Reconciliation
In this sacrament of healing we celebrate God forgiving our sins and us becoming better united with God and with the church.
In Luke’s Gospel (15:11-24) we read the story of the Prodigal Son who took his share of the family inheritance and wasted it on foolish things. When he realized how empty his life was and he remembered the goodness and the love of his father he decided to return home and ask to be reunited with his family. His father saw him coming and ran out to meet him with a big hug. Then his father threw a big party to celebrate the return of his son who was lost.
From this story we learn that God always forgives us and welcomes us back when we have turned our back on God. There is no sinful action that God will not forgive.
Basics
What is Sin?
We are profoundly loved by God, a love that is unconditional. God has given us life, and, through baptism, called us into union with Christ and with each other. Sin can be seen as a rejection of God’s love, as a refusal of an opportunity to accept his love and pass it on to others.
Conversion and Contrition
Conversion means a turning around, a changing direction, doing a complete reversal of a former way. It is the light of the glory of Christ that calls us to change our hearts, to radically conform our living to the life of Christ.
Confession
The sacrament of penance includes the confession of sins, which comes from true knowledge of self before God and from contrition for those sins. Confession requires in the penitent the will to open his or her heart to the minister of God.
Absolution
Through the sign of absolution, God grants pardon to the sinner who in sacramental confession manifests a change of heart to the church’s minister.
References
- Catechism of the Catholic Church – 1422: “Those who approach the sacrament of Penance obtain pardon from God’s mercy for the offense committed against him.”
- Canon Law 959 – Title IV: “In the sacrament of penance the faithful who confess their sins to a lawful minister, are sorry for those sins and have a purpose of amendment, receive from God, through the absolution given by that minister, forgiveness of sins they have committed after baptism.”