Forgiveness through Reconciliation

This past weekend there was a reconciliation retreat for RCIA.

Before the candidates are received into the church at the Easter Vigil, they have the opportunity to go through the sacrament of Reconciliation. To this end, the retreat explained the basis behind Reconciliation, why we need it, and how it helps us. It also covered the motions and words of the sacrament itself since neither the candidates nor the elect had completed it before. For those of you not familiar with the rites of the Catholic Church, I will give a summary of Reconciliation.

The Sacrament of Reconciliation
Movies and TV often portray Reconciliation happening in a wooden box where a person speaks to a priest through a screen. While this was the standard setup in olden days, most churches now have small rooms on the side for the sacrament. A person can either speak to a priest anonymously through a screen, or sit and talk face to face.

In the first part of the sacrament, a person goes to a priest and confesses his sins. They could be serious like "I killed a person" or "I cheated on my spouse" to the less serious like "I told a lie" or "I stole a candy bar."

The priest is not allowed to talk about what people tell him in confession. Priests have been excommunicated from the church for breaking this rule. This confidentiality is also protected in civil law. Priests cannot be legally compelled to reveal what they are told in the sacrament. To avoid getting sidetracked, I will not cover all the legal details here.

After the confession, the priest will often offer some advice. At this point, there could be a scripture reading or a prayer such as an Act of Contrition. The priest will then give a penance to the person. The completion of the penance shows the person is sorry and willing to make amends for his actions. A normal penance is praying a certain number of prayers, but they can be more direct such as apologizing to a person who was wronged or returning what was stolen. The priest then gives absolution. It is not the priest who forgives sins, but God who works through the priest.

Back to the Retreat
At the end of the retreat, the candidates (the baptized from other denominations) all went to Reconciliation. The elect (the unbaptized) did not, since baptism would cleanse them from sin before they received the Eucharist. Since I am sponsoring an elect person, I sat through six hours of explanation of something I have done a dozen times to support someone who would not be going through Reconciliation at the end of the day.

It had been a year since my last confession so I went. Afterward I felt the burden of my sins removed. It was not just me. Several of the people who made their first Reconciliation felt as if a weight was lifted off of them.

The Second Scrutiny
The motions and prayers of the Second Scrutiny are very similar to the First Scrutiny. All the readings that were used are online. They are different from the regular readings used for the Fourth Sunday of Lent. While RICA had the Gospel of Jesus healing a blind man in the ninth chapter of John, everyone else heard about the Prodigal Son.

If any of our Protestant friends have comments about Reconciliation, I would enjoy hearing them.