This is in honor of my daughter, Leah, who will partake of the Sacrament of Holy Confession today for the first time in preparation for her first Holy Communion.
Her First Confession
Six and a half to separation
But if I go backwards, I can still feel the newness of your skin
It was your life that made me pause
Six and a half to separation
I can't go backwards, only you now older stand before me
"The time of penance has come, the time to atone for our sins and seek our salvation"
-from Mid-morning prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours
How can we "atone for our sins"? It is a good question, and one that when we dwell upon we soon realize is a futile exploit if but for Christ. Christ is our atoning sacrifice (1 John 2:2), truly he is. Yet, we must ask ourselves, is he? Is he my sacrifice? I don't mean to imply that there is another, for there is no Other, but have I encountered the Other as My Other?
Because today is the day of salvation! (2 Corinthians 6:2)
Am I seeking the atoning work of Christ in my life everyday? Is today my day of salvation, or am I satisfied with a distant memory of Christ? Don't I know that I am just as incapable of living yesterday as I am living 5 years ago? His mercies our new every morning.
Thus, we must ask ourselves, "do I seek my salvation"?
Did you know that in every Catholic Church there is a room dedicated to celebrating repentance? They literally take an entire space in their churches and dedicate it exclusively to embracing the prodigal son who comes home.
See! I told you so.
Now let's think about the story of the prodigal son. The son leaves. He spends his inheritance, and finds himself in the pigsty. He comes to his senses and realizes that he must return. The son does not make amends in the pigsty. Instead, he knows he must go back to his father's house because his sin is not just against God but against his father. Sometimes we miss that fact in the parable because we are so focused on the father acting as a type for God, but the parable makes it clear that his sin is against both God and his father:
"I will arise, and will go to my father, and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee" -Luke 15:18
Last night started First Communion classes for my eldest child. The first four sessions are about Confession, and last night the priest made the point that the Church, in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, celebrates the repentant sinner. That thought really struck me as profound. Like the father in the parable of the prodigal son, the Church is literally waiting (v.20) to embrace any of her sons or daughters who have wandered away. However, that embrace is not impotent.
The Church's embrace is not impotent because she does not embrace the repentant sinner in Her own strength. As St. John records:
"He said therefore to them again: Peace be to you. As the Father hath sent me, I also send you. When he had said this, he breathed on them; and he said to them: Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained. -John 20:21-23
God breathed upon the first Adam and made him a living soul. Yet through the first Adam's disobedience, all the sons and daughters of Adam were led into destruction and death. However, the Second Adam, God the Son, breathed upon his new creation -- the Apostles -- so that through their ministry all the sons and daughters of Adam could be made alive! This ministry is not in addition to the ministry of Christ, but is precisely His ministry. You see, when a priest receives you in Confession who has received his ministry by the laying on of hands through a succession that goes back to Christ, he absolves you not under his own authority but in virtue of a gift he has received. This gift is a gift given by Christ to make all things new.
Picking your nose is something no one has to teach you. I know. I have 4 children, ages 5 and under. No one teaches them this craft, they just immediately recognize that if something is in their noes, they should get it. Sense boogie. Get boogie.
At times, I'm worried that one of my sons will actually pull out his brain or pop a nasal sac. Their ferocity, focus and persistence is admirable. Similar determination would likely benefit them if they were ever air-dropped in the middle of the Amazon. I just hope it gets them a scholarship to college.
No one teaches you to pick your nose. In our culture, we teach you not to pick your nose. Culturally it is faux pas and just plain unhygienic. Which made me think about other things we might be inclined to do, but our culture trains us to ignore.
Matthew 7:5 says:
"Hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine eye, and then thou wilt see clearly to cast out the mote out of the eye of thy brother."
Isn't it outrageous that the guy misses the fact that he has a beam in his eye? Imagine what this would look like:
We will now pick back up the topic of the Sacrament of Confession. Previously we considered whether or not Confession is a Christian-kind-of-thing to do. Now we will consider a seminal passage in Scripture regarding the Sacrament of Confession:
Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained." - John 20:21-23
Honestly I feel like just stopping right here and opening up the comboxes. As a protestant and someone who studied the Scriptures ardently, studied theology professionally, and had an active prayer life, I did absolutely nothing with this passage.
