The Church and Conversion: Communal Celebrations of Penance

In my book, The Future of the Sacrament of Penance (St Pauls, 2007), I made the point that both the theology and the practice of this sacrament need to be washed through with the renewed thinking of the last century and especially of the decades since the Second Vatican Council. The renewal of Penance demands a fresh view of the theology of redemption and sin, a critique of the image of God which it conveys, and a richer ecclesiology. It is this last that I would particularly like to follow up in this article.

The Church Penance is a sacrament of the Church. This means that it is one of the seven core rituals in which the Church gives expression to, deepens and re-enforces its identity as a communion of life in Christ. It is the Church, so to speak, exercising itself, giving itself body and expression in its symbolic actions.

The Church as it is presented to us in the documents of the Second Vatican Council is emphatically a communal reality (see Lumen Gentium 5-8). In a way this is stating the obvious but, in the practice of some of the sacraments in recent centuries the expression of the Church's communal nature was significantly diminished. Its understanding of the Church is a deeply significant contribution of the Council and is one of the issues which still requires further theological development.

One aspect of the renewed ecclesiology is the importance given to the concrete assembly of the Church gathered together as a body. This happens of course in the celebration of the liturgy. Christ is present in the celebration of the liturgy in the assembly gathered in Christ's name (Sacrosanctum Concilium 7, General Instruction of the Roman Missal (2006) 27, Catechism of the Catholic Church 1088).

The ecclesial dimension of the sacrament of Penance in its pre­ Vatican II form was expressed in a minimalist way in the ministry of the priest  It needs to be complemented by a use of the sacrament which involves the liturgical assembly. This enriching dimension of the celebration of the sacraments is required for their greater fruitfulness.

We no longer understand our celebration of the Eucharist as centred purely upon the ministry of the priest; rather it is based on the various ways in which Christ relates to his Church -  the assembly gathered in his name, his word, his ordained minister and his sacramental body and blood on the altar.  Similarly our celebration of the other sacraments needs to give expression to the various forms of Christ's presence which are appropriate to each of them.  Beyond the sacraments, any liturgical   celebration relies upon the particular ways in  which Christ is present  This is illustrated for instance in the Liturgy of the Hours, where it is said that Christ accomplishes the work of redemption when the Church prays and sings its daily prayer (General Introduction 13). Every liturgical celebration of the Church needs to include a proclamation of God's word.

So if we are to enrich and renew our celebration of the sacrament of Penance, we need a form of celebration which involves the gathering of the assembly of the Church, a celebration of God's word, the presidency of the ordained minister and the celebration of conversion and God's forgiveness. More than one form of celebration for this sacrament is needed if it is to renew and enrich the life of the Church today.  I have no doubt that there is the need for a rite which deals with individual penitents as they come to grips with their own conversion of life.  But the individual rite we have is too often one whose celebration does not resonate with the dynamics of Christian conversion.  Of this we will have more to say later.

The sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick provides a good example of the renewal of a sacramental celebration by placing it in a richer ecclesial setting. The understanding and appreciation of this sacrament has been transformed by its communal celebration within or outside the Eucharist. This has been the major element in turning a ritual for those close to death (the 'last rites' as it was called) into a sacrament for the restoration and healing of those who are ill. A ritual which was often feared and even avoided by people is now a celebration marked by the gift of serenity and even joy. The presence of the sick to each other in the midst of the gathered community of the Church and the loving care of the community bring about a transformation. It has become a sacrament which proclaims more clearly the Gospel of Christ.

Similarly the sacrament of Penance would be enhanced by celebration which involves the rich and various ways in which Christ is present to his Church. To develop the argument further we can note that, through the history of the rites of Penance, there have been two types of usage of the sacrament.

The first involves penitents whose sin is such that they are excluded from the life of the Church.  We can see this in the first historical form of the sacrament (called 'canonical penance') in which the penitent was put out of the body of the faithful and placed into an Order of Penitents.  Sacramental reconciliation was used only in those instances where penitents had committed sins which excluded them from the Church's  life and more specifically from the Eucharist.

The second use of sacramental rites of penance relates to those who have sinned in a lesser way, sins that we may call 'daily' or 'venial'. The use of the sacrament for such sins is often called 'devotional' confession. Even though these sins may be brought to the sacrament of Penance for forgiveness they do not need to be; they car. be forgiven in many other ways as both the Council of Trent and its Catechism affirm. These other ways include prayer, penitential practices, and the forgiveness of sins which are part of other sacraments such as the Eucharist and the Anointing of the Sick.

