Pope Benedict XVI urges revival of prayer and confession in an era of "lost conscience"

Most of us are aware that sin destroys our relationship with God and that it also undermines our relationships with family members, friends and others with whom we come into contact. Reconciliation refers to that precise effect of Christ's redemption of the human race by His sacrificial death on the Cross which restores our relationship with God and breaks down the barriers of sin which prevent us from engaging in authentic relationships with others.


In the words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "Conversion is accomplished in daily life by gestures of reconciliation, concern for the poor, the exercise and defense of justice and right, by the admission of faults to one's brethren, fraternal correction, revision of life, examination of conscience, spiritual direction, acceptance of suffering, endurance of persecution for the sake of righteousness. Taking up one's cross each day and following Jesus is the surest way of penance." (1435).

In other words, our transformation in Christ, our daily conversion, is made manifest by such gestures of reconciliation by which we demonstrate our commitment toward the theological virtue of charity "by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God" (CCC, 1822). We are told in Sacred Scripture that a faith without works is dead (James 2:14-19). An authentic reconciliation, therefore, will show itself in a charity which embraces both God and neighbor.

As Jean Jaouen so eloquently puts it, "..Christian compassion cannot be a cerebral, fleshless reality. It is completely impossible for one who loves people coldly to dissociate eternal salvation from the temporal well-being of a human person. A person is a whole. Time is eternity already begun yet still not completely visible. The conflict will be resolved if Christian apostles learn to live with their people while remaining present to the Lady who, with her Son, weeps over both the death of souls and the death of little children. 'Lady of heaven, empress of earth.' Through the Virgin Mediator and Queen, apostles will find a balance between the demands of heaven and those of earth." (Jean Jaouen, m.s., "A Grace Called La Salette: a story for the world," pp. 327-328, grassroots publishing international, Enfield, New Hampshire, English edition 1991).

A balance between the demands of heaven and those of earth.  Do we maintain such a balance in our own lives?  Or are we so caught up in the affairs of this world that we neglect our personal conversion?  It's no secret why there is no real peace in our world.  Peace is more than the mere absence of conflict.  Peace is the tranquility of order which results from people and other realities being as they ought to be.  As Pope Paul VI reminded us in his Christmas message of 1966: "Peace is not a primary good, but a resultant and derivative good that infers and requires a prior good.  This prior good is precisely order, justice, the harmony of things."

To put it simply: we will never be at peace with others if we are not at peace with ourselves.  And how can we be at peace with ourselves unless we are living an authentic prayer life and confessing our sins before the Lord Jesus?

Related reading here.

Pope Benedict XVI: Church needs purification

And that purification is coming.  Our Lady told Father Gobbi of the Marian Movement of Priests that very soon, "there will come to completion that fullness of time beginning with La Salette all the way to my most recent and present apparitions; the purification will come to its culmination; there will come to completion the time of the great tribulation, foretold in Holy Scripture, before the Second Coming of Christ; the mystery of iniquity, prepared for by the ever-increasing spread of apostasy, will become manifest; all the secrets which I have revealed to some of my children will come to pass and all the events which have been foretold will take place."

Most people today have become numb.  Even most within the Church no longer believe in prophecy because certain prophecies have not been fulfilled within their timetable.  Such people forget that our first Pope warned that God does not "delay" but is patient as He waits for His children to return to Him.  But the time of mercy is quickly fading.

The Church will be purified.  Our Lady has said so.  And Christ's Vicar is saying that the Church needs purification.  More than ever, we must avail ourselves of the sacraments.  Now is the time to reconcile with God.  Receive the Lord Jesus in Holy Eucharist, confess your sins, pray every day (and especially the Rosary), adore Jesus in the Eucharist.

Time is running out.  The Dies Irae is approaching.  The Day which makes even the angels tremble.  We need not fear if we are striving to live a godly life and trust in the Lord Jesus.  But God will not be mocked.

"...temptations that can slowly yet effectively turn us away from God and the moral teachings of the Catholic Church.."