Nothing. Zilch. Zero. Nada. It was like a bad birthday present from your estranged Aunt who was coming to dinner--you don't know what to do with it but you're afraid to throw it away in case she looks for it when she visits. So some grotesque looking gnome sits in your bedroom for the rest of your life. When you get married that's an awkward conversation. That was John 20:21-23. Especially verse 23 (you can read a sermon that does just that here). For other examples of a gloss of this passage see Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary, John Darby's Synopsis, or the Geneva Study Bible.
Let's imagine for a moment what one could do to hack--I mean interpret--this text in order to achieve at some level a meaning that could contradict the Catholic position regarding the Sacrament of Confession.
Theory One: The Apostles had now been given the power to forgive people who offend them
Before Jesus breathed on them, no one could forgive anyone. Forgiveness in general is only a Christian behavior.
Reply to Theory 1
Even if one could only forgive if they were a Christian, it would still not follow that this passage is about that. Nowhere does the passage reference that the sin is against the Apostles. Rather, in most translations, the word "of any" describing the "who" is included which implies that the Apostles had the power to forgive or retain the sins of anyone. Since every sin is not a sin against the Apostles per se, this passage is not about sins against the Apostles.
Theory Two: The Apostles could forgive sins, but only the Apostles. It ended after they died.
Classic cessationist argument whereby the Apostolic Church and post-Apostolic Church are night and day different. The Holy Spirit is given to them in unique and miraculous ways, but after the Apostles there were no more miracles since the Gospel had already been delivered. I call this the Humean-hide-and-seek move. John Gill's commentary says so much and Matthew Henry agrees in that they believe Catholics who try to imitate the passing on of this gift to be in error. Henry goes as far as to say that even though St. Peter had this gift, it did not vouchsafe his infallibility in any way of using it.
Reply to Theory 2
In the next post we will consider in Church history how in fact the Apostles handed off their divine ministry to their successors. Scripture also motions at the necessity of the continuation of the Apostolic Church in both the narrative dynamic in Acts (the story doesn't end) but also by the multiple allusions to the ministry of the Church existing "until the end of time". Even more, the classic use of 1 Corinthians 13 by cessationists fails because it assumes what it argues: namely that what is "perfect" has come and so the Apostolic ministry passes away with the coming of the Gospel. However, this type of realized eschatology goes against a basic protestant hermeneutic (that eschatology is not realized) and more importantly implies that Christ's life was somehow less than the "perfect" which 1 Cor 13:10 references. Yet, both readings of the passage are wrong, and what we do know from the passage is that the dynamic ministry of the Church will end, but that end is not arbitrarily at the death of the Apostles but at the glorious return of Christ--yet even then the Church will rule and reign with Him.
Theory Three: This is some type of quasi summary of the Gospel.
(From the Gevena Study Bible) The publishing of the forgiveness of sins by faith in Christ, and the setting forth and proclaiming the wrath of God in retaining the sins of the unbelievers, is the sum of the preaching of the gospel.
Reply to Theory 3
That's a whiff t-ball style.
Theory Four: The Apostles never used this power
This is John Wesley's argument. Despite the fact that, (a) this is one of the few acts Jesus does after his Resurrection and (b) has a Biblical significance of gigantic proportions given its direct parallel to God breathing into Adam's nostrils in Genesis, Christ's act here is some type of cosmic theatre meant to be read about like Odysseus or Macbeth. ["Wasn't that so awesome! All right, time to go home the movie is over."] While it happened, it never happened, and though we read about it, the Church never experienced the ministry.
Reply to Theory 4
(a) There is no other parallel to this in scripture, (b) it makes Christ impotent or at least the Church a type of window-dressing, and (c) wreaks of anti-Papist filth doing damage to the scripture no matter the cost.
