2 Sun Advent C - Sacrament of Reconcilation

Title: Second Homily of a Series on the Sacrament of Reconciliation

Date: Second Sunday of Advent, 1988 (C)

Readings: Not Listed

Christ's Presence: Past and Present - Today we enter upon the second week of our Advent preparation. It is a time when we make ourselves ready for both the celebration of the historical fact of the Incarnation, when God came to us in the form of man; and for the acceptance of the ever flowing presence of Christ into our lives in the form of grace, which makes Christ alive inside us. As a part of a triad of homilies offered here at Saint Ann's on the sacrament of Reconciliation, it is about the quality of our integrity and the substance of our fidelity which I would like to speak on this occasion.

The Price of Truth - Our Gospel reminds us that it was John the Baptizer who fulfilled the words of the prophet Isaiah: "A herald's voice in the desert, crying, 'Make ready the way of the Lord, clear him a straight path.'" The Baptizer knew well that the only path which failed to get lost in detours -- the only sword which could cut through the web of men's lies -- the only life-preserver able to preserve us from drowning in our sins -- was the commanding authority of the truth. Later, Jesus himself would admit to the Roman procurator Pilate that "The reason I was born, the reason why I came into the world, is to testify to the truth. Anyone committed to the truth hears my voice." War weary and perhaps tired of governing a rebellious people, Pilate answered as only a stoic could, "Truth, what does that mean?" And yet, despite his cold manner, he would later admit that he could find no case against this man Jesus. Had the truth begun to break through his armor of indifference or was it merely the plea of a man who no longer cared? Let truth be whatever you want it to be? So many different lands -- so many different peoples and Gods -- so many voices -- and so many varying versions of the truth; how could they all be right? Might they all be wrong? Like John the Baptist before him, the peculiar truth of this emerging God would be rejected by most, accepted by a few, and would cost Jesus his life.

Reminder That Sin Remained - The Baptizer would not easily be silenced. Learned men were sent out to spy upon him and to attempt to trick him. Herod pleaded that he would be finished with his ceaseless mutterings against his adultery with his brother's wife. However, if the conscience of Herod had been softened by lust and ambition; the voice which stirred from the Baptizer's soul was a reminder that the sin remained. Eventually, the wild dance of a young girl would so clutter Herod's reason that he would make an irresponsible pledge of evil, and John's head would be served on a platter. Jesus, the one foretold by the Baptizer, would also seek to remove the blinders from peoples' eyes; indeed, so similar were they, that some speculated that he was John raised from the dead. The irony of those words had yet to be realized.

The only sin which would raise Christ's ire, would be the sin of hypocrisy. His anger erupting in the temple, he called the Pharisees "blind guides"! Supposedly, they were the ones who knew the truth of God and lived it; instead, they sought to distort it in order to preserve their comfortable and respected position in society. The message which Christ preached threatened their safe and elitist life. The multiplicity of laws made it impossible for any save themselves to follow them to the last iota. Nevertheless, if they enforced a cruel scrupulosity upon everyone else; they were lax upon themselves in recalling that the spirit of the law was love. Messiah or not, this Jesus had to be eliminated -- this truth of his had to be silenced!

Alive in the Early Church - Our second reading is a reminder to us that the voice in the desert and the truth of Jesus did not perish with them. Christ's resurrection from the dead vindicated him and his message against the verdict of sinful man. His truth would remain alive and because of its great compelling power, even take root in some of those who betrayed or sought to destroy him and his followers. Peter who denied with his lies three times ever knowing Christ, would one day witness to the truth, even at the cost of taking up his own cross. Fear would no longer paralyze his thoughts and actions. Paul who had been so closed-minded to Christ that he approved of the stoning of Stephen, would be wondrously blinded by the light of truth. Indeed, it is his words which profess the truth to us in our second reading: "My prayer is that your love may more and more abound, both in understanding and wealth of experience, so that with a clear conscience and blameless conduct you may learn to value the things that really matter, up to the very day of Christ." It is for that day of Christ that we prepare. To do so, we must also testify to the truth of Christ.

