Sacrament of Penance
The Catholic Sacrament of Penance (also known as the Sacrament of Reconciliation) has three elements: conversion, confession and celebration, in which we meet Christ in his Church ready and eager to absolve and restore us to new life.
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 them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” (John 20:22-23).
Names:
- It is called the sacrament of conversion and the sacrament of Penance, since it consecrates the Christian sinner’s personal and ecclesial steps of conversion, penance, and satisfaction.
- The sacrament of confession, since the disclosure or confession of sins to a priest is an essential element of this sacrament.
- It is called the sacrament of forgiveness, since by the priest’s sacramental absolution God grants the penitent ‘pardon and peace.
- The sacrament of Reconciliation because it reconciles sinners to God and then to each other.
Reason:
- Because human commit sins – the offenses against God as well as faults against reason, truth and right conscience; the deliberate thoughts, words, deeds, or omissions contrary to the eternal law of God.
- In other words, sin is willfully rejecting good and choosing evil.
Writing to the Corinthians, Saint Paul reminds us that just as sin came into the world through Adam and Eve, so too grace and new creation come to us through Jesus Christ. As in Adam all people die, so in Christ all shall be brought to life – a fullness of life, a new creation already beginning in us through grace.
How is the Church able to forgive sins?
- It was when he gave the Holy Spirit to his apostles that the risen Christ conferred on them his own divine power to forgive sins (John 20:22-23).
Why do we continue to need forgiveness if we are already saved?
- The new life received in Christ does not abolish the weakness of human nature or our inclination to sin.
- “If we say, ‘We are without sin,'” Saint John wrote, “we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us”.
- Even though we are baptized into new life, we must continue to return to the sacrament of Penance to cleanse ourselves of sin and receive God’s mercy.
Why do we need to go to a priest for confession?
- The sacrament of Penance is Christ’s gift to the Church to ensure the forgiveness he so generously extends will be made available to every member of the Church.
- The graces of Christ are conferred in the sacraments by means of visible signs– signs that are acts of worship, symbols of the grace given and recognizable gestures through which the Lord bestows his gifts, through the outward sign, i.e., the extension of hands and words of absolution pronounced by the priest.
In the Sacrament of Penance we find God’s unconditional love and forgiveness, from which we are called to love and forgive each other.
