INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this feast of Pentecost is, “Forgiving Sins.”
In today’s gospel Jesus says, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”
The title of my homily is, “Forgiving Sins.”
I would like to ponder the message: I have the power to forgive sins.
PART ONE: ON HEARING CONFESSIONS
I was blessed with a good education. To become a priest, after finishing college, there were 4 more years of studies – as well as a year of novitiate. Besides preaching, catechetics, - as well as languages – some more Greek, Spanish, Portuguese and even some Hebrew – I barely learned the Hebrew alphabet, these post college 4 years consisted of 2 years of Old Testament Studies along with Dogmatic Theology and 2 years of New Testament Studies along with Moral Theology.
Most priests would be ordained after those 4 years of post college studies, but we were ordained after 3 years. However, we couldn’t hear confessions for another year till we finished our second year of Moral Theology. So we were called, “Simplex Priests” for a whole year. Most weekends of our final year of seminary – we helped out in different churches in the Hudson Valley – in mid-Upstate New York. We said Mass and preached, but we couldn’t hear confessions – and at times we wondered what that would be like.
Then in June of 1966 – a year after our ordination - we were delegated to hear confessions. At the age of 26, I found myself on the other side of the screen or dark curtain in a confessional box for the first time in my life. Now my real education in life was about to begin.
I don’t remember what my mind was like back then – other than I sometimes find a copy of a homily from that first year and I say to myself, “Oh my God I am partly sorry!”
At first, hearing confessions was scary – listening to a person unloading their mistakes and sins – and wanting to move on.
It’s now 45 years later. What have I learned?
I think of the radio program called, “The Shadow” which we heard as kids. It began with the introduction: “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows.”
If anyone should know what evil can lurks in the human heart, the priest should know.
If anyone should know that we all have a shadow side, the priest should know.
And in recent years, we have discovered, sad to say, the evil that lurks in priest’s lives. We don’t practice what we preach. We don’t learn and grow enough from what we read and hear about. The Bible talks over and over again about how we humans can self destruct – which causes great mess on families, community and world. Newspapers, magazines, TV news and talk shows couldn’t survive without sin. And pundits would add: "Hmmmm Church too."
What else did I learn? I learned that priests forget almost everything they hear in confession. If you hear confessions for an hour – in a confined space – and often you have no clue – who the person is – other than another human being – you don’t remember – nor do you want to – what people say. However, one says a quick prayer for that person who just confessed and admitted his or her sins.
After each confession, I close the screen or slide in the confessional. I pause. I breathe. I pray, “Come Holy Spirit” for the next person. Then I open the screen for that person and say, "Peace be with you."
When you have nothing to do and the church is empty, open the confessional box doors and check those tiny rooms in every Catholic Church. Say a prayer for priests and those who come here to be healed and helped.
I learned that the screen or curtain is very smart. Sometimes people need to be anonymous. Some people need to get things off their chest and move on.
I learned that there are two kinds of confessions: have to confessions and every once an a while I ought to go to confession, confessions.
I learned that confession in the Catholic Church has a long and very varied history. There were times in the Church’s long history when people went to confession once or twice in a lifetime.*
I learned that confession is good for the soul. And I also learned it’s not good for the soul if a person becomes scrupulous or there is no intention of changing or the whole experience becomes a mechanical parrot like experience – or people lie to themselves or don’t know themselves – and that’s what confession ought to help happen to us.
I learned that little kids confessions have improved 90 per cent since I was a kid. When we were kids, we went to confession with the so called laundry list – or teacher’s list. There were words we couldn’t even pronounce. I was "distobedient" to my mother and father 10,000 times. Most of the time nowadays the kid is better prepared – and sits there across from the priest and as Art Linkletter used to say, “Kids say the darndest things.” I have found that the kid is thinking at an early age that what he says or does or does not do, can hurt a brother or sister, friend or parent – or dog. Kids confess that as well.
I learned that it’s good every once and a while to examine one’s life. Just as going to the doctor or having one’s teeth checked, can catch stuff in one’s body or teeth – before things get worse – so too this sacrament.
A stitch in time saves nine.
A test in time can save a life.
So too the soul – so we have lists and we have Penance and Reconciliation services – and confessions in most Catholic Churches. When was the last time I reflected upon my life – with a list of the 7 Capital Sins in hand. When was the last time I read the paper and noticed the 7 Capital Sins going on? When was the last time I just listened to everyday life – and noticed that greed and grab mine is going on – or envy or jealousy is the centerpiece at coffee breaks or Facebook or Twitter or cell phone calls. Some people make lust # 1. Compare Dante’s levels of hell and where he puts popes and politicians and various people. Read C.S. Lewis who says there’s no comparison between the easy sins of lust and gluttony and the deeper more destructive sin of pride. I’m better than you – and to prove it, people want their car, home, titles, education, looks, clothes, religious practices or what have you as evidence, I’m at a higher level of smarts – looks – being that you – life than you, you poor slob. Read Jesus’ parables – they are Divine Comedy about how pompous we modern day Pharisees can be. They should scare the hell out of us – on how we walk by our neighbor in need – or we make fun of those we label down and out – and I’m up and out front in polls or pulpit.
I also learned that some people would do well to go for therapy as well - and / or enter 12 step programs for recovery from addictions of all sorts. It’s difficult and downright humiliating to admit I’m powerless over food or drink or sex or gambling and I need God and others for help – who can be powers greater than myself.
I hope many of you are familiar with 12 Step Programs – especially AA. Two key early steps are # 4 and # 5. One does a serious and in-depth look into one’s life and writes it all down. That’s Step 4. Step 5 is going to another person and telling and spilling one’s moral inventory of mess to that person.
