Reconciliation - A Life-function of the Church

The most fundamental mission of the Church is that of reconciliation, the overcoming of the various alienations that vex humanity today. Reconciliation is brought about by our Lord Jesus Christ in the mystery of his passion, death, and resurrection. He entrusted the ministry of reconciliation to the Church in the person of the apostles. "All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation: that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us" (2Cor 5.18-19).

The Church as an effective sign of reconciliation in the world denotes an awareness of the Church's nature and mission. According to Lumen Gentium, "God gathered together as one all those who in faith look upon Jesus as the author of salvation and the source of unity and peace, and established them as the church that for each and all it may be the visible sacrament of this saving unity" (Art. 9).

Further, Monika Hellwig writes that "[r]econciliation as the total task of the Church, synonymous with redemption, is concerned with worldly as well as personal dimensions. It is concerned with the restoration of social structures in Christ . . . [S]pirituality cannot be divorced from our responsibility for one another" (Monika Hellwig, Sign of Reconciliation and Conversion, p 142). Our need for reconciliation speaks not only to personal sin, but to our sins against the physical world and humanity - injustice, corruption, greed, deprivation and exploitation of peoples for profit, terrorism, desecration of land, pollution, poverty, hunger, war, child prostitution, torture, the marginalised, genetical modifications, cruelty to animals, etc.

The experience of conversion is crucial to reconciliation. Christian conversion is the continual process of self-surrender to God in Christ where we continue to grow in goodness and holiness. Conversion and reconciliation develops our conscience and gives us a more heightened awareness of sin in ourselves and in our world. It takes place within the context of our relationship with God and Church.

Being reconciled includes an admission of our sinful behaviour as well as our sinful inaction. Most recently, this was heralded by Pope John Paul II in the Bull of Indiction of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000. "Incarnationis mysterium includes the purification of memory. . . aim[ed] at liberating personal and communal conscience from all forms of resentment and violence. . . a recognition of guilt and contribute to . . . reconciliation."

Through reconciliation, the Church gives witness to the God of mercy and compassion and to God's liberating salvation in the world. The actions of John Paul II help the Church to live efficaciously in grace and reconciliation. He states, "The request for forgiveness. . . primarily concerns the life of the Church, her mission of proclaiming salvation, her witness to Christ, her commitment to unity, in a word, the consistency which should distinguish Christian life. But the light and strength of the Gospel, by which the Church lives, also have the capacity, in a certain sense, to overflow as illumination and support for the decisions and actions of civil society, with full respect for their autonomy" ( Memory and Reconciliation Art. 6.3). The Church is the sign of salvation for the world. Because it is "[e]stablished by Christ as a communion of life, charity and truth, it is also used by Him as an instrument for the redemption of all, and is sent forth into the whole world . . ."(Lumen Gentium, Art. 9) Rahner also speaks of the Church in this context. "The Church is the sacrament of salvation of the world even where the latter is still not and perhaps never will be the Church. It is the tangible, historical manifestation of the grace in which God communicates himself as absolutely present, close and forgiving, of the grace which is at work everywhere, omits no one, offers God to each and gives to every reality in the world a secret purposeful orientation towards the intrinsic glory of God" (Karl Rahner, The Christian of the Future, p 83).

In the area of Christology, we can say that in the sacrament of Reconciliation, Christ is personally present in virtue of his redemptive act sacramentally embodied. In this sacrament as in all the sacraments, we encounter mystery, or celebrations of mystery, of the redemption of Christ. "Sacramental encounter with the living Christ in the Church is therefore, in virtue of the historical mysteries of Christ's life, the actual beginning of eschatological salvation on earth" (Edward Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter With God, p 62).

There are many ways to experience such reconciliation, Herbert Vorgrimler writes that the tradition of Christian faith recognises many forms of forgiveness in which the one divine pardon is tangible.

1. One form is reconciliation through hearing the word of God. This "encounter with the forgiving word of God is no less effective or certain than the encounter that takes place, for example, in a sacramental action" (Herbert Vorgrimler, Sacramental Theology, p 203).
2. Another way that reconciliation takes place is through restitution with the people that have been wronged or injured. This is also a precondition for God's effective forgiveness. "And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors" (Mt 6.12).
3. There is also a reconciliation that takes place though productive love, where a person turns away from their selfishness and consciously chooses to become other-centred.
4. Conversation can also be reconciling. Sharing our prayer and struggles with a spiritual director or challenging conversations with good friends can be of help with receiving forgiveness.
5. Vorgrimler also speaks of reconciliation through dying with Jesus. " . . . [A]scetic forms of life, the acceptance of situations that have no human solution . . . the endurance of meaningless but unavoidable suffering can be understood as the death of the self and its guilt, a dying with Jesus and an occasion of the forgiveness won for us by Jesus" (Vorgrimler, 204).

In a specific way, the Church carries out the ministry of reconciliation by bringing the good news of salvation to all people through baptism in water and the Holy Spirit. Our church community reminds us of this when it calls on us to formally renew our Baptismal vows, especially in Easter Season. The primary sacrament for the remission of sins is Baptism. Jesus preached repentance. "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news" (Mk 1.15). This "radical conversion effected by the grace of God, is embodied in this sacrament [baptism], placed within the context of Church, and thus comes to a socially perceptible and fruitful conclusion" (Vorgrimler, 204).

However, it is the sacrament of Holy Eucharist that is first among the sacraments of reconciliation for the baptised. Vorgrimler speaks of the fundamental ideas of the recollection of the death and resurrection of Jesus in union with the forgiveness expressed in the preaching of Jesus, the anticipation of the reign on God and the realisation of the body of Jesus Christ in a human community includes the reconciliation of all participants with one another and with God. In the ritual, we collectively confess our sins to God and to one another, to which the petition is prayed, "And may Almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life. Amen."

Also, through the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick the symbolic action unites the petition of the Church community that the sick person be strengthened with a petition that their sins be forgiven. They are anointed on the forehead and hands with blessed oil. During the ritual the following is prayed: "Through this holy anointing may the Lord in His love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit (sign of the cross on forehead). May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you up. (sign of cross on hands)" (The Rites of the Catholic Church as Revised by Decree of the Second Vatican Council and Published by Authority of Pope Paul VI Study Edition, p 606).

The Sacrament of Reconciliation itself reconciles us with the Church, Christ, and in him with God. "The Church frees the penitent from that which is ecclessially "bound" - revokes its disassociation from him [her] - s/he enters fully again the ecclesial communion in grace. In this way the Church's "loosing on earth" becomes the sacrament of the "loosing in heaven," the divine forgiveness of sins" (Schillebeeckx, 149).

It is then through the Sacrament of Reconciliation that the repentant sinner returns to "peace" with the Church community. Of all the Church's teachings and practice on sacraments that forgive sins, reconciliation stands in the foreground. God is the judge of sins and sinners. In the death of Jesus, sin has been destroyed and through grace, the sinner is freed from all guilt. The ritual includes the laying on of hands as the prayer of absolution is prayed. It is through the ministry of the Church that pardon and peace is granted as the priest-confessor prays, "I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."

The Church is called to be both the sign of what God is doing in the world and God's instrument. She is a sacrament of salvation - of repentance and conversion. Reconciliation is a life-function of the Church, in its action of moving all humanity and creation towards the reign of God which is now and not yet.