PAPAL THOUGHTS: SACRAMENT OF CONFESSION

"It is not Sin that is at the Heart of the Celebration, but rather
God's Mercy, which is infinitely greater than any guilt of ours."

POPE BENEDICT XVI ON THE SACRAMENT OF CONFESSION

VATICAN CITY, March 17, 2008 (Zenit.org)
Here is a L'Osservatore Romano translation of Pope Benedict XVI's March 7 address to participants in an annual course on matters of conscience, organized by the Tribunal of the Apostolic Penitentiary.

Your Eminence,
Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate and in the Priesthood,
Dear Confessors in the Roman Basilicas,

I am pleased to meet you at the end of the Course on the Internal Forum, which for some years now the Apostolic Penitentiary has organized during Lent. With its carefully planned program, this annual meeting renders a precious service to the Church and helps to keep alive the sense of holiness of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

I therefore address my cordial thanks to the organizers, especially the Major Penitentiary, Cardinal James Francis Stafford, whom I greet and thank for his courteous words. Together with him, I greet and thank the Regent and staff of the Penitentiary as well as the praiseworthy Religious of various Orders who administer the Sacrament of Penance in the Papal Basilicas of the City. I also greet all those who are taking part in the Course.

Lent is an especially favorable season to meditate on the reality of sin in the light of God's infinite mercy, which the Sacrament of Penance expresses in its loftiest form. I therefore willingly take this opportunity to bring to your attention certain thoughts on the administration of this Sacrament in our time, in which the loss of the sense of sin is unfortunately becoming increasingly more widespread.

LOVING AGAINST THE TIDE OF OPINION

It is necessary today to assist those who confess to experience that divine tenderness to repentant sinners which many Gospel Episodes portray with tones of deep feeling.

Let us take, for example, the passage in Luke's Gospel that presents the woman who was a sinner and was forgiven (cf. Lk 7:36-50). Simon, a Pharisee and a rich dignitary of the town, was holding a banquet at his home in honour of Jesus. In accordance with a custom of that time, the meal was eaten with the doors left open, for in this way the fame and prestige of the homeowner was increased. All at once, an uninvited and unexpected guest entered from the back of the room: a well-known prostitute.

One can understand the embarrassment of those present, which did not seem, however, to bother the woman. She came forward and somewhat furtively stopped at Jesus' feet. She had heard his words of pardon and hope for all, even prostitutes; she was moved and stayed where she was in silence. She bathed Jesus' feet with tears, wiped them dry with her hair, kissed them and anointed them with fragrant ointment.

By so doing, the sinner woman wanted to express her love for and gratitude to the Lord with gestures that were familiar to her, although they were censured by society.

Amid the general embarrassment, it was Jesus himself who saved the situation: "Simon, I have something to say to you". "What is it, Teacher?", the master of the house asked him. We all know Jesus' answer with a parable which we can sum up in the following words which the Lord addressed basically to Simon: "You see? This woman knows she is a sinner; yet prompted by love, she is asking for understanding and forgiveness. You, on the other hand, presume yourself to be righteous and are perhaps convinced that you have nothing serious for which to be forgiven".

The message that shines out from this Gospel passage is eloquent: God forgives all to those who love much. Those who trust in themselves and in their own merits are, as it were, blinded by their ego and their heart is hardened in sin.

Those, on the other hand, who recognize that they are weak and sinful entrust themselves to God and obtain from him grace and forgiveness.

It is precisely this message that must be transmitted: what counts most is to make people understand that in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, whatever the sin committed, if it is humbly recognized and the person involved turns with trust to the priest-confessor, he or she never fails to experience the soothing joy of God's forgiveness.

In this perspective your Course acquires considerable importance. It aims to prepare well-trained confessors from the doctrinal viewpoint who are able to make their penitents experience the Heavenly Father's merciful love.

Might it not be true that today we are witnessing a certain alienation from this Sacrament? When one insists solely on the accusation of sins - which must nevertheless exist and it is necessary to help the faithful understand its importance - one risks relegating to the background what is central, that is, the personal encounter with God, the Father of goodness and mercy. It is not sin which is at the heart of the sacramental celebration but rather God's mercy, which is infinitely greater than any guilt of ours.

