Daily Retreat 06/30/06

2006 Jun 30 Fri: Ordinary Weekday/ First Martyrs of the Church of Rome
2 Kgs 25: 1-12/ Ps 136(137): 1-2. 3. 4-5. 6/ Mt 8: 1-4

 

From today’s readings:  “Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and his whole army advanced against Jerusalem, encamped around it, and built siege walls on every side....  How could we sing a song of the LORD in a foreign land?...  Go, show yourself to the priest....”

 

Go to the Priest

 

“I confess directly to God, so I don’t need to tell my sins to a priest.” The simple aspect of confessing sins to a priest is one of the most common objections raised by both Protestants and nominal Catholics against receiving sacramental confession.

 

But there are at least three scriptural rebuttals to that excuse.  First, recalling John 20:23, on the evening of Easter Sunday, Jesus specifically empowered His first priests, the Apostles, to forgive sins, as He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit - whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; whose sins you hold bound, they are held bound!”    So, since the power to forgive sins has been entrusted by Jesus to the apostolic ministry of the Church, that’s where one should regularly go for divine pardon and peace.

 

Second, more generally, Jesus founded His Church specifically to continue His ministry and His presence through the whole sacramental economy.  So actually, in all of the sacraments, it is Jesus Himself who is the High Priest and primary minister, so the human priest acts not in his own name, but in the Name and Person of Christ.  The human priest thus bears witness that the sacraments are always a personal encounter between the person receiving and Christ Himself.  Thus, when a person seeks baptism for instance, he cannot baptize himself, or “go to God directly” by simply standing in the rain - as is always the case in Scripture, one can only receive the sacramental presence of Christ at the hand of a minister recognized by the Church’s authority.

 

Third, since our sins not only offend God, but also wound the other members of the mystical Body of Christ, it is fitting that the sacramental process of reconciliation also entails an ecclesial dimension.  When Jesus cured the leper, He sent him to the priest, so the priest could verify and authenticate to God’s people, the assembly of believers, that the leper had indeed been made clean.  Who cured the leper?  Jesus Himself, yet He deigned to associate the miraculous healing with the authority of the priesthood.  Who forgives sinners?  Jesus Himself, who continues to dispense His divine pardon ordinarily through His priests who administer the sacrament of confession!