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Why do we need the Church to be reconciled with God and with one another?

By Susanne Lehne


Kraainem (11 December 2006).- Advent is approaching. Every year the challenge for us Christians seems to be increasing: how are we to celebrate this season in a meaningful way in the face of all the noise and commercialism surrounding us at this time of year? In preparing for the birth of Jesus, we need honestly to ask ourselves what significance this event really has for us and whether it makes any difference to how we live our lives. 

Let us recall the love story that gives us our identity as Christians.
When God created us, he wanted us to live in harmony with Him and with one another. When our ancestors chose to disobey God, he developed a plan to call them back into His loving presence. He sent His own Son, Jesus, to live among us as a human being, as a visible, tangible expression of God’s love for his sinful creatures. Jesus called together a group of disciples to carry on bringing the good news of God’s kingdom of love and redemption to the world. In the way Jesus spoke and acted, and most especially in the way he voluntarily died an innocent death, and appeared to them after His resurrection, his friends came to recognise in Him their Lord and God. 

By faith they realised that in this crucifixion their God had acted powerfully to save humanity and was inviting them into a new bond of fellowship in His Church. When they experienced the coming of the promised Spirit of Jesus, their lives were transformed and they went out boldly, preaching the good news of reconciliation with God. In this Holy Spirit they recognised the hidden, yet powerful presence of the risen Jesus in their midst, bringing them His gifts of unity and peace and healing. Moved by the Spirit, they continued to gather in Jesus name, as he had asked them to do, remaining faithful to the teaching of the apostles, sharing their goods among the community, reading the Scriptures, breaking the bread, and praying together (Acts 2). 

With the eyes of faith we can trace the beginnings of the Church in the heart of our loving God. From the Father’s plan of salvation, to the self-gift of the Son on the cross; from the grieving women, Mary and John under the cross, and the frightened disciples in the upper room, to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and His transforming power, revealing the nascent Church in action. In all these moments of salvation history, the ‘persons’ of the Holy Trinity are at work, inviting us into Their mystery of loving communion, working in human history, using our visible, natural world as a ‘sacrament’ – a sign and instrument of supernatural grace.
Since our baptism, we have become part of this story. We were plunged into the waters of death and by faith we were reborn with Christ to a new life. By belonging to Him, we are now sons and daughters of His heavenly Father and have been sealed with His Holy Spirit. We are invited to participate in His heavenly sacrifice when we gather to break the bread of affliction and to share the cup of salvation in the Eucharist. In these sacraments of the Church, the ordinary created things – water, oil, bread and wine – become for us living symbols of encounter with the mystery of Christ.

As in a human family, the members of God’s family in the Church share a common story, entailing special gifts and responsibilities. Together we form the Body of Christ, united in His Spirit, but each gifted in unique and special ways to fulfil our mission as part of the Church community. God continues to accomplish what He began in Christ through each of us, making us sharers in his redemption by asking us to mirror Christ to the world, acting under the guidance of His Spirit as ‘sacraments’ of His continued presence in the world for the building of the kingdom.

All of us are painfully aware of how often we fail to live up to our baptismal calling. The temptation to withdraw from this shared commitment, to want to run away and hide, is always there. We experience sin in many ways, as separation from God, from our neighbour, and even from our own selves. Our modern world prizes self-sufficiency and individualism above all else, so the message of sharing and service often falls on deaf ears and we become immune to the needs of others.

At Christmas we celebrate the abundance of God’s love and grace. In the Christ child we witness God’s loving acceptance of our humanity, despite our sinfulness, and we celebrate the promise of peace and reconciliation with God and among men.

As we prepare for this feast, we are invited to reflect upon our failings and the ways in which we have broken the fellowship with God and with one another. The Church offers us the time and space to gather around the light of Christ, certain of His Father’s mercy and forgiveness. We are asked to support one another, as we gather to pray for a rekindling of the baptismal light within us. Even though the connections are often not obvious, as Christians we believe that there is a sense in which sin has ramifications affecting the larger network of relationships and wounding the whole Church community, since all are animated by the same Spirit and sin relinquishes that Spirit of unity.

Our parish reconciliation service will offer us the opportunity to experience conversion, not in isolation, but as members of Christ’s Body. Having brought forgiveness and healing to many people he encountered, Christ entrusted to the Church the authority to forgive sins in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Just as we were baptised in the name of the Holy Trinity, we are restored to full grace by absolution in the Trinity’s name. 

The service will include Scripture readings and time for reflection and examination of conscience before the sacrament of reconciliation. While the sacrament will give each penitent the necessary time and privacy with a priest in a designated area, there will be the larger web of the community praying all the while for the strengthening and healing effects of the sacrament to take hold. Those who have experienced this form of service have testified to the power of shared prayer and mutual support in bringing about contrition and repentance, as well as mediating the presence of the Father’s love and acceptance. Jointly we can be ‘sacraments’ for one another - effective symbols of hope and healing in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

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