It must be a commitment of pastors and especially of confessors to highlight the close connection that exists between the Sacrament of Reconciliation and a life oriented decisively to conversion.

It is necessary that between the practice of the Sacrament of Confession and a life in which a person strives to follow Christ sincerely, a sort of continuous "virtuous circle" be established in which the grace of the Sacrament may sustain and nourish the commitment to be a faithful disciple of the Lord.

FREQUENT RECOURSE TO CONFESSION

The Lenten Season, in which we now find ourselves, reminds us that in our Christian life we must always aspire to conversion and that when we receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation frequently the desire for Gospel perfection is kept alive in believers.

If this constant desire is absent, the celebration of the Sacrament unfortunately risks becoming something formal that has no effect on the fabric of daily life.

If, moreover, even when one is motivated by the desire to follow Jesus one does not go regularly to confession, one risks gradually slowing his or her spiritual pace to the point of increasingly weakening and ultimately perhaps even exhausting it.

Dear Brothers, it is not difficult to understand the value in the Church of your ministry as stewards of Divine Mercy for the salvation of souls. Persevere in imitating the example of so many holy confessors who, with their spiritual insight, helped penitents to understand that the regular celebration of the Sacrament of Penance and a Christian life that aspires to holiness are inseparable elements of the same spiritual process for every baptized person. And do not forget that you yourselves are examples of authentic Christian life.

May the Virgin Mary, Mother of Mercy and of Hope, help you who are present here and all confessors to carry out zealously and joyfully this great service on which the Church's life so intensely depends.

I assure you of my remembrance in prayer and bless you with affection.

© L'Osservatore Romano -- March 12, 2008

SACRED HEART OF JESUS IN THE THEOLOGY OF POPE BENEDICT XVI

"And since there is in the Sacred Heart, a symbol and sensible image of the infinite love of Jesus Christ which moves us to love one another, therefore it is fit and proper that we should consecrate ourselves to His most Sacred Heart; an act which is nothing else than an offering and binding of oneself to Jesus Christ, seeing that whatever honor, veneration and love is given to this Divine Heart is really and truly given to Christ Himself."

Pope Leo XIII
ANNUM SACRUM
Encyclical on Consecration to the Sacred Heart

SACRED HEART: GOD'S WORD ADDRESSED TO US

Theology is, first of all, God's Word addressed to us. Apply this immediately to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The pierced Heart of the Crucified is God speaking a word to us, a word carved out in the Flesh of Jesus' side by the soldier's lance. It is the Divine Love of God laid bare for all to see: "God stepping out of His hiddenness."

When we speak of a theology of the Sacred Heart we mean this first of all: not our discourse about love, but the love of God revealed first to us, the poem of love that issues forth from the Heart of God. This is exactly what St. John, whom the Eastern tradition calls, "The Theologian," says in his First Letter: "In this is Love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the expiation for our sins" (1 Jn 4:10).

The difficulty here is that, in order to receive this word inscribed in the flesh of the Word, (cf. Jn 1:14), we have first to stop in front of it, to linger there and to look at the wound of love. "They shall look on Him Whom they have pierced" (Jn 19:37).

To contemplate is to look, not with a passing glance, but with the gaze of one utterly conquered by love. Jeremiah says, "You have seduced me, O Lord, and I was seduced; You are stronger than I, and You have prevailed" (20:7).

The call to be an adorer and an apostle of the Sacred Heart is addressed to every Christian. The apostle is, in essence, the bearer of a word, one sent forth and entrusted with a message.The image that the apostle carries into the world is the one he has learned by looking along with the eyes of adoration at the pierced Heart of the Crucified Christ.

The Word of Crucified Love is hard to pronounce - not with our lips but with our lives. Adoration is the school wherein one learns how to say the Sacred Heart. It is in adoration that the apostle receives the Word of the pierced Heart that, in turn become His Life's message.

