The Power of the Lord’s Love:  The Healing Sacraments

The Power of the Lord’s Love:  The Healing Sacraments
 
The primary Sacraments of Healing are seen as the Anointing of the Sick and Reconciliation (Confession or Penance). The Sacrament of Confession also called the Sacrament of Reconciliation or Penance, is a critical way to encounter the presence of the Lord in a deep way outside of Mass. In this beautiful Sacrament, we ask for the Lord’s forgiveness and mercy for patterns of our sinfulness and for those choices we have made that have separated us from God and one another. We do so in a focused, personal and public manner. One of the important benefits of Confession is the targeted healing of the mind and the soul. Christ instituted the Healing Sacraments so we can experience the Paschal Mystery of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of the Lord in the present moment. We go to Confession to be renewed (resurrected) in our relationship with our God and one another. We choose Confession to receive the graces to strengthen us to avoid temptation to sin and to bring a halt to our patterns of behaviors and thoughts as we address our physical, mental health and spiritual struggles (Passion). We bring to surface our choices and mistakes before they grow further separation from God and community (a spiritual erosion or death).
 
Dr. Tom Curran  in his book, Confession: Five Sentences That Will Heal Your Life, reports that we should liken going to Confession to going to the doctor’s office. When we are sick, we go to the doctor and tell our symptoms and seek treatment. He states that we should see the confessional as our spiritual doctor’s office. The Divine Physician, Our Lord, is at work with his great gifts of love, compassion, forgiveness and mercy.  He reminds us that St. Augustine, whose feast day was on August 28th, taught that only what is revealed is healed. And, if we do not reveal our spiritual ills, the effects of sins will only get worse (2010, p. 35).
 
It is critical for all of us to live a life of healing. Pope Francis tells us that going to Confession enriches our souls and our lives in that as we experience God’s love and mercy we are likely to become more loving and merciful to others. A difficult struggle that we all experience is that of showing forgiveness to others. In the Our Father, we ask God to forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. As humans, we are inclined to avoid a person who has hurt us or to lash out indirectly to get them to know what they have done or to get them to experience the hurt and pain of what we experienced. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) teaches that the path of being merciful involves allowing God to know explicitly that we give our heart over to Him by freeing ourselves of anger, resentment, hurt and any other injury of the soul. And in doing so, the Holy Spirit will, in turn, transform our inner struggles into compassion by purifying our memories from our mental, emotional and spiritual suffering into an intercession of love (2843). In Confession, we free ourselves of the chains of sin and those struggles with our relationships in order that we can love more freely. Living in this love, we can now give more readily to the Lord, to others and also very importantly, to ourselves.

Fr. John