What do you do with this passage?
spurious passage of Scripture
that doesn't fit my paradigm
The late great Archbishop Fulton Sheen said in various times and places that society will always begin to do, in a bastard kind of way (my words), what the Church ignores. The Sacrament of Confession is a great example of this. When the Church neglected it, out of the ground grew the most odd looking bush of a piece of furniture--the psychologist's couch. And so we traded, in used car lot like fashion, repentance for affirmation, penance for self-realization, and honesty for openness.
During my journey to Catholicism, I had to consider the very foreign (to me) concept of Sacramental Confession. Now, what I will argue here is that Confession is something that is rational and that going to a priest for it is even more rational. Both will, I think, make it a kind of Christian-sensible-thing-to-do.
FOR STARTERS WE NEED TO CONFESS BECAUSE WE ARE HUMAN
I'll never forget calling my friend on the phone. I had begged for forgiveness. Pleaded with God. Yet, no matter what I did I couldn't get to that place of consolation or peace. It felt like I was hiding, as if my prayer had been like projectile vomit heading toward the ceiling. I was sure the fan had thrown some of it back on me because I could still smell the stench...in my soul.
When I called my friend, I told him I needed to come clean. So, I confessed to him my sin and it made me feel better. At this point, I was on the road to Rome but probably over a year out from the end. I knew this was a short-term fix and that I was putting my hope in a momentary feeling--yet as a human being forgiveness without this feeling seemed pointless. I was tired of conjuring happy feelings, "texting myself" little proverbial smily emoticons that seemed as stupid as what I just said implies.
We need confession--confession to another person--because God made us humans. We are not angels. We are men and women with flesh and bone who with senses perceive. We can believe by faith but we cannot perceive anything by it. That is why Christ gave us the Sacraments. Because, at the end of the day, a ray of light beaming from the sky, some celestial get better from a cloud way off wouldn't cut it. E.T. as savior is grotesque. Not just because that isn't love but because that isn't salvation. Salvation is God becoming Man. Incarnation is all up in our business, and wouldn't we expect the God who did it that way would also stay in our business?
WE NEED A PRIEST BECAUSE...WELL...YOUR FRIEND AIN'T CUTTING IT
I know, I know I used that southern word (ain't) again. Sorry, I'm 2/4 Georgia and 1/4 North Carolina so you gonna have to take me like you get me.
Really though, all Christians believe that God can use someone to do his work. In fact, we almost always think it is the ordinary way that He works. Here's a good song that illustrates this meme in the Christian-kind-of-way-of-thinking-about-things:
So what's the big deal? I don't need a bee-line to Jesus for all kinds of stuff, and even more I don't think its God PLUS, or Jesus PLUS, or you get the picture PLUS about any other way that God uses us to be His "hands and feet". We just don't think that way. But, when its that pernicious, awful, hierarchy imposing Catholic doctrine of Sacramental Confession, well then blahh! "That ain't in my there Bible, meester, and if you's thinken you slippin that popery stuff in here, well you gotta nother thing comin!"
Really? We can talk about the Bible and Church history here in a bit, but let's get real. It is ad hoc and arbitrary to single out confession of sins when we believe that so many other important goods are given to us by God through others. When we look at the Gospels next, we will learn I think how Biblical the practice really is. Even without that evidence, it is rational that we confess and it is even more rational to go to a priest. Christianity is more than a freudian get better project. It isn't Oprah on steroids. As Christians, when we sin--especially gravely--we know we need to get right with God. That involves repentance which implies honesty. I can trick my own conscious but I can't trick someone else's as easily. God knew our tendency of diminishing our responsibility (see Adam and Eve) so I find great consolation in knowing that a priest is there to make sure when I say "I messed up" I don't have a date with that demon in my Blackberry for 2 hours later.
Who else should do this but one consecrated by Christ to exercise this priestly ministry? For if one is to not just be listening to my sins but also conferring Absolution--the recognition of both my genuine repentance and the authority to release the objective work of Christ transforming my heart--I care A LOT whether or not Oprah, Joe Buck or Father Buck is behind the curtain. I'll take door #3 please.
So, get off the couch and get on your knees. Expel the demons. Free yourself by the means that Christ has preordained that you would ordinarily walk in. And, if you are hostile to the Church, leave it alone for confession is human and it is sensible in a very Christian kind of way.
