Day 201: The Confessor’s Role (1461-1467)

• It’s Day 201!!

• There are three elements that WE bring to Confession 

• CONTRITION 

• CONFESSION 

• SATISFACTION

• Today we are in a new little mini section

• THE MINISTER OF THIS SACRAMENT

• Who is it?

• Who is the one who forgives us?

• JESUS IS THE ONE WHO FORGIVES SINS

• IT IS ALWAYS JESUS!!

• BUT…

• Jesus forgives sins THROUGH THE MINISTRY OF THE PRIESTS

• This is a gift that Jesus intended gave when He established the Church

• We will talk about that as well as some of the responsibilities the priest has as the minister of the sacrament

• For example, he is not the master of God’s forgiveness

• He is the SERVANT OF GOD’S FORGIVENESS

• It’s not just an authority thing

• There is a responsibility that has been placed upon each priest who hears confessions

• They have to live up to them

• Let’s pray!!

Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, we give you praise and glory. Thank you so much for bringing us here. Thank you for giving us your mercy and thank you for giving us the priesthood. Lord God, I thank you for every priest who has ever heard my Confession. And I thank you for every priest who has ever been patient with me in Confession and all those who are listening. I thank you for every priest who has ever administered your mercy to all of us in our worst moments. Lord God, I ask you to please bless all those men, all those priests who have given their lives so that your mercy can touch our lives. I ask you to please bless them wherever they are right now. Lord God, I ask you to please bless them wherever they are right now. Lord God, I ask you to be with those priests who have been mean in Confession, have been cruel in Confession, have been short, brief, hurt, or even worse in Confession. I ask you to please heal them, heal their hearts. Help them become more like you. Help them be servants of your mercy, not masters of forgiveness. Help us all to be patient with each other because, Lord, on our own none of us is enough. On our own all of us fail. And so we make this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus Christ. And we trust in you Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen”

• So there we have it!!

• Jesus is the one who heals

• At every Mass, Jesus is the one who consecrates the Eucharist

• It is Jesus acting through the ministry of the priesthood

• THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT FOR US TO UNDERSTAND!!

• It is the MINISTRY of the priest 

• BUT…

• It is the POWER of Jesus

• Fr. Mike is telling a story about a priest and a Baptist minister…sounds like the beginning of a joke….let’s listen…

• Just like someone who heals someone with laying on of hands and prayers, that is Jesus working through them

• So a priest of Jesus Christ says, “I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

• Jesus forgives THROUGH the priest just like He has healed others through the pastor

• The priest is not claiming power on his own

• Jesus heals through the priesthood

• John Ch 21 Jesus breathes on the disciples and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Those whose sins you forgive are forgiven. Those whose sins you hold bound, are held bound.”

• This is an incredible gift that God has given to the Apostles, passed down to their successors the bishops

• Paragraph 1462 says, “Priests, his collaborators, exercise it to the extent that they have received the commission either from their bishop (or religious superior) or the Pope, according to the law of the Church.”

• Every priest, as he acts In Persona Christi in the world, he acts as the bishop’s collaborator

• He acts as an extension of the bishops because in the sacrament of Holy Orders, there is a hierarchy

• The bishops have the FULLNESS of Holy Orders

• The priests share or participate in that fullness of Holy Orders

• There are some particularly grave sins that result in excommunication, which is the most severe ecclesiastical penalty

• This goes all the way back to 1 Corinthians

• St. Paul is writing to the Church in Corinth and he essentially says that there is a story among them that doesn’t happen even among pagans

• It doesn’t even happen among people who don’t know who God is

• There was a man who was living with his father’s wife

• That is horrible

• And St. Paul notices that the people are OK with it 

• St. Paul tells them they have to remove him or let him know that he is standing outside the fold

• He is not in union with the Church

• Treat him as a stranger

• He is not a brother in the Lord

• That is the first example of EXCOMMUNICATION we have in Scripture

• That is for VERY SERIOUS THINGS

• It is a VERY SERIOUS PENALTY

• It is all meant to be oriented towards HEALING

• Why?

