Welcom 1

The Sacrament
of
Penance and Reconciliation

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Brief Description
• The Sacrament of
Penance and
Reconciliation within a
total process of on-
going personal
conversion, reconciles
penitents to Christ and
to the Christian
Community, the
Church.
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Different names bring out its
particular Dimensions

A. Sacrament of Conversion
Since it makes sacramentally present Jesus’ call to
conversion (the first step in returning to the Father
from whom one has strayed by sin).

• Lk.5:32 – “ I have not come to invite the self-

righteous to change of heart
but sinners.”
• Jn.9:38 – To the paralytic man, he said, “Do not
sin anymore so that nothing
worse may happen to you.”
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Sacrament of Conversion

• Conversion is first of all a work of the grace of

God who makes our hearts return to him.
• God gives us the strength to begin anew.

• Our “contrite heart” is drawn and moved by grace

to respond to the merciful love of God who loved
us.

• It is in discovering the greatness of God's love

that our heart is shaken by the horror and weight
of sin and begins to fear offending God by sin and
being separated from him.
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Sacrament of Conversion

• Total conversion
• means the whole life-long process of moving toward
closer union with Christ our savior, in his
community, the Church, away from sinful ways and
habits.

• It does not refer to a single act of moving from

atheism to belief in God nor from one religion to
another.

• It does not aim at outward works, “sackcloth and

ashes, fasting and mortification, but at the
conversion of the heart, interior conversion.
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Sacrament of Conversion
• Interior repentance
• is a radical reorientation of our whole life.

• A return, a conversion to God with all hearts, an end

of sin, a turning away of evil, with repugnance
toward the evil actions we have committed.

• It entails the desire and resolution to change's ones

life, with hope in God's mercy and trust in the help of
his grace.

• Without this, such penance remain sterile and false.

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Sacrament of Conversion
• Four Step Process
• Conflict
• Encounter
• Self-discovery
• Personal transformation

• Types of Conversion
• Moral : from sin to genuine love
• Affective : ordering our imagination, feelings and
emotions toward the good
• Intellectual : redirecting our understanding and
judgment
• Religious: falling in love with God.
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Sacrament of Conversion
• Conversion can be expressed in many various ways:
• Non-sacramental means
− Fasting
− Prayer
− almsgiving
• an expression of conversion in relation to
oneself, to God and to others.
• Sacramental means
• Baptism
• Eucharist
• Penance and Reconciliation
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Sacrament of Conversion
• Conversion is accomplished in daily life
by gestures of reconciliation:

• concern for the poor

• exercise and defense of justice and right by the
admission of faults to one's brethren
• fraternal correction
• revision of the life
• examination of conscience
• spiritual direction
• acceptance of the suffering endurance of
persecution for the sake of righteousness.
• Taking up one's cross each day and following
Jesus is the surest way of penance.
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B. Sacrament of Forgiveness
• Since by the priest’s sacramental absolution God grants
the penitent “pardon and peace.”

• Only God forgives sin.

• Since Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Son of Man
has the authority on earth to forgive sins, and
exercise this divine power, "your sins are forgiven.“

“And there were some of the scribes sitting there, and thinking in their
hearts: ‘Why do this man speak thus? He blasphemed. Who can
forgive sins but God alone?’ But Jesus seeing their thoughts said to
them: Which is easier to say: ‘Your sins are forgiven or arise, take up
your mat and walk?’ That you may know that the Son of man has
power on earth to forgive sins.” (Mark 2:5-11)

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Sacrament of Forgiveness
• by virtue of his divine authority he gives this power to
men to exercise in his name. The apostle is sent out
"on behalf of Christ" with "God making his appeal
through them and pleading, be reconciled to God.“

• This power to forgive sins is often referred to as the

“power of the keys”, the power entrusted to the Church
when Jesus told St. Peter,

“I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of

heaven. And whatsoever you shall bind on earth, it shall be
bound also in heaven: and whatsoever you shall loose on
earth, it shall be loosed in heaven.” (Matt
16:19) 12
Sacrament of Forgiveness

• As to meaning of “binding and loosing”

• Refers not to physical but to spiritual or moral among

which sin is certainly included.

