December 25, 2009
The Bishop's Forum
The Sacrament of Reconciliation: A family matter
by Bishop Gerald A. Gettelfinger
Part two of two
How difficult it is for us to admit personal failings to members of our families! To verbally admit our wrongdoing is one thing. To humbly ask for forgiveness is quite another.
Ironically, each member of the family recognizes the need for it, but to express it clearly face-to-face is a most difficult proposition. Even when mom or dad insisted we apologize to a sibling, it was not always a sincere expression.
To be reconciled in the face of personal failure, private or public, is most difficult for us human beings, it seems.
The Church through the Sacraments provides us opportunities for reconciliation for each member of Jesus’ family. The Sacrament of Reconciliation, Confession, is the premier. There is no wrongdoing that God will not forgive if we but seek it.
All too often in my 48 years of priesthood I have heard the plaintive question: “Why do I have to confess my sins to a priest, a mere man?”
The questioners tend to admit their own personal struggle by saying: “I confess my sins directly to God. I don’t need to confess to anyone else as God will forgive me directly.”
That is correct as far as it goes. It denies, however, any personal membership in the community of believers called the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ. What is missing?
In my experience as a teacher at Bishop Chatard High School in Indianapolis the above point of resistance came very, very often.
In reality, it is easy to admit our failings to the unseen “God of Mercy.” It is quite another experience to admit personal sins to one of our own kind. It seems so foreign to us who insist on privacy and insist that it is nobody else’s business.
But is it merely a private matter between me and God?? I think not!
Let’s face the fact that even the civic community demands personal admission of failure to an appropriate official. In an attempt to find an illustration to help with teenagers who have this problem, I use their drivers’ licenses as a starting point.
When any of us commits an infraction of state laws while driving, an apology to the arresting officer is not sufficient. In fact should you do so with all sincerity, the officer may rightly say, please, I am not the one to accept your apology. The local judge is the official to hear your guilty plea.
The judge then, hearing your confession, gives you a sentence — usually a monetary fine for minor infractions. He is appointed by the community to hear such confessions and to assess penalties. He is no less a member of the community and is subject to the same laws should he or she violate them.
So it is with sins against the moral law. Should you or I sin, we are responsible not only to God but to the faith community to which we belong. God forgives us directly and immediately, but God does not reconcile any of us to the community of believers. That is up to each of us individually.
The bishop or priest is the one assigned by the the Church to hear such infractions and to assess penances in keeping with the infractions. The bishop and priest are no better than the rest of the community. They too must submit themselves to the same scrutiny of the confessor as the rest of the faithful. They are equally in need not only of God’s mercy but that of the Church community as well.
We belong to our families! We are brothers and sisters of Jesus. We are responsible to each other as we are accountable to Jesus, the all loving and merciful God! Jesus won that gift to us by dying on the cross. I repeat, there is nothing we can do that he will not forgive if we but ask for that forgiveness by confessing our sins to His appointed representative.
Next time: the Sacrament of the Sick and family life.