Adoration and apostleship of the Sacred Heart together model a spirituality accessible to all Christians: the word received in adoration is communicated in the dynamism of one sent forth with something to say.

SACRED HEART: OUR WORD ADDRESSED TO GOD

Theology is, in the second place, our word addressed to God. Applying this also to the Sacred Heart of Jesus we see that all we could possible want to say to God has already been uttered and is being said eternally through the "mouth" of Christ's glorious pierced Heart in heaven. It is through the Sacred Heart that the Blood of Christ speaks "more graciously than the blood of Abel" (Heb 12:24).

The Letter to the Hebrews puts it this way: "Christ is able for all time to save those who draw near to God through Him, since He lives forever to make intercession for them" (7:25).

Christ exercises His priesthood of intercession in the "inner sanctuary behind the veil" (Heb 6:19) by presenting to the Father the glorious wounds in His hands, His feet and His side. The wound in the side of Christ, "great High Priest over the House of God' (Heb 10:21), speaks to the Father on our behalf. It is our word addressed to God.

At the core of devotion to the Sacred Heart is a passing-over into the prayer of Christ to the Father, a long apprenticeship to silence by which we begin to let the Heart of Christ speak in us and for us to the Father.

The mystics of the Sacred Heart, in particular St. Gertrude and St. Mechtilde, speak of offering the Sacred Heart of Jesus to the Father. This means allowing His Sacred Heart to speak for us, to pray in us, to pray through us, taking comfort in what the Scripture says, "that we have not a high priest who is unable to symphatize without weakness, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin" (Heb 4:15).

This suggest a simple way of praying, one accessible to all: "Lord Jesus, I come to be silent in Your Presence, trusting that Your Heart will speak for me, knowing that all I could ever want to say, that all I would ever need to say, is spoken eternally to the Father by Your Sacred Heart."

In this way, everything that prayer can or should express - adoration, praise, thanksgiving, supplication and reparation - finds it most perfect expression.

Devotion to the Sacred Heart, thus understood, is a manifestation in the Church of the Holy Spirit, "helping us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought" (Rom 8:26). The Sacred Heart is, in the life of the Church, the organ by which "the Spirit intercedes for the Saints according to the Will of God (Rom 8:27).

Cardinal Ratzinger wrote: "We have seen who Jesus is if we see Him at prayer. The Christian confession of faith comes from participating in the prayer of Jesus, from being drawn into His prayer and being priveleged to behold it; it interprets the experience of Jesus' prayer and its interpretation is correct because it springs from a sharing in what is most personal and intimate to Him.

This is the prayer of the Sacred Heart, the prayer that filled the days and nights of Jesus' earthly life, the prayer that suffused His sufferings and ascended from the Cross at the hour of His death, the prayer that with Him descended into the depths of the earth, the prayer that continues uninterrupted in the glory of His risen and ascended life, the prayer that is ceaseless in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.

Cardinal Ratzinger further wrote that "by entering into Jesus' solitude" and "only by participating in what is most personal to Him, His communication with the Father, can one see what this most personal reality is: only thus can one penetrate to His identity." The Sacred Heart represents and invites us into what is most personal to Jesus: His communication with the Father.

In words that today sound almost prophetic, Cardinal Ratzinger concluded that "the person who has beheld Jesus' intimacy with His Father and has come to understand Him from within is called to be a rock of the Church. The Church arises out of participation in the prayer of Jesus (cf. Lk 9:18-20; Mt 16:13-20),"

WORD FROM GOD, WORD TO GOD, WORD FOR THE WORLD

Word of God addressed to us, word addressed to God, word of the Church addressed to the world: herein lies one approach to a theology of the Sacred Heart. The Liturgy remains it primary articulation. Together with the Liturgy of the Hours for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart, the 12 Biblical Texts provided for the Mass - a First Reading, Psalm, Second Reading and Gospel become a fundamental resource, an inexhaustible treasure waiting to be mined for every one called to hear, to pray and to offer the healing word that is the pierced Heart.

