THE Pope broke another protocol. Usually, he confesses to a priest in private, but two weeks ago, he surprised everyone at St. Peter’s Basilica.
He bowed down before the congregation and went to confession in public – to an ordinary priest in one of the confessional booths.
People were stunned and amazed at what the the Pope did, much like in the Old Testament, when the Israelites were amazed at the action of God of anointing the young humble shepherd, David as king of Israel, or at the action of Jesus in the Gospel, when he broke the Sabbath to heal a blind man from a muck he smeared on the blind man’s eyes.
The Pope’s action reveals the awesome and profound beauty of the Sacraments — in this case, the Sacrament of Confession.
You see when we celebrate the Sacraments, it is Jesus who is present. So when the Pope confessed to an ordinary priest, he was telling us that it is God who hears and forgives sins.
And in the Eucharist that we celebrate every Sunday and everyday, it is Jesus celebrating with us, offering this eternal Sacrifice of Himself and thanksgiving to God.
We’ve got to see the dynamic and intense power of the Sacraments. They are living and dynamic encounters with Jesus Christ our Lord, with the Living God. So when I see our brothers and sisters leaving the Catholic Church to go to other churches, I feel sad because I believe that they have not fully appreciated and understood the meaning of the Sacraments.
The Sacraments are venues of profound and personal encounters with the Living God, with Jesus Christ. So we can’t celebrate them by watching them on podcast. Just like we can’t have a confession via cell phone.
In this day and age of iPads and HD channels, we need to appreciate more and more the beauty of the human touch, of people gathered in worship, of priests acting in the person of Christ when they dispense the graces of the Sacraments.
We can’t always have a deep and dynamic encounter with Christ through a screen. It would be easy to attend Mass on TV, right? But sacraments cannot be this way. They should channel directly the love and mercy of God through us and through the different elements of nature.
We’ve got to believe in the dynamic presence of Jesus in the Sacraments where he touches hearts, heals, saves, anoints, and sends.
We cannot be like the bystanders in the Gospel, in the story of the healing of a blind man from birth, who did not believe in the power of Jesus to heal and to forgive as the Son of God.
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Reverend Rodel G. Balagtas attended St. John Seminary in Camarillo, California and earned his Doctor of Ministry in Preaching from Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis, Missouri. For twenty years, he has been in the parish ministry of large multi-cultural communities. Since 2002, he has been the pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Los Angeles. Please email Fr. Rodel at [email protected].