Conscience and Conduct Today - In this season, as we prepare for our "Come Home for Christmas" reconciliation services and the day of Christ's coming, we also need to examine our conscience and behavior. We do this, not in light of some nebulous feeling or even according to the values of the majority of our peers, we do so in comparison to the standard of Christ and his Church. In season and out, popular or not, the truth is proclaimed.

Admission of Sinfulness - The first realization which must dawn upon us is that we are all sinners. From the last harsh word we uttered to the little lies we tell; from our lack of preoccupation in the liturgy to our passivity regarding the murder of the child in the womb -- we are sinners. We need to be honest to ourselves and to God about that fact. In our consciences, we very often try to run away from this reality; after all, it is an admission of imperfection. However, humility requires this acknowledgment, even if Satanic pride would deny it.

The Lax Conscience - I use the word "Satanic" here because I believe it is all too easy in our lax consciences to reduce all sin to the level of a simple fault, a mistake, or a stumble. All of these words fail to take into consideration that sin is more than our merely tripping over our own feet. We sin because there is a part of us that chooses to do it, likes doing it, wants to do it some more, and will seek to hide it. There is a malicious and wicked quality to it. Sometimes we might be so good at hiding our sins that we even hide them to ourselves. We rationalize that "everybody's doing it" or "that I am not a saint". And yet, if we are following in Christ's footsteps, it was for going against the former that Jesus was put to death and for the latter that he allowed his passion and death. We are all called to be holy and his grace can make this seemingly impossible goal obtainable.

Opportunity for Reconciliation - This leads us to our second realization, that if we are sinners, we have not been left to despair and to die in our sins; Jesus offers us the grace of his presence, a presence of healing, peace, and forgiveness. Here too our consciences must not collapse between the tension of either being lax or scrupulous. Our appreciation of sin and the sense of guilt or remorse which brings us to confess and seek pardon is a noble human gesture. However, once that forgiveness of God is given, we must forgive ourselves as well. We need to believe that God does what he claims to do. When Christ forgives our sins through the instrumentality of the priest, healing us and dissolving our breach with God and the community, the slate of our lives is wiped clean. Like a newborn baby we are made new. Temporal punishment may remain and so we are given a penance; but our standing in the Church and before God is healed and restored.

The Scrupulous Conscience - Although the seal of confession prevents me from naming particulars, the habit of keeping lists containing hundreds of particular sins, big and small, throughout the week, demonstrates an obsession with one's sins, a sense of inferiority and depravity. We need to believe that God has made us wondrous creatures to behold, a little less than angels. When I was a teenager, I was so scrupulous that I even thought my feelings, beyond my control, were sins calling for remission. Even our sexuality, one of God's greatest gifts to us, is sometimes cursed among supposedly chaste people because of the intensity of its attraction to others. However, they would do well to recall that often repeated incident in which Archbishop Sheen at a dinner was caught momentarily eyeing a good-looking woman. His answer was, "Just because I am on a diet doesn't mean I cannot look at the menu." He was not condoning any violation of a prudent custody of the eyes. No evil thoughts were implied. He was praising God for his genius of design in creation. Even at Saint Peter's in Rome itself, the beauty of the human form is displayed in great works of art. Having said this, it occurs to me that sexuality is one of those issues which we have to keep in tension. If we are not to be scrupulous about it, we must also not be lax. The commandments of Scripture and the natural law more than suggest an objective norm of living out our sexuality, reserving its fullest expression to marriage and in mandating that it always nurture fidelity and new life. I could have spoken at length this way about any of an assortment of concerns and sinful extremes, but it does seem that sex is the most popular topic in the news these days.

