Do NOT fear Confession

 

Deacon Kevin Gingras

August 20th, 2023

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091723.cfm

Sir 27:30—28:7      Ps 103:1-2, 3-4, 9-10, 11-12

Rom 14:7-9        Mt 18:21-35

Today Jesus tells us to forgive 7 times 70 times - 490 times.  It seems kind of oddly specific.  I figure with that number in mind my wife Allison already forgave me more than 490 times around the time I proposed to her in my car while driving around the Middleboro Rotary back in the late 80s!

The human need for forgiveness goes farther back than the 80’s, all the way back to Genesis where, out of jealousy Cain kills his brother Abel.  Soon after in Genesis, we hear of a man named Lamech who was Cain’s great-great-great-great-grandson.  Lamech killed a man simply for wounding him and he says to his wives:

If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times.”

What does this mean in Genesis?  Cain’s violent past is continuing but the question is how will God’s creation be renewed now?  There is a prophecy in the book of Daniel 9:24-27 that reads:

“Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and for your holy city: Then transgression will stop and sin will end, guilt will be expiated, Everlasting justice will be introduced, vision and prophecy ratified, and a holy of holies will be anointed. Know and understand: From the utterance of the word that Jerusalem was to be rebuilt until there is an anointed ruler, there shall be seven weeks.

The holy of holies will be anointed - anointed in Hebrew means Messiah.  Daniel’s prophetic vision was of seven, seventy-year periods and that equals 490 years, and then an anointed one will be cut down.  457 BC to AD 33 is 490 years (Jesus died around 33 AD).

It’s clear Jesus wasn’t just throwing out some odd random number when He said “seven times seventy times”, he was, pointing to Old Testament prophecy and scripture.

Of course, we know the rest of the story - we will be renewed by the ultimate and perfect sacrifice offered for the forgiveness of our sins, Jesus Christ, the perfect unsinful lamb of God.  Even with that we still hold on to sin as our first reading from Sirach tells us:

Wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight. The vengeful will suffer the LORD's vengeance, for he remembers their sins in detail. Forgive your neighbor's injustice; then when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven.

We are talking about parts of the Mass again in September and one of the parts we need to focus on is forgiveness.  Forgiveness has two major parts, first, forgiveness for ourselves and what we have done wrong, and then forgiveness of others who have wronged us.

First, let’s touch on forgiveness of ourselves.  We open Mass with the entrance antiphon, we reverence the Altar, have the greeting, and next up, the Penitential Act in which we typically use the Confitier. That’s where we begin with “I confess to almighty God and to you my brothers and sisters”.  We state how we have greatly sinned because any sin is an offense against God and hurts our relationship with Him.  We confess not only what we have done and said, but also what we failed to do and thought about doing.  It’s basically a formula of general confession and ends with the Priest's absolution BUT, and this is a big deal, it lacks the efficacy of the Sacrament of Penance, in other words, we still need to go to Confession to a priest - who is in persona Christi - or in the person of Christ in the confessional.  Confession with a priest is not optional.  Confession is often called the forgotten Sacrament.  Don’t let it be forgotten.  Even if it has been a very long time, perhaps since your first confession way back in second grade, it doesn’t matter.   Sure, it’s uncomfortable and squirmy, I don’t like it at all while I am confessing my sins but that discomfort helps me avoid sin in the future!  When finished we have those wonderful words of true absolution when the priest says “I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”.  The feeling after that is fantastic!  

Next up is forgiveness of others.  I don’t think any of us want to be the wicked servant from today’s Gospel. Soon, together we will all pray the Our Father, in which we say “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”.  We tell God not to forgive us unless we also are forgiving!  Later in the Mass, we will encounter the Rite of Peace just before the Eucharist is distributed.  Mathew 5:23-24 tells us:

If you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

The General Instruction of the Roman Missal talks about the Rite of Peace as the way “by which the Church entreats peace and unity for herself and for the whole human family, and the faithful express to each other their ecclesial communion and mutual charity before communicating in the Sacrament”.

The Catholic Church is defined by its four marks - we are One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.  We need to act as one and to do that we must forgive.

Remember, God is our creator so trust God to know what’s best for us.  Forgiveness is not just us forgiving others, but also forgiving ourselves too, especially in the sacrament of Confession.  Do NOT fear Confession.