• The power here granted is unlimited – “whatsoever you

shall bind, … whatsoever you shall loose.”

• The power is judicial, i.e. the Apostles are authorized to

bind and to loose.

• Whether they bind or loose, their action is ratified in

heaven.

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Sacrament of Forgiveness
How is the Church able to forgive sins?

‘As the Father has sent me, I also send you. Receive the Holy
Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you
retain the sins of any, they are retained.’
John 20:22-23
• “it was when he gave the Holy Spirit to his Apostles that
the risen Christ conferred on them his own divine power
to forgive sins:

• He prefaces the grant of power by declaring that the

mission of the apostles is similar to that which he had
received from the Father and which he had fulfilled: “As
the Father hath sent me…”
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Sacrament of Forgiveness
• Christ not only declared that sins were forgiven, but really
and actually forgave them; hence, the Apostles are
empowered not merely to announce to the sinner that his
sins are forgiven but to grant him forgiveness – “whose
sins you shall forgive.”

• The power is twofold – to forgive or to retain, i.e. the

Apostles are not told to grant or withhold forgiveness
indiscriminately; they must act judicially, forgiving or
retaining according as the sinner deserves.

• The exercise of this power in either form (forgiving or

retaining) is not restricted: no distinction is made or even
suggested between one kind of sin and another, or
between one class of sinners and all the rest: Christ
simply says “whose sins”. 15
Sacrament of Forgiveness

• The statement pronounced by the Apostles (remission or

retention) is also God’s statement – “they are forgiven …
they are retained”.

• Thus, we bring our failings to the Church

because Jesus imparted to his apostles,
their successors, and through them to all
ordained priests, his own power to forgive
sins, to restore and reconcile the sinner
with God and also the Church.

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Sacrament of Forgiveness
• What is the role of the priest in forgiving sins?

• The priest who by ordination is configured to

Christ absolves sinners, not in his own name and
power but in the name and person of Jesus, and
determines the manner of satisfaction, also prays
for the sinner and does penance with him.

• Therefore, just as the whole Church makes visible

in our world the presence of Christ, so the priest
makes visible the forgiveness and mercy of Jesus
in the sacrament of confession.
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C. Sacrament of Confession

• Since the disclosure or confession of sins to a priest is

an essential element of this sacrament.
• a sign of acceptance or admission
• A sign of asking forgiveness.

• Is Confession Based on the Bible?

“Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you
retain are retained” (John 20:23).

“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one
another, that you may be healed. The fervent prayer of a
righteous person is very powerful” (5:16).

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Sacrament of Confession
• Why is Confession necessary?
• We need confession because each of us, from
time to time, sins. When we recognize that we
have offended God who is all deserving of our
love, we sense the need to make things right.

• We need to know that our sins are forgiven.

• There is something in our human nature that
calls out for the assurance that our sins are
actually forgiven. Confession is the visible
manifestation of God's mercy that provides us,
in human terms as well, the clear awareness
that God has forgiven us.

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Sacrament of Confession
• Confessing one’s sins to someone designated by
the Church reaffirms our belief that God can act
through created things and through people.

• “Open confession” may sound good, but would

it be the personal encounter which the present
practice offers?

• Confession has been the occasion for many people

to appreciate how much God loves them and how
much they have resisted that love.

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 Sacrament of Confession
• How do I prepare for Confession?
• begin with prayer, placing ourselves in the presence of
God, our loving Father.
• We should harbor in our hearts a sense of sorrow for all we
have done. The motivation for our sorrow may be out of love of
God or even fear of the consequences of having offended God.
Whatever the motive, contrition is the beginning of forgiveness
of sin. We need to have sorrow at least to the extent that we
regret it, resolve not to repeat it and intend to turn back to God.