It is in the context of this second usage that I would like to speak about the value of Penitential Services or what we might call Communal Celebrations of Conversion. Such celebrations are part of the official Rite of Penance (see Introduction 36-37 and the models offered in appendix II). Given that we are not able to use the communal rite with general confession and absolution (the third rite) at this time in the Church's history, but in light of the value of communal celebration, I believe that we can fruitfully use these penitential celebrations. In this liturgy we experience the gathering of the Church in its assembly, the proclamation of Christ's word, genuine liturgical ministry, and the celebration of our conversion and God's forgiveness, in short, a profound celebration of conversion in a truly ecclesial way.

The Church's long and varied history demonstrates that conversion has been celebrated differently at different times, some forms showing a greater sense of the ecclesial character of the sacrament than others. These various practices can be a source of inspiration for ecclesial rites today.

Conversion  Let us reflect at a little more depth on the meaning of Christian conversion.  The sacrament of Penance, I believe, is more accurately described as the sacrament of conversion than the sacrament of forgiveness. God's forgiveness is always on offer to us; this sacrament is about the journey of conversion in us.  The word 'conversion' does not relate to human maturity or being good citizens or the building up of one's character.  We are talking about the specific call of the gospel to conversion.  It is this which the sacrament of penance is celebrating.  The original word used in the New Testament  for conversion is the Greek word 'metanoia'.  It means to go beyond one's mind or mentality or approach to life into a new mindset to which Jesus invites us. Jesus' call to conversion is always asking us in our concrete situation to enter into his mindset, mentality, perspective and approach to life.

The call into the mind of Jesus is just one possibility among the many which fill our lives. We are always being asked to see things in a particular way, to be converted to particular perspectives. Politicians ask us to view the world in their way; so do advertisers; and every time we read something, the writer is asking us look at things through the author's eyes, to come over into this particular way of seeing things. All these invite us to join them in their approach to reality. Even in enjoying comedy we have to let ourselves 'be converted' by the comedian for the time he or she is at work. This of course can be more or less serious depending upon the importance of the Issue, but it is going on all the time. Mostly we are not even aware of it.

Christ's call to conversion, to go beyond our perspective into his, is specifically expressed in the gospels. It is in engaging with them that we discover what we are called to, what we are called to 'passover' into. The one who invites us into the sharing of his 'mind' is the Word of God who addresses his word to us. We are invited by the Word into his Passover, his Paschal Mystery. The invitation is not just issued to us once but in all the different stages and phases of our lives and in many different circumstances.

Conversion is not taking us on a lone journey but a journey into communion with others and in communion with others; it is an ecclesial journey. Consequently Christ's word needs to be addressed to us within the tradition of the liturgical assembly which is constantly seeking to 'incarnate the word'. The assembly is our check-point where the call to conversion is heard and lived by the many diverse members of Christ's body. We recognise the Spirit of Christ when we see the same Spirit reflected in the many members of Christ's body. The Christian journey is a journey in communion and into communion.

The journey of conversion cannot be completed in our lifetime because the call to metanoia meets us at each phase and turning point of our lives. It is not complete-able! It is only completed in that future where we will see God and be like God (see 1 John 3:1-2). So we are dealing with conversion as a general pattern of our Christian life. Therefore we need to come together to celebrate this journey, to recognise our failures, to take encouragement from God's word, and to take heart from our brothers and sisters in faith who share the journey with us.

Thinking of conversion in this way can lead us to see the role of the sacrament of Penance and of other penitential rites differently. The mentality and the practice of the pre-Vatican II rite was far too juridical. These images became so embedded in the practice that the sacrament was drawn away from some of its scriptural bases.

Hence I would like to suggest that the process involved in any rite of penance needs to have its beginning in a hearing of God's word as the primary element of our celebration, allowing that word to lead us into the discovery of sin as that is revealed to us by the inspired word of God. We see this process of discovering sin so often between Jesus and his contemporaries in the gospels, for example, the stories of the pharisee and the publican, the prodigal son, the adulterous woman, or Zaccheus.

The journey of 'passover' into the mind of Christ does not need to be rushed. Communal celebrations of conversion have great value in this passing-over. In non-sacramental celebrations we can find a source for the renewal of the sacrament (in whichever of its forms we might use) because through them we gain a renewed sense of the meaning of conversion. I think it is crucial. in renewing the celebration of the sacrament that we give priority to transforming our understanding of Christian conversion over and above all other discussions. The spirit of our practice needs to change, not just its forms.

There is no need to rush to sacramental absolution. The forgiveness of God is never in doubt. On the other hand, the conversion of our hearts is the process of a lifetime. It is just this conversion that we seek to promote in the use of the sacrament of Penance.

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This article was originally published in Liturgy News ​Vol 37(2) June 2007. Reprinted with permission.