Forgiveness and Reconciliation
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History of the Sacrament of Reconciliation |
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| Name | (Jesus and Sub-apostolic Church) | Canonical Penance (Order of Penitents) | Celtic Penance (Tariff Penance) | Confession | Reconciliation |
| Dates | 30-300 | 250-600 | 600-900 | 900-1974 | 1974-present |
| Paradigm (Think...) | Jesus in the Gospels | Baptism | Doctor visit | Juridical trial | Eucharist |
| Process (Stages) |
Former life conversion catechumen elect faithful |
Sin contrition penance eucharist (=absolution) reconciliation |
Sin telling penance |
Sin conscience confession absolution penance |
Sin Word sorrow reconciliation shalom |
| Liturgy | Baptism-confirmation-eucharist |
Order of Penitents: weepers kneelers hearers |
None |
[None] words of absolution |
Gathering Story Telling Reconciling Commissioning |
| Ministries | Community and its ministers and its overseer | Community and its ministers and its overseer | Holy person (who can read a tariff from the book) | An ordained priest with proper jurisdiction | The community and its ministers and its pastor |
| Positive Aspects | Part of the ongoing journey of the holy Church | A liturgical process involving the whole community | Healing; quicker; repeatable | Repeatable; eradicate sins, sin by sin | The celebration (and the sin) is ecclesial and public |
| Negative Aspects | No provision for exceptional tragic situations | Once only; long and very hard; punishment | Private; no liturgy; (danger of money abuses) | Sin is private; not liturgical but devotional; routine | ? |
Review and self-test: Can you put the following statements into the author’s context and see their role in the history and meaning of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
Page 29. That rigorism grew in the second century was largely due to Christianity’s growth and its changing social and cultural situation.
Page 31. Tertullian in De penitentia, reconciliation possible for all repentant sinners; in De pudicitia, denial of the Church’s ability to forgive the gravest sins.
Page 33. The sinner’s prayer becomes the prayer of the Church and thus the prayer of Christ.
Page 34. The famous "triad" of apostasy, murder, and adultery (cf. Acts 15:29).
Page 34. Venia = forgiveness. Venial sin = forgivable sin.
Page 36. Paenitentia secunda, like the prebaptismal repentance, took place in the midst of the community.
Page 37. Imprisoned Christians provided apostates with letters of recommendation requesting or even granting reconciliation. [Beginning of indulgences.]
Page 38 ff. Note the importance of the laying on of hands...
Page 45. The Eastern tradition...emphasized the Church’s ministers as healers and the importance of spiritual direction.
Page 47. If the bishop was convinced of their sincerity, they were liturgically excommunicated.
Page 50. It is one of the curiosities of history that the controversy was closed not out of compassion for the penitent sinner but because the advocates of rigorism denied the Church’s ability to offer forgiveness and reconciliation in such cases! [Issue moves to an authority issue.]
Page 52. But it is important to remember that the reluctance to grant reconciliation for fear of compromising the Church’s holiness had given way to the realization that such holiness was even more clearly shown in a compassionate ministry to all sinners.
Page 55. The notion of being worthy to receive communion is relatively late and probably the consequence of focusing attention more on sins that sinners.
Review and self-test: Can you put the following statements into the author’s context and see their role in the history and meaning of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
Page 56. Legislation and liturgy developed in tandem to make the penitents a distinct class in the Church.
Page 57. ...the Christian’s identity could no longer be determined simply by contrast with pagan society. Sin began to lose something of its public character...Page 74. The penitent’s relationship to the Church official became more private as the minister’s role became that of a spiritual counselor. Page 77. With sin regarded more as a matter of individual behavior than as a public affront to community holiness, why the order of penitents?
Page 62. The disintegration of the Easter sacrament obscured the relationship between initiation and reconciliation. Penance then began to upstage baptism. Page 73. Only with the disintegration of initiation did eucharist cease to be the sacramental apex of conversion and reconciliation.
Page 66. It has become increasingly clear that private confession in any form even approaching our modern understanding did not exist in the ancient Church.
Page 67. Confession for the ancient Church was praising God for compassion to the sinner.
Page 67. Leo I in 459 was angry at hearing of penitents being required to read off a list of their sins in public and forbids it.
Page 70. Innocent I, in a letter written in 416, stated that Holy Thursday was the traditional day in Rome for the reconciliation of penitents.
Page 84. The self-righteous character of canonical penance, sharply distinguishing between sinners and saints, eventually led to sinners avoiding it and saints entering it.
Page 87. The word penance itself lost its original meaning of conversion and began to take on the connotations of difficulty, sacrifice, and penalty.
Page 88. Later termed Ash Wednesday because of the symbol that replaced the imposition of hands, it became the day for receiving penitents. ... All Christians were expected to become Lenten penitents.
Page 90. Reception into the Church’s communion and reconciliation to the Church are the same theological reality.
Page 95. ...in the late sixth century the Eucharist was the sacrament of reconciliation for those not subject to the canonical discipline.
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