I learned that confession can be nothing compared to listening to a person do the 5th Step in a 12 Step recovery programs. When I was stationed in Lima, Ohio for eight and a half years before coming here, every summer in July, I helped as one of the clergy in a big, big AA men’s retreat in Olivet, Michigan. 200 plus men would come on weekend retreat and a lot of them would make a 5th Step. A person would sign his name on a piece of paper on the door behind which were about 7 ministers and 2 priests. Each person who signed up was given a ½ hour – to come in – and dump a whole lifetime of disasters or this or that. Most had stuff on paper – and read from the paper. It was a draining experience, especially Saturday night, we clergy would finish at 2 or 3 into Sunday morning! Next. Now those were confessions.
I learned – this is my personal opinion for 25 years now at least – that the Catholic Church needs to have in the future a whole Synod on the Sacrament of Confession. In my opinion, confession needs major work – major surgery. Some people are scrupulous. Some people are addicts and need to deal with their issues in a setting other than a confession in the back or side of a church. Then there are folks who haven’t gone to confession in 20, 30 or 40 years. Some priest yelled at them. Yes, there are grouches amongst us. How often one could or should go to confession varies. Some people hear on EWTN that they ought to go every week. Some priests suggest going 2 times a year. Some people don’t see that Acts of Charity and Kindness take away a multitude of sins. Some people don’t connect that the first part of Mass is a reconciliation service. Some people ought to be confessing their sins to one another: a spouse, or a parent or a child or a friend. Some people better not do that, because it might destroy the bond or the relationship.I suspect some secrets ought to go with us to the grave; yet I also know that there is something in us that calls for us to vent or confess or tell someone about what happened. However, families don't need to find out that one of their members wrote a tell-all memoir. Sometimes we need to hang our dirty laundry on the cross and not on the backyard line.
Looking back now to 1966, I have listened to a lot of people asking for forgiveness in the Sacrament of Confession, Reconciliation, or Penance, or whatever it’s called. I'm stressing here for starters to do a bit of reflection on yourself and this Sacrament called "Reconciliation" or "Penance" or "Confession,"
PART TWO: THE MAIN POINT IN THIS HOMILY
In this homily my major stress would be to challenge myself and all of us with the application of the text from today’s gospel that I began this homily with: “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”
Each of us here has the power to hold onto sins and each of us has the power to forgive sins.
In the First Reading from Acts we hear about a phenomenon from the early church – the gift of tongues.
I would like to stress that the most powerful sign of the Holy Spirit would be to loosen up our tongues and minds and discover we have the ability to say with our tongue and our self, “I forgive you” as well as to say, “I’m sorry that I hurt you when I….”
I would stress that in the gospel Jesus burst through walls and closed doors and said, “Peace be with you.” It was a scene of fire and wind – two of the great symbols of the coming of the Holy Spirit.
Then he gave them the disciples the power to forgive or to hold onto sin.
This text has been applied to the Sacrament of Confession.
I want to apply it also to every disciple of the Body of Christ – no matter who we are or where we are from or what language we speak.
DEALING WITH SELF AND OTHERS
I want to challenge all of us to reflect not only on forgiveness of how we hurt others or others hurt us – but on the issue of letting go.
Forgiveness is not forgetting. That’s dementia or the letting go in time.
Some questions:
Whom do you have to forgive?
Parents who made mistakes on you.
Teachers who were not fair.
Family members who cheated on you or what have you when it comes to wills and or money or homes and furniture or stuff.
I've heard people tell me that they still have a grudge after 50 years that a sister got the silverware set they wanted.
Is there a priest or bishop or a boss or a coach or anybody who abused you verbally, emotionally, sexually, or what have you?
CONCLUSION
If there is anything I learned as a priest, the biggest truth I learned is about the retaining – the power of retaining –holding onto sins – my own or those against me.
People hold onto mistakes, hurts, it seems all their lives.
Have they grasped, prayed over what Jesus did in today’s gospel. He broke through thick skulls and breathed new life into his disciples.
May it be me.
May it be you.
* REFERENCES
Cf. Regis Duffy, “Reconciliation”, in
The New Dictionary of Theology, editors Joseph A. Komonchak, Mary Collins, Dermot A. Lane, Michael Glazier, Wilmington, Delaware, 1989, pp. 830 – 836.
Cf.
New Catholic Encyclopedia, on Penance from pages 72 to 84. This provides a series of articles by different authors on different aspects of Penance. [1967 © The Catholic University of America. Washington D.C.]
Cf. Berthold Altaner,
Patrology, translated by Hilda Graef, Herder and Herder, 1960. Here are some pages and sections to look at: “19” on page 31; “g” on page 53; “1.” and “3.” on pages 86-87; “a” on page 144; “Cyprian on arrogance of confessors page 194; “20” on page 176; “10.” on page 181; “6.” on page 204; “7.” on page 233; “4.” on pages 343-344; “4.” on pages 384-385; “3.” on pages 420-421; “10.” on pager 433; “c.” on pager 448-449; “7.” on page 454; “14.” on pages 530-531; “4.” on page 563; “4.” on page 609.
Cf. J. A. Jungmann, S.J.,
Pastoral Liturgy, Herder and Herder, N.Y., 1962, pages 244-251; page 299.
Cf.
Guide for Confessors, from the
Praxis Confessarii of St. Alphonsus Liguori, under the name of Father Daniel Lowery, C.SS.R, Mt. St. Alphonsus, Esopus, New York, 1978
Cf. Joseph Martos,
Doors To The Sacred, A Historical Introduction of the Sacraments in The Catholic Church, Revised and Updated Edition, Liguori / Triumph, Liguori Missouri, 2001, Chapter IX, Reconciliation, pp. 275-324.