• Even in Scripture it says so that he can realize that he is not in line with the Lord

• He is not in God’s grace

• He is not part of this community

• HOPEFULLY HE WILL!!

• St. Paul even says, “Hand him over to Satan so that he realizes, ‘I don’t want to belong here. I want to belong to the Lord.’”

• This is a reality that we have to deal with when it comes to excommunication

• Paragraph 1463 says, “In danger of death any priest, even if deprived of faculties for hearing confessions, can absolve from every sin and excommunication.”

• The Church is the servant of God’s mercy and exists to extend God’s mercy into the world

• Paragraph 1464 says, “Priests must encourage the faithful to come to the sacrament of Penance and must make themselves available to celebrate this sacrament each time Christians reasonably ask for it.”

• What are the two questions every priest wants to hear?

• “Father, how do I become Catholic?”

• “Father, would you hear my Confession?”

• Most priests will jump at the chance to hear your Confession

• You may have encountered a priest in your life who did not jump at the chance and made you feel like you were inconveniencing him

• Hopefully he was just having a bad day

• His life is meant to be defined by the ministry of mercy

• We all have bad days

• How do priests do this?

• Paragraph 1466 says, “The confessor is not the master of God’s forgiveness, but its servant.”

• Priests have to unite their hearts to the heart of the Good Shepherd

• They have to be faithful to the heart of Jesus

• They have to be faithful to the Magisterium of the Church

• They have to have a respect and sensitivity to the one that is fallen

• Paragraph 1466 continues, “...he must love the truth, be faithful to the Magisterium of the Church, and lead the penitent with patience toward healing and full maturity.”

• Think about how much we need a priest hearing our Confession who loves the truth

• A priest who has respect and sensitivity towards us when we have fallen

• A priest who has patience towards us when we have fallen

• Paragraph 1466 continues, “He must pray and do penance for his penitent, entrusting him to the Lord’s mercy.”

• That is the responsibility of EVERY PRIEST

• There are priests out there who have hurt people in Confession

• That is not the rule, that would be the exception

• If you are one of those people who have been hurt, Fr. Mike is sorry

• God’s mercy wants you to COME BACK

• Especially if that hurt has caused you to stay away from Confession

• GOD’S MERCY IS FOR YOU!!

• His invitation is for you to come back to hear those words of, “I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”

• For you to be able to freely and fully divulge whatever sin it is that you need to bring to the Heavenly Father

• And to do it without hesitation, fear, embarrassment, or shame

• Paragraph 1467 says, “Given the delicacy and greatness of this ministry and the respect due to persons, the Church declares that every priest who hears confessions is bound under very severe penalties to keep absolute secrecy regarding the sins that his penitents have confessed to him.”

• The priest must never ever reveal what he has heard in Confession

• IN FACT…

• If a priest reveals what he has heard in Confession, that is an AUTOMATIC EXCOMMUNICATION OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

• The most serious ecclesiastical penalty is excommunication

• That priest then has to go about the whole process of being received back into the Church

• That is how seriously the Church takes your privacy

• That is how seriously the Church wants you to have confidence in approaching the sacrament of Reconciliation

• There is the natural embarrassment of our feelings which may make us hesitate

• AND YET…

• The CHurch wants to make this a place that is safe and a place of healing and a place of love and a place of restoration and a place of power

• That is what it is meant to be for you and that is what priests are meant to be

• If they are not, then we have to pray for them

• If priests keep failing, pray for them

• This is the way God wants to give us His reconciliation through the ministry of the priesthood

• When we have broken priests, rather than getting mad at them, we need to pray for them

• So pray that all priests have the heart of Jesus and the heart of the Father and that no one ho ever approaches them in Reconciliation is received by anyone other than the Father’s arms, by the Father’s heart, by our Lord Jesus Christ

• “Lord God, heal the brokenness in all of our priests. Heal those wounds in all of your faithful, especially those who have been wounded by a bad experience in Confession.”

• Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!

• Please pray for Fr. Mike and for each other!!

• I cannot WAIT to see you tomorrow!!