Rome decided that the Sacrament of Penance was too harsh a term and sometime after Vatican II began to call it also the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Most still call it simply Confession. In earlier Christian history confession and the accompanying penance were not private but public affairs. If a person committed a grave sin, they would not only confess that sin and ask for absolution. They would ask for penance, some form of discipline to reflect their sincerity. They would be asked to publicly live as a penitent. This meant time away from the altar rail and time spent in prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. It could go on for months or even years, in some cases. At the end, their "reconciliation" would be public not simply in terms of the absolution but also in their return to normal Christian life and the reception of the Sacrament. Needless to say, this did not happen often in the life of the penitent. Later the public nature of this rite gave way to a private one. The private sin was confessed privately and even if the penance endured it was also private. The absolution was also private.
By medieval times this had changed. The Sacrament began to reflect a more ritualized and formal pattern of Confession, Contrition, Absolution, Satisfaction (or Penance). From the Council of Trent on, this was required of all Roman Catholics at least once annually. When the Second Vatican Council revised it yet again, the emphasis was placed now on God’s love and mercy and reconciliation not only with God but with the breaks within the larger family and community. Absent from the vocabulary today are the old and harsher words like sin and death, penance and satisfaction, absolution, and forgiveness. Now the whole encounter is generally thought of in more therapeutic terms or within the counseling setting (even reflected by the potential to face the priest instead of confessing behind a curtain or in a confessional).
All of this is meant not to suggest that we should follow Rome but to admit that we actually have. We think less in terms of sin and a compelling need to be forgiven than we do everyone getting along. Reconciliation has also become our own code word for the greater importance we place on folks burying the hatch, making nice, shaking hands, and smiling like the friends they are than on sin, repentance, confession, and absolution. If we don't say it quite like that in church, we do in life. Instead of forgiving anyone when they apologize or confess to us, we tend to use weak words like "that's okay" or "we're all good." It is a reflection of the profound shift in our vocabulary and in our attitude toward sin. We no longer need so much to repent as we need to get along, lay down our enmity, and take up brotherly acceptance, toleration, and camaraderie. This sounds nice but is this really what should be happening?
Is this the strong language of the Scripture in which the seriousness of sin was not overlooked or wished away or placed behind the higher priority of getting along? Is this what Christ gave to the disciples when on Easter evening He breathed upon them the Spirit and sent them forth with the keys of the kingdom? Indeed, Rome's problem today is also ours. We do not really need a Savior but we do need someone to tell us we are good, we are okay, and things are fine. In essence what this says is that sin does not really matter and forgiveness is some small and weak thing. Worse, it suggests that Jesus did not really die to pay the price of our redemption and to atone for our sin but simply as an example of how far His love for us extended. It is a somber reflection of the truth of the prophecy of H. Richard Niebuhr: “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.”
While it might have been true that in the past nobody wanted to go to confession, they knew they should. Now we go not to confess but to be reassured that the sin, if it was one, was not so bad, and that we are all good to go anyway. We may just be reconciling ourselves to eternal condemnation. Surely no one wants to return to the way it was first practiced but confession and absolution should be a somber wake up call to remind us that sin is not a little thing that goes away on its own or that because we are all guilty of it no one is really guilty. Perhaps we should take it seriously enough to know that on the cross Jesus was not simply showing us a better love but was surrendering Himself into our suffering and death so that we might be rescued and forgiven. What happens when you stop preaching the cross or taking sin seriously? Reconciliation becomes the weak and bland substitute for the vibrant preaching of the law and the Gospel and the talk tends to lead us to a discussion of our bad feelings that must be resolved rather than the sin which needs to be addressed, confessed, and forgiven.
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