The Sacred Heart is the Heart of God laid bare for man: Word from God. It is a human Heart lifted high on the Cross: Word to God. It is the Heart of the Church open to all who seek, to all who thirst, to every lost sheep waiting to be found and carried home: Word for the world.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus is the full and irrevocable message of the Father to us. It is everything we ever could or should need to say to the Father. It is all we have to say to the Father. It is all we have to say to one another and to the world.

Pope Benedict XVI, writing in 1981 as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, challenges us to nothing less: "In the Heart of Jesus, the center of Christianity is set before us. It expresses everything, all that is genuinely new and revolutionary in the new Covenant. This Heart calls to our heart. It invites us to step forth out of the futile attempt of self preservation and, by joining in the task of love, by handing ourselves over to Him and with Him, to discover the fullness of love which alone is eternity and which alone sustains the world."

Fr. Mark Daniel Kirby, O. Cist. is a Cisterian monk of the Abbey of the "Santa Croce in Gerusalemme," which is located in Rome. He serves as Chaplain to the Benedictines of Jesus Crucified at the Monastery of the Glorious Cross, in Connecticut. He has published extensively on many topics related to sacramental theology, and particular on the nature of sung prayer.

VATICAN NEWS: BE PEOPLE OF GOD'S MERCY

Vatican City
April 15, 2007
Courtesy of Zenit.org

Be men and women of the Mercy of God, Pope Benedict XVI urges those present at the double anniversary Mass celebrated in his honor at the St. Peter's Square. Today's Mass of Divine Mercy Sunday marked the occasion of the Pontiff's 80th birthday, Monday, and the Second Anniversary of his election as Pope, Thursday.

In his homily, the Holy Father also remembered Pope John Paul II, recalling that the Polish Pontiff had designated the Second Sunday of Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday, and had died on the eve of the Feast Day in 2005.

Nearly 50,000 people attended the Mass, with some 70 Cardinals, Archbishops, Heads of the Roman Curia, and priests of the Archdiocese of Rome concelebrated.

Benedict XVI dedicated the main part of his homily to reflect on Divine Mercy, referring back to the teachings of his predecessor John Paul II: "In the word Mercy, he found summarized and newly interpreted for our time the Mystery of Redemption."

WITNESS

Benedict XVI said that the Polish Pope was a direct witness of two "dictatorial regimes," "poverty, necessity and violence" and "the power of darkness" that also threatens our time.

John Paul II also "experienced with equal or more intensity, the presence of God that opposes all our strength with His totally different and divine power: the power of mercy" said Benedict XVI. He added that "it is Mercy that puts limit to evil, in it is expressed the nature of all that is special in God, His Holiness, the power of Truth and Love."

The Pope added: "The friendship of Jesus Christ is the friendship of Him who makes of us people who forgive, of Him who also forgives us, who infuses into us the awareness of the interior duty of love, of the duty to correspond to His confidence with our fidelity."

The Holy Father said that John Paul II says to us: "Have confidence in Divine Mercy! Convert yourselves day after day into men and women of the Mercy of God.!"

WOUNDED GOD

Commenting on the Sunday Gospel in which Christ appears to His disciples and allows Thomas to touch His wounds, the Pontiff said: "The Lord has taken His wounds with Him for all eternity. He is a wounded God; who has allowed Himself to be wounded out of love for us." The Holy Father added that the wounds signify "certainty of His Mercy and Consolation."

Present at the celebration was a delegation of the Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, led by Metropolitan Ioannis Zizioulas of Pergamum. The Pope greeted the Patriarch's delegation with "fraternal affection" and expressed his desire that Catholic Orthodox dialogue be carried out with "renewed vigor'.

Benedict XVI used for the first time today a new processional Cross, made in the gold workshop of Benedictine Abby of Santo Domingo de Silos, in Burgos, Spain.

Cardinal Friedrich Wetter, retired Archbishop of Munich and Freising, gave as a gift to the Holy Father the Book of Gospels used in the Mass. It is the work of Max Faller.