Celebrating Repentance

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.

Sons of Adam, come home! 

There is a room waiting for you...