• With this disposition of heart, we should review our lives

since our last confession, searching our thoughts, words
and actions to discover those that did not conform to
God's love, to his law or to the laws of the Church.
• This is what is known as an "Examination of Conscience."
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Sacrament of Confession
• How often should I go to Confession?
• Canon Law or the law of the Church says every
member is obliged to go to confession at least once a
year.
• A Catholic who has committed mortal (grave) sin is
obliged to seek God's forgiveness in this sacrament as
soon as possible.
• In ordinary circumstances, a Catholic who has committed
mortal sin should not receive Holy Communion before
receiving sacramental absolution.

• Frequent and careful celebration of this sacrament is

also very useful as a remedy for venial sins. Not only
does God forgive our sins, but we also receive the
power of God's grace to struggle against sin and to be
strengthened in our commitment to God and the 22
Church.
Sacrament of Confession
• What is sin?
• described as breaking of God’s law, or our love relationship
with Him and others, or as going against one’s conscience, and
the like.
• an action or failure to act. (Commission and omission)
• a power or force that leads us into evil.

• Thus, It is before all else an offense against God, a

rupture of communion with him. At the same time it
damages communion with our true selves (intra-
personal), our neighbors (inter-personal), the larger
community (societal).
• For this reason conversion entails both of God's forgiveness
and reconciliation with the Church, which are expressed and
accomplished liturgically by the sacrament of Penance and
Reconciliation. 23
Sacrament of Confession
• DIMENSIONS OF SIN
a. Reality:
• Sin as a moral reality
• is made up of objective nature, intention,
circumstances.
• is an attitude, an action or failure to act, or a
power or force that leads us to into evil.
• It separates us from, i.e. makes us strangers from
… what? From our true selves, our neighbors, the
larger community, and God, the ground and source
of all.
• It hurts us and our loved ones
• is no joke; not glamorous at all contrary to
how it is often portrayed in movies. It really
destroys, injures, dishonors, perverts, poisons,
corrupts.
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Sacrament of Confession
• DIMENSIONS OF SIN
b. Structure:
• Personal sin
− is never just private, with no effect on anyone else
rather always affecting others and the community in
everything they do and likewise be affected by what
others do, so personal sin is neither committed nor
overcome in private.

• Social sin
− refers to negative moral attitudes and acts or failure
to act that are common to a community or particular
society. Its remedy is to change what is negative or
lacking in the community’s moral acts or attitudes
into what is positive and graced.
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Sacrament of Confession
• DIMENSIONS OF SIN
• Structural sin
− refers to existing structures that condition society in
a harmful and unjust way, such as long-standing
racial or sexist prejudicial structures, unjust economic
taxation systems, established military and political
customs and unfair immigration legalities. These
need to be reformed by along tedious process of
concerted social moral effort.

THUS, since sin is never just a private, individualistic mistake

but always injures the community. it should not be
confessed as some kind of superficial slip. Rather, we
must go after the root causes of sin in our lives, like
selfishness and pride, and with God’s grace perseveringly
work against them.
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Sacrament of Confession
• DIMENSIONS OF SIN
a. Reality
b. Structure
c. Degree
• Venial Sin
− it harms our relationship with God and others by
undermining the fervor of our life of charity, and can
gradually lead to mortal sins.

• Mortal sin
− when it kills the over all LOVE pattern of our relation
to God, our fundamental core freedom as related to
God.

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Sacrament of Confession
DISTINCTION
• Old Testament
• Venial Sins: sins of human weakness and inadvertence,
requires expiatory offering.
• Mortal Sins : crimes against the covenant community and
its God, could not be atoned
for by an expiatory offering, were
punished by death or by cutting the sinner
off from the community.

