From the Synod

VIS has links to excerpts from the various Synodal interventions.... But they're basically snipping two sentences from 10-minute long texts. You can't get much from that.

Lucky for you, I'm getting some of the full talks. Can't post verbatims -- that's against Synod rules, plus it'd be mind-numbing for 98% of us -- but I will run what I find resonant.

This afternoon's Intervention of Note comes from the delegate of the Union of Superiors General, Fr. Joseph William Tobin of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer -- or, as we call them, the Redemptorists.

I've always been a big fan of the Reds -- five years ago today, after attending Mass for the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi in a side chapel of the Lateran Basilica with a huge fresco of Francis on the wall, I walked down Via Merulana and made my first pilgrimage to the small church of Ss. Redentore e San Alfonso, the Redemptorists' mother church and home of the moving icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help.

But enough about me. Tobin -- a Detroit native -- underscored the oft-neglected link between Eucharist and Reconciliation, citing a "crisis" in regards to the understanding and use of the Sacrament of Penance.

The Church, the community of those who by the power of the Spirit believe in Jesus as the Saviour through his death and resurrection, is recognised by its faithfulness to the Word of God and its constant celebration of the sacraments . If the Eucharist is not celebrated and frequented, or if people are wrongly excluded from participating in its celebration, then there is the ecclesial difficulty of demonstrating the actual unity of the Church in Christ as an anticipation of its future unity in the Kingdom of God. If the sacrament of Penance is de facto absent in many local Churches we must wonder whether the Church can be properly recognised as the Church willed by Jesus Christ. Our fundamental concern, therefore, is how the Church is recognised as a Church that celebrates the sacraments. Everything else is to be formulated in the light of this ultimate concern. In public discussions, participation in the Eucharist or the sacrament of Penance is presented sometimes in terms of the rights of individuals or the duties of pastors. These categories can and should be discussed, but not as the primordial question, which is related to the mystery of the Church itself....

Powerful stuff. Not the usual ho-hum Synod talk. Gratefully, Tobin keeps going...

It is obvious that both Penance and Eucharist pose a sacramental question, although here too there is confusion. The Eucharist is a sacrament because it is the sacred meal in which the unity of the Church in love is symbolized and made efficacious, the one sacrifice of Christ is recalled and the future Kingdom is anticipated. No wonder we say: “Mystery of Faith”! The Eucharist should never be instrumentalized in an ideological way, for instance, when the Eucharist is used to prove some personal or political point that has nothing to do with the sacrament. The sacramental aspect of the Eucharist is often obscured because of an inadequate catechesis and deficient manner of celebration. We must be worthy to participate in the Eucharist and the Eucharist should be celebrated in such a way that its full sacramental power is made obvious. There is an analogous problem with the sacrament of Penance. The presentation of the sacrament is often that of an individual and private reconciliation, lacking is the sense of how we are reconciled to God in a sacramental way through the ministry of the Church, or simply as a requirement for the reception of the Eucharist. The latter misunderstanding is often expressed by the faithful with the following formula: “I have to go to confession; I get to receive Holy Communion”, conveying the perception that one sacrament is simply an obligation while the other is a gift. The crisis of Penance may be rooted in the fact that we are not successful in showing how the forgiveness of sin is neither cheap grace nor guilty self-obsession but rather the free offer of God’s restored peace in Christ to those who have gravely sinned and who sincerely repent.

Comments, anyone?

Today's president-delegate was Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iniguez of Guadalajara -- here's hoping he didn't pull an Arinze and require a liturgical correction from the Pope.

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