3rd Luminous Mystery: Proclamation of the KingdomThere are many moments in the Gospels we could use to illustrate this Mystery so we must make a choice.
Posted on 10/08/2010 2:35:24 AM PDT by markomalley
We continue our Patristic Rosary Project today with the:
3rd Luminous Mystery: Proclamation of the Kingdom
There are many moments in the Gospels we could use to illustrate this Mystery so we must make a choice.
Consider what the Lord says in Mark 1:15, after John has been arrested when Christ is in Galilee: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel." In a sense, many of the things Christ says after this extend and exemplify the "good news", the "proclamation of the Kingdom".
Since I am dealing these days with many apples, their eating and general enjoyment, my mind is drawn to something that St. Jerome (+420) wrote:
The sweetness of the apple makes up for the bitterness of the root. The hope of gain makes pleasant the perils of the sea. The expectation of health mitigates the nauseousness of medicine. One who desires the kernel breaks the nut. So one who desires the joy of a holy conscience swallows down the bitterness of penance. [Commentary on the Gospels]
These are not the Glorious Mysteries. Christ is preaching Good News which, at this point, is the Kingdom is at hand. He will say to skeptics and onlookers in different times and ways that if the blind see and lame walk and miracles are being worked by Him, then the Kingdom of God is upon them. In a way, His own sacred Person is the Kingdom of God in small. Entrance into the Kingdom of God and into Christ requires the bitter before the sweet, suffering before joy, penance before peace. The Cross precedes the glory. But is it not true that even in the anticipation, the preparation, the purification and perseverance the glory is already present? Didn’t Christ wear a crown already while on the Cross? This Mystery reminds us that the Kingdom, although already (but not yet) at hand, requires us to repent as contituent element of the enjoyment of the Good News. What a gift we have in the sacrament of penance.
To that end, one of the most amazing and conforting dimensions of Christ’s proclamation of the Kingdom, the announcement that we are slaves to sin no more and, instead, we are to be adopted children of the Father, is the gift of the sacraments and, in particular, the sacrament of penance, wherein repentence and the Good News of forgiveness converge.
When Christ healed the paralytic in Mark 2, He forgave his sins. St. Ambrose, the great bishop of Milan (+397) offers this:
In their ministry of the forgiveness of sin, pastors do not exercise the right of some independent power. For not in their own name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit do they they forgive sins. They ask, the Godhead forgives. The service is enabled by men, but the gift comes from the Power on high. [The Holy Spirit 3.18.137]
And were there ever greater words about the Kingdom spoken than those Christ uttered before His Ascension? He breathed on the Apostles and gave them His own power to forgive His in His stead. So, the priest, acting in the person of Christ, forgives sins. St. Augustine (+430) explains something important:
He exhibits Himself as occupying a middle position when He says, He me, and I you. "And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost." By breathing on them He signified that the Holy Spirit was the Spirit, not of the Father alone, but likewise His own. "Who soever sins," He continues, "ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever ye retain, they are retained." The Church’s love, which is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, discharges the sins of all who are partakers with itself, but retains the sins of those who have no participation therein. Therefore it is, that after saying, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost," He straightway added this regarding the remission and retention of sins." [tr. Io. eu.]
Christ is truly the "middle position", the one Mediator between God and man. The priest, so closely associated with Christ by the power the Holy Orders, is another middle man with Christ’s own power to forgive sins. The sinner must be with the Church to be forigven. So must also the priest. So important is this sacrament that the priest himself must have more than just the sacrament, the "power" to forgive, he must also have the mandate from the Church. This is all according to the will of God, who desired that the gates of heaven be opened, the bonds of sins broken and the Good News be proclaimed by a Mediator. And the words "I absolve you from your sins" are Good News.
The key to forgiveness, on the part of God and the priest and the penitent, is love. Love must be part of the mix, not just fear (though fear really helps!). About the woman "who loved much" and obtained from Christ forgiveness of her sins in Luke 7, we hear from Ambrose:
A kiss is a mark of love…. He truly kisses Christ’s feet who, in reading the Gospel, recognizes the acts of the Lord Jesus and admires them with holy affection. With a reverent kiss, he caresses the footprints of the Lord as He walks. We kiss Christ, therefore, in the kiss of Communion: "Let him who reads understand." (Mt 24:15) The Church does not cease to kiss Christ’s feet and demands not
one but many kisses in the Song of Songs. (1.2) Since like blessed Mary she listens to His every saying, she receives His every Word when the Gospel or the Prophets are read, and she keeps all these words in her heart. (Luke 2:51). The Church alone has kisses, like a bride. A kiss is a pledge of nuptials and the privilege of wedlock. [ep. 62]
Christ walked all over as He proclaimed the Good News. His feet could be a matter of reflection for us. St. Alphonsus de Liguori says in his Stations of the Cross, "Nail my heart to Thy feet." A baroque flourish, perhaps, but it is another way of kissing, like the penitent Mary Magdalene, the feet of the Lord as she weeps over them on account of her sins and her confidence in His mercy. Christ dirtied His own feet in proclaiming and washed the feet of the Apostles who walked with Him. His feet are beautiful: "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings, who publishes peace, who brings good tidings of good, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’" (Isaiah 52:7)
Each bead of the Rosary can be like a footstep along the path leading to our salvation and the blessed relief of the souls in Purgatory.
