In his apostolic exhortation “Reconciliatio et Paenitentia” (“On Reconciliation and Penance in the Mission of the Church Today”), issued Dec. 2, the First Sunday of Advent, 1984, our Holy Father begins with the recognition that we live in a shattered world marked by deep and painful divisions. “These divisions are seen in the relationships between individuals and groups, and also at the level of larger groups: nations against nations, and blocks of opposing countries, in a headlong conquest for domination” (2).

Human history is deeply marked with suffering and grief. Much of sacred Scripture is a record of human sorrow, failure and sin. Though the books of the Bible recall the infinite mercy of God, they are also starkly realistic in noting the tragedies and afflictions that are a part of the human condition. In helping us to understand something of the consistency of human failure and sin, St. Paul turns to the experience of original sin.

Original sin affects us all

The account of the fall in the Book of Genesis presents the reality of the first human rebellion against God in language somewhat figurative in all its details. We do not know the exact nature of the first human sin. Scripture suggests that the malice of that sin rests chiefly in its elements of pride and disobedience. For St. Paul, the contrast is between the disobedience of Adam and the obedience of Christ.

The church has always taught that from Adam original sin has been transmitted to every member of the human family. Not only do people tend to imitate the sinfulness that surrounds them, but each individual is born into a condition of sin and can be freed from that condition only by the merits of Jesus Christ.

The Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World confirms that we are born into a sinful state. “Examining his heart, man finds that he has inclinations towards evil too, and is engulfed by manifold ills which cannot come from his good Creator. Often refusing to acknowledge God as his beginning, man has disrupted also his proper relationship to his own ultimate goal, as well as his whole orientation towards himself, towards others, and towards all created things. Therefore, man is split within himself” (GS 13).

It is the split we feel within us that pulls us to do the evil we wish we did not do and to fail to do the good we wish we did that cries out for reconciliation. Healing begins first with our reconciliation with God but includes also the right ordering of our relationship with others and all human creation.

“Repent and believe in the Gospel”

At the very beginning of the apostolic exhortation, our Holy Father cites the words of the Gospel, “repent, and believe in the Gospel” (Mk 1:15). If we are going to right what is wrong and heal what is wounded, if we are going to restore the correct order and the right relationship between God and us and among ourselves and then with ourselves and all of creation, we need to be reconciled.

“To speak of reconciliation and penance is, for the men and women of our time, an invitation to rediscover, translated into their own way of speaking, the very words with which our Savior and teacher Jesus Christ began his preaching: ‘Repent, and believe in the Gospel,’ that is to say, accept the good news of love, of adoption as children of God and hence of brotherhood” (1.1).

A familiar parable

The opening chapter, “Conversion and Reconciliation: The Church’s Task and Commitment,” begins with the story of the prodigal son. In Luke’s Gospel (15:11-32), we find the story of the younger of the two sons who asked for, received, went off and squandered his portion of the inheritance. It is the loving, forgiving, ever-vigilant father who awaits the son and who embraces him when he returns having recognized his foolishness.

The pope sees the prodigal son as man — every human being, “bewitched by the temptation to separate himself from his father in order to lead his own independent existence; disappointed by the emptiness of the mirage which had fascinated him; alone, dishonored, exploited when he tries to build a world all for himself; sorely tried, even in the depth of his own misery, by the desire to return to communion with his father” (5.3).

The parable also contains another son — the one who stayed at home. Here, we are reminded that every human being “is also this elder brother. Selfishness makes him jealous, hardens his heart, blinds him and shuts him off from other people and from God. The loving-kindness and mercy of the father irritate and enrage him; for him, the happiness of the brother who has been found again has a bitter taste. From this point of view, he too needs to be converted in order to be reconciled” (6.2).

Before reconciliation — recognition

We cannot even begin to be reconciled if we do not know we need forgiveness. One of the great tragedies of our modern age is the refusal to recognize the existence of sin. The pope points out that “when the conscience is weakened the sense of God is also obscured, and as a result, with the loss of this decisive inner point of reference, the sense of sin is lost. This explains why my predecessor, Pius XII, one day declared, in words that have almost become proverbial, that the ‘sin of the century is the loss of the sense of sin’” (18.3).

We seem intent today to justify everything we do. The manipulation of language serves to facilitate this end. “Killing” is now described as “facilitating the conclusion of the biological process.” “Abortion” is now defined as a procedure that “terminates in demise.” One is reminded of the embezzler who pleaded before the judge that he was not guilty of a crime but was simply “participating in the equitable distribution of the goods of the earth in a private and personal manner.”

If we use our energies to redefine reality we delude ourselves. “Reconciliatio et Paenitentia” calls us to realize that the starting point for all reconciliation is the recognition that we have done something wrong. First comes an awareness of our failure, our sin. Then comes a sense of contrition or sorrow for what we have done. This prompts us to ask for forgiveness. Absolution is the final step in the process, but all of this dynamic is a part of true reconciliation.