During Lent, we are called to purify our hearts and our lives so that we are prepared to celebrate the Easter mystery. As we purify and focus ourselves, I find it is often helpful to clarify our understanding of our faith. For example, we should pray with the most important commandment of our Lord, to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and ask God how we can live it more fully every day.
In addition to things like this, it is good to try and understand the basic building blocks of our Catholic faith. As Catholics, the Sacraments are foundational, and above the rest there are two that we encounter much more often than the rest: the Eucharist and Confession.
Confession, also called Reconciliation or Penance, is the sacrament which reconciles us to God. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches us that this sacrament forgives sin, restores grace–the gift of God that allows us to share his life–and the virtues, and begins the healing of the sinner, though some punishment and sinful habits may still need to be purged. Confession is primarily aimed forgiving what we call “mortal sin”, because these are the sins that cut us off from the life of God. Mortal sins are sins we commit when we do something that is serious, intentional, and that we know is wrong. Venial sins are forgiven by Confession, but also when we receive the Eucharist, pray the Kyrie at Mass, and a variety of other ways.
For confession, a very important step is proper preparation. Anyone going to confession should make sure to examine their conscience, asking God to reveal any sins, especially mortal sins, that should be confessed. This is where a confession guide can be very helpful in walking us through a good examination of conscience. After preparing ourselves, we enter the confessional. After the opening dialogue, we tell the priest how long it has been since our last confession. Then we must confess all mortal sins that we know in kind and number to the best of our abilities. Venial sins may be confessed, but it is not necessary to do so unless we have no mortal sins to confess–the priest needs something to forgive! It’s important to remember that confession is not intended to be a spiritual direction or counseling session. It’s unfair to the penitent, really, because the priest almost never has time to do such things well in a confessional.
After the confession of sins, the priest may give advice, but will always give some form of penance. The penance is not a punishment for your sins, because Christ has already taken that upon himself on the Cross. The penance is to assist you in growing in virtue so that you might more fully love God. After that, the penitent says the act of contrition and the priest gives absolution. The key takeaway here, I think, is to prepare well with an examination of conscience.
After addressing any known mortal sins in Confession, we are now prepared to approach the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ. While it looks like bread and wine, it is not bread and wine. It is God. When we receive the Eucharist, we receive God, so cleansing ourselves of sin is critical. God and sin cannot coexist, and so receiving the Eucharist when we have known, unconfessed mortal sin is dangerous for us and harms our souls.
St. Thomas Aquinas teaches us that the Eucharist gives grace by uniting us to Christ, remits venial sin, strengthens charity, preserves us from future sin, and is a pledge of eternal glory. He also teaches that the Eucharist unites us to Christ, and through Him makes the unity of the Church real. In Sacrosanctum concilium, the first Vatican II document, the council fathers wrote that the Eucharist is the source and the summit of our Catholic faith, because of all these things. Through the Eucharist Christ lives in us, he restores our lives, he build us up, and he unites us as his Church.
So how should we receive this beautiful gift? First, we must have a posture of receptivity. We do not take the Eucharist, we receive it, because it is a holy and consecrated gift from God himself through God’s Church. This is one reason why the only ordinary ministers of the Eucharist are those ordained and consecrated, which means they were set apart, for the service of God in his Church to build up the people. We have extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion now, but ideally, the Church teaches that everyone would receive from the priest. The priest acts in the person of Christ at Mass, and so receiving from the priest strengthens the symbol that the Eucharist is a gift from Christ to his people, through his Church. We human beings need symbols, because we remember them much more easily than we remember words in a book. Similarly, we must receive the Eucharist reverently, and without hurry. This is God himself! This is the creator of all that is! We must remember that! This is another reason why the Church is, historically, very strict about who touches and handles the Eucharist.
In the real world, what does this mean for us? It means that when we approach to receive the Eucharist, we should have cleansed and prepared ourselves through Confession of any mortal sins. We approach deliberately, not in a hurry, and we receive, we do not take. The church permits reception on the hand, but if we do this we must have clean hands, we must not grab for the Eucharist, we must be careful not to drop God himself, and we must make sure there are not bits and pieces on our hand after reception of the Eucharist. Reception on the tongue mitigates many of these struggles, and is still the Church’s preferred way of reception after over 1000 years. We are permitted to stand or kneel to receive the Eucharist, but with this we must again remember reverence. Either way is fine, as long as we remember that we are receiving God himself.
To sum up: In the sacraments, God gives us gifts that allow us to share in his life. In Confession, our sins are forgiven and our relationship with God and his Church is restored. In the Eucharist, we receive God and build up his Church. Let us strive to receive these sacraments intentionally and well.