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Lent
Reflection
Stan and Eileen Doherty, VOTF
Last month NCR (the National Catholic Reporter)
profiled the decline of Catholic investment in and
participation in the sacrament of reconciliation.
Unlike most other sacraments, the Sacrament of Reconciliation
is a recurring sacrament that does not get tallied
as part of the sacramental index of a parish. The
dramatic drop in general participation in the sacrament,
therefore, was not as visible statistically in the
1980s and 1990s as the decline in participation in
other documented sacraments. Our readings this weekend
address the dynamics of reconciliation pretty directly
so they bear upon the challenge that our church currently
faces in revitalizing this important sacrament.
In 2 Corinthians, Saint Paul establishes the original
theology of reconciliation when he writes, “Whoever
is in Christ is a new creation . . . behold, new
things have come. And all this is from God, who has
reconciled us to himself through Christ and given
us the ministry of reconciliation.” Our English
word reconciliation derives from French-Latin and
denotes a revisitation/resolution of differences
between two individuals, parties, or ideologies.
The original Greek connotation is, curiously, economic;
implies a finding of common value and currency between
two parties with mutual interest in concluding a
transaction. To reconcile here involves recognizing
common goals, common values for things, and a common
medium of exchange. Paul’s theology of reconciliation
involves a proactive seeking out of common denominators
and a proactive dialogue about obstacles and impediments
to unity. Paul emphasizes that reconciliation is
a creative process, a convergence of thoughts and
attitudes toward some “new thing.”
Paul would not, I believe, be supportive of the
Theology of Reconciliation that emerged from the
1980s Central American bishops. That approaches focuses
on achieving unity within the institutional church
and with God by homogenizing and conforming the opinions
and wills of believers. The Catholic Catechism captures
it pretty well when it asserts, “Reconciliation
with the Church is inseparable from reconciliation
with God” [1445]. This approach to reconciliation
is one-sided and assumes that in all matters and
at all times there is a dominant, “faithful” party
and a penitent, “unfaithful” party. Even
though our gospel is less about reconciliation than
about forgiveness and generosity, it does restore
some sense of the complexity and multi-sidedness
of these situations.
The father in our parable sees his returning son
from a distance and rushes out to embrace him and
to welcome him back unconditionally before the son
has the opportunity to blurt out his confession of
guilt. Outreach and embrace precede any accounting
about who committed which transgressions to whom.
It is this outreach, this creative desire to find
common ground for dialogue that characterizes the
true spirit of reconciliation. Without this sense
of outreach and creativity, Saint Paul’s exhortation
for us to become ambassadors of reconciliation makes
no sense. The journey toward reconciliation in our
church and in our faith communities begins with finding
common ground and seeking contexts for meaningful
dialogue. In that spirit we may discover that some
revitalized context for the sacrament of reconciliation
may be our most timely and healing sacrament.
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