By DON FIER
Sin, its dire consequences, and man’s continual need for conversion are realities that are often dismissed or even outrightly denied in modern secularized societies enamored, as they are, with materialistic pursuits.
As noted last week, recent Roman Pontiffs, beginning with Pope Pius XII in 1946, cite as an underlying reason for this troubling phenomenon a “loss of the sense of sin.” The Sacrament of Penance is felt by many to be outdated and unnecessary — perhaps no other sacrament has suffered such a decline in recent years.
The result, as so accurately described by Christoph Cardinal Schönborn in the second volume of Living the Catechism of the Catholic Church, is that “the problem of unrecognized and unrepented sin is a heavy, crushing burden that does damage to the life of the individual and of the community” (p. 386).
To begin its treatment of this wonderful sacrament of healing, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) identified five names by which it is called. Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ, provides a succinct summary of what was discussed more thoroughly last week:
It is the sacrament of (1) conversion because it restores sinners to friendship with God; (2) penance because it consecrates the three requisite personal and ecclesial steps of conversion, penance, and satisfaction; (3) confession because it involves disclosure of one’s sins to a priest; (4) forgiveness because pardon and peace are granted to the properly disposed penitent; and (5) reconciliation because it restores God’s merciful love to the penitent (cf. The Faith, p. 123).
The Catechism now asks the question: Why is a sacrament of reconciliation needed after Baptism? After all, as St. Paul announces to the Corinthians, through the regenerative waters of Baptism, “you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11). The Apostle to the Gentiles states elsewhere that the baptized person has “put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27). Not only are original sin and all the actual sins (mortal and venial) of the recipient forgiven in Baptism, but also all temporal punishment due those sins is remitted. Why, then, the need for the Sacrament of Penance?
It is needed precisely because “the new life received in Christian initiation has not abolished the frailty and weakness of human nature, nor the inclination to sin that tradition calls concupiscence, which remains in the baptized such that with the help of the grace of Christ they may prove themselves in the struggle of Christian life” (CCC, n. 1426). Indeed, “the grace of Baptism delivers no one from all the weakness of nature” (CCC, n. 978).
And for anyone who thinks it doesn’t apply in his or her case, the Apostle John clearly dispels such a notion: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). So, too, does St. James in his inspired teaching when he states that “we all make many mistakes” (James 3:2). And as Vatican II reminds us, the call to conversion never ends: “Since truly we all offend in many things, we all need God’s mercies continually” (Lumen Gentium [LG], n. 40 § 1).
This call to conversion “is an essential part of the proclamation of the kingdom: ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel’ (Mark 1:15)” (CCC, n. 1427). To be sure, Baptism is the gateway to the Christian life and the indispensable door which allows access to the other sacraments (see volume 148, n. 43; October 29, 2015). It is thus “the principal place for the first and fundamental conversion” (CCC, n. 1427).
However, in our weakened condition we all too often succumb and fall to temptation. It is for this reason that the ongoing call to conversion never ceases: “This second conversion is an uninterrupted task for the whole Church” (CCC, n. 1428).
The Second Vatican Council expresses beautifully the Church’s teaching with regard to our continual need for conversion and her motherly response: “While Christ, holy, innocent, and undefiled (Heb. 7:26) knew nothing of sin (2 Cor. 5:21), but came to expiate only the sins of the people (cf. Heb. 2:17), the Church, embracing in its bosom sinners, at the same time holy and always in need of being purified, always follows the way of penance and renewal” (LG, n. 8 § 3).
And as the Catechism teaches, “Only by taking the ‘way of penance and renewal,’ the ‘narrow way of the cross,’ can the People of God extend Christ’s reign” (CCC, n. 853).
“This endeavor of conversion,” the Catechism reminds us, “is not just a human work” (CCC, n. 1428). As Scripture teaches us in the Parable of the Vine and the Branches, Jesus was clear in pronouncing that “apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Thus, conversion is not possible without God’s grace.
However, on our part we must respond to and cooperate with that grace, which might be described as the merciful love of God who loved us first, who “sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). Furthermore, our response must not be merely external but interior and from the heart: “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise” (Isaiah 51:17).
The conversion of the first Vicar of Christ, as pointed out in the Catechism, is a compelling example. Recall how Simon Peter said to Jesus: “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death” (Luke 22:33), to which our Lord responded, “I tell you, Peter, the cock will not crow this day, until you three times deny that you know me” (Luke 22:34). Despite the best of intentions, Peter, relying on his own strength, fell during the time of trial and it came to pass exactly as Christ had foretold (see Luke 22:61).
Unlike Judas Iscariot, who despaired and hung himself, Peter then responded to the grace of God: “Jesus’ look of infinite mercy drew tears of repentance from Peter and, after the Lord’s resurrection, a threefold affirmation of love for him” (CCC, n. 1429).
Returning now to the theme of the necessity of the Sacrament of Penance after Baptism, it is essential for those who fall into mortal sin after being baptized. Otherwise, says Fr. Kenneth J. Baker, SJ, in volume 3 of his Fundamentals of Catholicism (FoC-3), “If they lose the grace of God after once having gained it in Baptism, how are they going to return to the grace of God? In his mercy the Lord has provided us with the great and consoling sacrament of Penance” (p. 303).
Baptism, as we saw earlier in this series (see volume 148, nn. 50-51; December 17-24, 2015), is necessary for salvation. Strictly speaking, however, a person would not ever have to go to Confession if he did not commit a serious sin after being baptized. Confession of venial sins, which are committed at times by even the most virtuous of souls, is not required by the Church.
Nonetheless, as will be treated in subsequent columns, the Sacrament of Penance affords great benefits to all who avail themselves of it, including those with only venial sins on their soul.
Fr. Baker goes on to say that “the Fathers of the Church saw a certain similarity between Penance and Baptism, for they are two fundamental ways of gaining the grace of God — passing from a state of wrath to being a child of God” (FoC-3, p. 303). St. Ambrose, the fourth-century bishop of Milan and Doctor of the Church, says of the two conversions: “In the Church, ‘there are water and tears: the water of Baptism and the tears of repentance’ (ep. 41, 12)” (CCC, n. 1429).
Similarly, the Council of Trent teaches that the Sacrament of Penance “has justly been called by the holy Fathers ‘a laborious kind of baptism’” (Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum, n. 1672). As a final example, St. Jerome “referred to Penance as the ‘second lifesaver after shipwreck.’ By that he meant that original sin was the shipwreck of man, while Baptism was the first lifesaver and, after man has been lost, Penance was the second” (FoC-3, p. 303).
Interior Sorrow
The Catechism now takes up more specifically a topic alluded to earlier, that of interior penance. The call of Jesus “to conversion and penance, like that of the prophets before him, does not aim first at outward works, ‘sackcloth and ashes,’ fasting and mortification, but at the conversion of the heart, interior conversion” (CCC, n. 1430).
This calls to mind a verse from the Book of the Prophet Joel that we hear on Ash Wednesday each year as the penitential season of Lent begins: “Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments” (Joel 2:12-13).
In other words, “repentance must transcend mere words or external gestures and elicit true contrition for sin and commitment to keep God’s laws. Visible signs and acts of penance are meaningful only if they express true interior sorrow and resolution to avoid sin. Without that change of heart, these gestures remain false and empty” (The Didache Bible, pp. 1131-1132). It is with this theme that we will pick up next week.
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(Don Fier serves on the board of directors for The Catholic Servant, a Minneapolis-based monthly publication. He and his wife are the parents of seven children. Fier is a 2009 graduate of Ave Maria University’s Institute for Pastoral Theology. He is doing research for writing a definitive biography of Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ.)
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