St. John Paull II had this to say about Confession:

“Confession is an act of honesty and courage – an act of entrusting ourselves, beyond sin, to the mercy of a loving and forgiving God.”

We are a Covenant People

Deacon Kevin Gingras

Feb 21, 2021, 1st Sunday of Lent

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022121.cfm

We are a covenant people.  The covenant we heard about in our first reading from Noah changes things as covenants often do.  It came at a time right after the world was cleansed through a flood, a global baptism if you will.  A little earlier in Genesis 6:5, we read:

the LORD saw how great the wickedness of human beings was on earth, and how every desire that their heart conceived was always nothing but evil

This flood lasted for 40 days and was necessary to cleanse the world of its evil ways.  This covenant’s promise from God is “that never again shall all bodily creatures be destroyed by the waters of a flood”.  That promise is welcome assurance these days, the way things are going.  If not for that promise of God every time it started to rain, I would get a bit apprehensive.

God has made other covenants with us as well.  The Abrahamic covenant from Genesis 15 where God promised Abraham and Sarah descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky.

There is the Mosaic covenant from Exodus 19 where the Israelites who also passed through waters of the Red Sea to salvation; another form of baptism; are given the 10 commandments and the laws of God.  When Moses received the 10 stone tablets of God’s commandments he was on Mt. Sinai for 40 days.

In today’s Gospel, we hear of the start of a new, Messianic covenant as Jesus goes into the desert for 40 days.  This was the covenant the prophets foretold of, a Messiah, Jesus Christ will be the fulfillment of this covenant.

In today’s Gospel, we hear Jesus was tempted by Satan after his desert wanderings.  We must remember that Jesus was 100% human as well as 100% divine (throw away your math major on this one, this one takes faith) so he was tired, hungry, and thirsty when Satan approached him.  Satan may have been thinking that this would be one of his only chances to have a shot at corrupting Jesus.  Jesus passes these tests with Satan and the angels minister to him.

This is an important moment in our salvation.  Imagine if Jesus failed that temptation what things would be like today.  He had to pass - he was the “New Adam”, he came to undo the closing of paradise that was caused by the sin of disobedience of Adam and Eve.  God had established his first covenant with Adam and Eve.  The first covenant to be broken.

Jesus, the New Adam, along with his mother Mary, the New Eve had their work cut out for them, it wouldn’t be easy but fortunately, as Paul Harvey used to say, we know the rest of that story.

Our covenant now is a covenant of salvation, not an earthly salvation but a Heavenly one instead.  A covenant that lasts for eternity.  It’s a covenant marked by the body and blood, marked by the very Eucharist which we are here to celebrate today especially when the priest will change mere bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.  These words from Matthew may sound familiar (I hope so anyway):

Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins.

Our part in holding up this Eucharistic covenant, yes, we play an active role in this, is to try our best to stay worthy to receive it.  It’s not a magic pill that we just show up, receive and walk away, all saved, I wish it worked that way but it doesn’t.  We hear about that in the first letter to the Corinthians:

Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup.

We must fully understand and realize what Jesus’ death and suffering mean for us, for me, for you, individually, you yourself must grasp what he has done for you in this covenant.  To not try and do this is a sin against the Lord himself. 

What better time than lent to do this.  To examine ourselves.  We fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, we abstain from meat/flesh on Fridays but why?  To remember that Jesus sacrificed himself, his very own flesh on Good Friday.  We fast to remember and focus more on our spiritual dimension, our heavenly dimension, and to put aside our earthly dimension just for a bit. Sometimes it’s hard, sometimes my earthly body tells me when I’m fasting: “Hey big guy, you haven’t fed me in a bit, how about a nice big sandwich?”.  It takes practice and persistence to master this, keep at it!

We should also focus on Metanoia - meaning changing our lives to focus on penance and conversion, making ourselves right with the Lord.  Fast for Metanoia!

Confess your sins to a priest, do it at least once this lent, the Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us to confess our serious sins at least once a year.  What better time than now to cleanse ourselves, like our baptismal waters cleansed us so many years ago.  Make ourselves worthy to properly receive Jesus in the Eucharist so that, as  Saint Pope John Paul II said:

"United with the angels and saints of the heavenly Church, let us adore the most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist. Prostrate, we adore this great mystery that contains God’s new and definitive covenant with humankind in Christ."