In his recently released Pastoral Letter on the Sacrament of Penance, which may be found here, Bishop Robert J. McManus writes, "It is well-known that in the last forty years, there has been a precipitous decline in the number of Catholics who regularly receive the Sacrament of Penance. A recent survey of American Catholics revealed some startling and sobering statistics. One statistic that was particularly unsettling was that 45% of Catholics who attend Mass weekly never receive the Sacrament of Penance. The reasons for the virtual disappearance from the lives of the majority of Catholics of the regular practice of going to confession are, no doubt, varied. Yet, an explanation of this disconcerting pastoral situation has to include to a significant degree a loss of the sense of sin among among contemporary Catholics..." What the Bishop neglects to mention is that this "disconcerting pastoral situation" is largely the result of theologians and pastors who succumbed to legalism.

Dr. Germain Grisez, in a talk entitled "Legalism, Moral Truth and Pastoral Practice" given at a 1990 symposium held in Philadelphia, had this to say:

"Theologians and pastors who dissent from received Catholic teaching think they are rejecting legalism because they set aside what they think are mere rules in favor of what they feel are more reasonable standards. Their views are thoroughly imbued with legalism, however. For dissenters think of valid moral norms as rules formulated to protect relevant values. Some even make their legalism explicit by denying that there is any necessary connection between moral goodness (which they restrict to the transcendental level of a love with no specific content) and right action (which they isolate at the categorical level of inner-worldly behavior). But whether their legalism is explicit or not, all the dissenters hold that specific moral norms admit exceptions whenever, all things considered, making an exception seems the best - or least bad - thing to do. Most dissenters also think that specific moral norms that were valid in times past can be inappropriate today, and so they regard the Church's contested moral teachings as outdated rules that the Church should change."


Dr. Grisez reminded his listeners at the Philadelphia symposium that, "During the twentieth century, pastoral treatment of repetitious sins through weakness - especially masturbation, homosexual behavior, premarital sex play and contraception within marriage - grew increasingly mild. Pastors correctly recognized that weakness and immaturity can lessen such sins’ malice. Thinking legalistically, they did not pay enough attention to the sins’ inherent badness and harmfulness, and they developed the idea that people can freely choose to do something that they regard as a grave matter without committing a mortal sin. This idea presupposes that in making choices people are not responsible precisely for choosing what they choose. That presupposition makes sense within a legalistic framework, because lawgivers can take into account mitigating factors and limit legal culpability. But it makes no sense for morality correctly understood, because moral responsibility in itself is not something attached to moral acts but simply is moral agents’ self-determination in making free choices. Repetitious sinners through weakness also were handicapped by their own legalism. Not seeing the inherent badness of their sins, they felt that they were only violating inscrutable rules. When temptation grew strong, they had little motive to resist, especially because they could easily go to confession and have the violation fixed. Beginning on Saturday they were holy; by Friday they were again sinners. This cyclic sanctity robbed many people’s lives of Christian dynamism and contributed to the dry rot in the Church that became manifest in the 1960s, when the waves of sexual permissiveness battered her."

Dr. Grisez then went on to explain that, "Pastors free of legalism will teach the faithful how sin makes moral requirements seem to be alien impositions, help them see through this illusion, and encourage them to look forward to and experience the freedom of God’s children, who rejoice in the fruit of the Spirit and no longer experience the constraint of law..They will explain that while one sometimes must choose contrary to positive laws and cannot always meet their requirements, one always can choose in truth and abide in love. They will acknowledge the paradox of freedom - that we seem unable to resist freely choosing to sin - the paradox that Saint Paul neatly formulates: ‘I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate’ (Romans 7:15). But they also will proclaim the liberating power of grace, and help the faithful learn by experience that when one comes to understand the inherent evil of sin and intrinsic beauty of goodness, enjoys the support of a community of faith whose members bear one another’s burdens, begs God for His help, and confidently expects it, then the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead raises him from his sins, and he discovers that with the Spirit’s grace one can consistently resist sin and choose life."

I fully support Bishop McManus. And I firmly believe that his Pastoral Letter is a step in the right direction. But His Excellency would do well to examine the pastoral problem of pastors who have embraced legalism and who view valid moral norms as mere rules which may be jettisoned when they become "inconvenient."

Meditation: Luke 12: 48.

Related reading: Father Robert Bruso of Saint Anthony's Parish in Fitchburg and false compassion.

When conscience is so broken that we no longer see what we should see.