“In fact, I hope you don’t mind me posting it here for the benefit of other folks.”
I am pleased you did. I was considering posting the article as a thread. I might anyway.
” It seems that the position forwarded in the GOARCH site actually contradicts this Church father. Is the English translation defective, or am I reading one of the two incorrectly?”
You probably read it correctly. It could very well be contradicting +John Chrysostomos. We do it every day when we call the Theotokos “Panagia” which roughly means someone who is ever sinless (all and always holy). +John Chrysostomos maintained that the BVM did in fact sin, using her actions at the Wedding Feast at Cana as an example.
The Fathers weren’t popes, m. They made mistakes. :)
**So nuns can administer the Sacrament of Confession in the East?**
This is unorthodox. Christ gave ONLY the apostles (first priests and bishops) the right to forgive or retain sins. N
Why are people being led astray in this way?
**So nuns can administer the Sacrament of Confession in the East?**
Even deacons aren’t authorized to hear Confessions. I don’t get this abnormality.
“This is unorthodox.”
I assure you this has been true for 2000 years in the East.
“I don’t get this abnormality.”
In the East, it is not abnormal at all.
Regardless of the length of time it has been practiced, Christ gave the abilities to forgive and retain sin to the apostles, the first priests and bishops.
I can’t see why anyone would be drawn to such practices.
Now if the women and unordained (including deacons) want to advertise this as merely a counseling session — I could accept this. But it is NOT the Sacrament of PENANCE!
Glad I’m Catholic and not a Greek Orthodox — I would never approach a woman or unordained person — only a priest.
Thank-you for the link to the catechism. What it says stands in rather stark contrast to what the Orthodox Church teaches about confession as set forth in the GOARCH link mom posted earlier.
It’s good that we see and understand these very basic differences in praxis and theology, especially since they are not matters of dogma and thus might not be noticed in the enthusiastic rush we seem to be seeing toward reunion.
“Glad I’m Catholic and not a Greek Orthodox — I would never approach a woman or unordained person — only a priest.”
Really!!!!!!!!!!!!! The holiest people I have ever met are all monastics. I’d far prefer to go to confession to a wise monastic “Spiritual Olympian”, than to the average parish priest. In Greece and indeed throughout the Orthodox world, people will travel hundreds, even thousands of miles to go to confession to a holy spiritual father or mother in a monastery or hermitage.
But many monks are ordained priests. We had two come and say Mass for us this last week from the local Abbey while our priest was at the Archdiocesan Convocation of Priests.
“Regardless of the length of time it has been practiced, Christ gave the abilities to forgive and retain sin to the apostles, the first priests and bishops.”
Well, to bishops, who in turn authorize priests and in the East as they always have, others. The length of time this has been done may indeed have some relevance since the very oldest order for Confession is not Western but Eastern It is from Patriarch John the Faster (Constantinople) and dates from the 6th century, or so it is claimed. It was put together from manuscripts found in a monastery at the Holy Mountain by St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite and is called Exomologetarion or Manual of Confession.
“But it is NOT the Sacrament of PENANCE!”
You particular church disagrees with you, S.
“But many monks are ordained priests.”
In the East, very few monks are also ordained as priests, but they do exist. All Orthodox monastics are, by the way, celibate. We occasionally have a “priest monk” or an “Archimandrite” preside at the Divine Liturgy at our parish as a fill in if the priest is away. In fact, I can remember two who acted as the parish priest for varying terms. That, however, is not at all common.
**“But it is NOT the Sacrament of PENANCE!”**
I was talking about the people in the rite of whom you are speaking.
When I hit the post button on that I realize I jumped from one thought to another and that it would be misunderstood.
Minds move faster than fingers sometimes. LOL!
“I was talking about the people in the rite of whom you are speaking.”
So was I. The Roman Catholic Church recognizes the Orthodox sacrament of penance. And that sacrament for us is very often done with a non-ordained person.
Or am I still misunderstanding you?
I think the apostles are considered the first bishops, though they were also priests!
In any case, Christ conferred the authority on the bishops -- as the Church. He didn't go into the practical details of how that authority should be exercised. One imagines that in a community of a few hundred, the bishop could hear all the confessions. Even in the West, priests have the authority only as derived from the bishop (with some exceptions).
It seems to me we heard in high school that in the very early Church (first few years or decades?), the practice was for public confession (I assume "public" in the sense of the Christian community, not the world at large), with public penance frequently required. I don't know what "formula" might have been used or who spoke what words and, if it's known, I'm unaware of it.
“It seems to me we heard in high school that in the very early Church (first few years or decades?), the practice was for public confession (I assume “public” in the sense of the Christian community, not the world at large), with public penance frequently required.”
Public confession was the practice for hundreds of years, probably for the first millennium, though for “secret sins” there were rare “secret confessions”.
I think the link to O Gladsome Light (Phos Ilaron) is more interesting. Imagine a hymn in use today which expresses the earliest Christian form of praise and understanding of an attribute of God...that +Basil the Great called the most ancient of hymns and that we still use to this very day!
As I understand it from conversations with my monastic mentor some nuns are blessed to hear the confessions of their spiritual children (not just anyone) but the penitent must still receive absolution from a priest.
the nuns (and all priests that I know of) have a spiritual Advisor.
You are correct. Those nuns still need to seek the Sacrament of Penance.
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