Homily for Divine Mercy Sunday

Many of us are aware of the need to go to Mass each Sunday and Holyday of

Obligation, unless we have a good reason for missing Mass, such as a sudden

heart attack or being on holiday in a country where there isn’t a local Catholic

church in the area. But what about confession? Church law covers many

different things, most of which is more relevant to priests running parishes, but

some of the rules concern the general lay Catholic. With regard to confession,

Canon 989 says the following: “After having reached the age of discretion [so

that’s normally around the age of seven], each member of the faithful is obliged

to confess faithfully his or her grave sins at least once a year”.

By custom, many make it their practice to go to confession during Lent in

preparation for Easter, and also during Advent in preparation for Christmas.

Some like to go more regularly, such as every few months or every month, or

maybe in preparation for an upcoming feast, such as the Assumption, or a

major life event, such as a marriage, or even every week or so. But canon 989

reminds us of the need to go to confession after committing a grave sin, which

means a particularly serious sin, not a sin involving a cemetery.

It also talks about confessing these sins at least once a year. Now, if you

committed a grave sin on 1st April, it might seem a bit silly to wait until 31st

March the following year to go to confession, and missing out on receiving

Holy Communion during that time. Why not go as soon as you can? The

Church’s law sets down the bare minimum of what we are to do; it’s not an

ideal of how we should live our lives as Catholics, just the same as the building

regulations stipulate the bare necessities of a new house, but no-one would

refuse to have any furniture at home because the building regulations don’t say

I have to have any.

Confession can be a bit of a difficult and awkward topic, because as human

beings we find it difficult to admit our faults. Now, in more extreme cases, the

Church recognises that there are certain people’s confessions a priest should not

hear. So, for example, it would be inappropriate for me to hear the confession

of my mother or father, or of my sister. But there’s a difference between it

being inappropriate, and just our general sense of awkwardness. We are, of

course, free to choose whichever priest we wish when it comes to confession;

some people prefer to go to their Parish Priest, and others prefer to avoid him.

I don’t take offence.

Receiving the mercy of God, though, is so important. Our Lord gave us this

sacrament right from the very start. He said to the apostles after the

Resurrection: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are

forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” Right

from the start, the sacrament of reconciliation was part of the Church’s life,

although the exact way it has been celebrated has varied over the years, and

penances are much smaller today than in days gone by; for big sins, the practice

in the early Church was to give penances that might take months or years to

complete, and only after that did you receive absolution.

Today’s feast is also called “Divine Mercy Sunday” – it has its origins from the

apparitions of Our Lord to St Faustina in Poland in the 1930s. Every day is a

day when God’s mercy is available in the sacrament of confession, but for this

Sunday, the graces are especially great. Jesus said to Saint Faustina that on this

day, “The soul that will go to confession and receive Holy Communion shall

obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment”; in other words, it will be

like a second baptism, with all sins forgiven, and also whatever purification we

might have needed to undergo in Purgatory will also be washed away as well.

Confession doesn’t need to be on the Sunday itself, so if you went on Saturday

morning you wouldn’t need to go again a day later.

Whenever a priest celebrates Mass, he doesn’t just wear his ordinary clerical

shirt and suit and so on, but he wears vestments, showing it is Christ who is

working through the priest and celebrating the Mass. In the same way, when

we go to confession, it is Christ to whom we confess. It is by virtue of His

Death and Resurrection that we are reconciled to the Father through the

working of the Holy Spirit; it’s also one of the reasons for the absolute secrecy

of the sacrament of confession, because you have confessed those sins to

Christ. Once the priest has said the words of absolution, it’s as if that heavy

load has been thrown into the sea, and a big sign put up saying “no fishing”.

All those sins we confessed, and any others that we forgot, are forgiven.

Sometimes there may be certain “big stones” that we have to get rid of, or at

other times it might be just like many small grains of sand, that together make

up a big sand bag.

God’s mercy is so great! And we just need to keep coming back for more and

more.

Curious about exploring things further?  If you would like to ask further questions about the topics raised in these homilies (or maybe think it wasn’t explained too well!), please feel free to e-mail Fr Michael at stjoseph.thame@rcaob.org.uk