Forgive Us As We Forgive - If the lax conscience sins by presumption of God's will and mercy; the scrupulous sins by questioning and even rejecting his forgiveness. We may fall into certain regular or habitual sins that need to be confessed; but, why tell the same sin committed years and tears ago, over and over again? [I am not talking here about a general confession which seeks to examine the general thrust or orientation of our life.] Could it be that we sometimes do not believe that God can do what he claims? God does not forgive as we often do. Frequently, our offer of forgiveness is tainted by a threat or warning, "Okay, I'll forgive you this time, but next time, pow!" When God forgives, he forgets. The all-knowing God puts our sins behind him, and no longer looks upon them. Perhaps we would do better if we tried to forgive in the same way? Years ago, I was watching the 700 Club on TV and there was an interview with a couple whose teenage son was ruthlessly murdered by another boy for what little pocket change he carried. In our own hearts, how many of us would have wanted to respond with violence in kind? They did not; instead, this young murderer, an orphan of the streets, was regularly visited by only two people, the murdered boy's parents. They prayed and even forgave him. They fought for his release and when that day came, they took him home and made him their own. How many of us could have done that? Perhaps that shows how much more conversion we still need.

Loving Ourselves As Precious - We killed God's Son by our sins, and yet he forgives us and forgets the sin. Oddly enough, no matter how prayerful and devout, the failure to forgive ourselves may be the most dangerous kind of sin of all. How some people must hate themselves! I mean that. Only hate could make people rehearse their past transgressions in their minds over and over. Have they grown to desire the pain it brings? I do not know. If the lax have made themselves fools to their passions of self-love; the scrupulous have become slaves to their own self-loathing. Christ would have us be free. He would have us responsibly love ourselves as precious in his eyes because he has first loved us. Indeed, unless we love ourselves in this way, what becomes of the commandment, "To love your neighbor as yourself"?

Closing Statements on Conscience - Before I finish I would like to say a few more precise things about conscience. It is neither the comical stereotype of an angel whispering on one shoulder and a devil on the other nor an arbitrary feeling that something is either good or bad. Conscience is an attempt of the mind to make an appropriate judgment about whether an action is either right
or wrong. True judgment demands knowing the facts and deliberation over them prior to action. Odd as it may seem, we are obliged to follow our conscience even when a false judgment is made. However, as soon as we learn otherwise, we must accordingly adjust to agree with a now properly formed conscience. Judgment can be flawed for all sorts of reasons; we might be perplexed, coerced, scrupulous, lax, etc. We suspend judgment when in doubt and do not act until a certain conclusion has been reached. The Church maintains that conscience needs to be properly informed and a judgment must be made according to the appropriate law, i.e. natural law, ten commandments, and the law of love.

In all visible creation, only human beings have been called by God to accept responsibility for their actions. Neither pre-programed robots nor animals of blind instinct, we have been give free will and an intellect capable of discerning God's design from the natural order and revelation. Unhealthy extremes in conscience would include the static which would have the Church spoon feed everything, dismissing the enlightening power of God's Spirit and responsibility; and the dynamic conscience which would go to the other side in embracing revolution or even rebellion in actions. These are the people who think the Church and its bishops are always wrong until they say something with which they agree. No one can tell them what to do, even the Church! The true path of conscience is between these two and is surmised by a document from the Canadian Bishops: "We can qualify this as the dynamic Christian conscience. This is the conscience which leads us to have a responsible attitude to someone, to Jesus, to the community, to the Church, etc. Every person who fits into this category feels a responsibility for a progressive search and striving to live out a life ideal according to the mind of Christ."

Coming Home For Christmas - There are forms in the Church to help you examine your consciences; but only you can do it. The forms can help us reconsider the blind spots in our lives; but only we can make the resolutions this coming new year to change them for the better. I would encourage you all to participate in our "Coming Home for Christmas" program and to tell others about it. After all, the power to loose and bind from sin, given to the Apostles, is not a principle of enslavement but of freedom. "The truth will make you free" (John 8:32).