist to about the second or third grade. Notice how this again restores the original order of the sacraments (bce).

In the “Sacrament on Charity”, Pope Benedict said that Eucharist is the climax of initiation, and our Bishop called for a study on “How we can better prepare our members for the confirmation process”. The result of the study was that Parishes were offered an opportunity to pilot the restored sequence process. Many believe that this process better satisfies Pope Benedicts view, and many are using the restored sequence in their parishes. This is why there seems to be no consistency in the catechumenate process and why there is so much confusion. While many still argue that waiting until later keeps the child "involved", an early Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist process needs to be followed by consistent education and training. A vibrant youth program is very important, so if you've got a teen confirmation program that is working - keep it!

In 1972 the Second Vatican Council began a process of restoring the ancient biblical theology of Baptism as it developed in the fourth and fifth centuries. In 1974 the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults was published in Latin and in 1976 it was published in English. Originally the text was for un-baptized people only, but in 1988 a candidate process was added to respect those who are already baptized in other traditions.

Regardless of the details, the catechumenate and candidate processes are a life-long discipleship. They're intended to be a public process which includes information, formation, and transformation. They're goals should be immersion in the Word, community life, prayer and the paschal mystery, and the mission of the church. The catechumenate and candidate processes for both adults and children are the responsibility of the entire community and they require a team approach that should include everyone as a renewal for the entire parish. Admittedly, it’s a difficult process but we must continue to do it even if we are not doing it well. You should just do it, and do the best that you can!