• New Testament
• Venial Sins likened to the “beam” in the hypocrite’s eye.
• Mortal Sins likened to the “mote” of the one criticize by the
hypocrites.
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• St. Thomas Aquinas
• Venial sins:
− reparable from a source of healing within the person.
− is not against the law since one who sins venially does
not do what the law forbids or fail to do what it
requires by a precept, but such a sinner behaves
apart from the law by not keeping to the reasonable
mode which the law points out. (simply “apart from
the law” and “not against the Law”)
− It is venial by reason of insufficient reason, or
insufficient consent, so even if the matter is grave yet
if they proceed from a person who is confused or
ignorant about what he is doing or whose choice is not
adequately free.
− other sins, are venial by reason of their “object” or
subject matter.
Ex. Aimlessly chatting, telling a lie that does not harm
anyone are moral disorder but are not destructive of
love of God or neighbor.
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• Mortal Sins

− irreparable by human power, only God can save us

from this spiritual death.

− in sinning mortally, a person fully turns away from God

toward a creature;

− Some kinds of human acts are known to be

incompatible with the love that should exist between
humans and God within human society.

Ex. Blasphemy and idolatry are simply irreconcilable with

love for God, while murder,, adultery and the like are
completely opposed to love for our neighbor.

Such acts when freely chosen with adequate knowledge

about what one is doing, are mortally sinful.

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d. Sacrament of Penance
- since it consecrates the Christian sinner’s personal
and ecclesial steps of conversion, penance and
satisfaction.

• Over the centuries of the Church’s teaching, Christ

requires three duties of those who receive the sacrament
of Penance.

• They must be truly sorry for their sins, at least out of fear of
God’s punishments. (CONTRITION)
• They must confess their grave sins, or (if there are no mortal
sins) at least some venial sin(s) from their past life.
(CONFESSION)
• They must perform the penance called satisfaction, which the
confessor gives them. (PENANCE OR SATISFACTION)

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Importance of performing the
penance assigned by the priest
in confession?
• It partakes of the efficacy of the sacrament. This
means that at least some of the temporal
punishment incurred by the sinner is infallibly
removed by performing the assigned penance.

• It is a sobering reminder that where there was

sin there must be voluntary acceptance of pain,
at least the recitation of certain prescribed
prayers.

• It tells the sinner that he owes God the sacrifice

of his own will to make reparation for disobeying
the Divine will. And the more we have sinned,
the more we must love God in the future for
giving in to self-love in the past.
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e. Sacrament of Reconciliation
• for it imparts to the sinner the love of God who reconciles: “Be
reconciled to God.” He who lives by God’s merciful love is ready to
respond to the Lord’s call: “Go, first be reconciled to your brother.”

• Effects of the Sacrament

• Reconciliation with Christ/God
− The whole power of the sacrament of penance consist in
restoring us to God's grace, and joining us with Him in
an intimate friendship. For those who receive the
sacrament of Penance with Contrite heart, reconciliation
is usually followed by peace and serenity of conscience.

• Reconciliation with Others

− Reconciliation with God leads to reconciliation with his
brethren whom he has in some way offended and
wounded. He is reconciled with the Church. He is
reconciled with all creation.

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Sacrament of Reconciliation

This sacrament therefore, repairs or restores the

penitent. In this sense it does not simply heal the
one restored, but has also revitalizing effect on the
life of the Church which suffered from the sin of
one members.

The ultimate purpose of the sacrament is that we should

love God deeply and commit ourselves completely to Him:

To the Father who first loved us (1 Jn. 4:19)

To Christ who gave himself up for us (Gal. 2:20)
To the Holy Spirit who has been poured out on us
abundantly (Tim. 3:6)

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Sacrament of Reconciliation
• Formula of Absolution
God, the Father of mercies
Through the death and resurrection of His Son
Has reconciled the world to Himself
And sent the Holy Spirit among us
For the forgiveness of Sins.
Through the ministry of the Church
May God give you pardon and peace
And I absolve you from your sins
In the name of the Father, and of the Son,
And of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
The Church not only calls her sinners to repentance by
preaching the word of God. She also intercedes for
them and help penitents to acknowledge and confess
their sins, and so obtain mercy of God through Christ in
the Holy Spirit. 35
END

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