Testimony: Cardinal Dolan Calls Penance the Sacrament of the New Evangelization and How I Know He is Right

By Deacon Keith Fournier
10/25/2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

The New Evangelization reminds us that the very agents of evangelization must first be evangelized themselves

Like priming a pump I began to speak and the words flowed forth in a cathartic experience, complete with tears- a torrent of repentance. This wonderful priest of Jesus Christ looked at me with the compassion of His Lord and simply listened. I expressed my remorse and I asked the Lord for forgiveness. Then I heard those words I had not heard since I was a child: "I absolve you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit". So certain. So firm. So personal. So liberating!

Facebook Delicous MySpace

Twitter Stumble Digg

More Destinations

VATICAN CITY (Catholic Online) - In his intervention at the Synod on the New Evangelization on Tuesday, October 9, 2012, the Cardinal Archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan, called the Sacrament of Penance the Sacrament of the new Evangelization. He is absolutely right. It is the Sacrament of the Encounter, the Sacrament of New Beginnings. His words can be read in full on his wonderful blog "The Gospel in the Digital Age". Here is an excerpt:

"The great American evangelist, The Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, commented, "The first word of Jesus in the Gospel was 'come'; the last word of Jesus was 'go'."The New Evangelization reminds us that the very agents of evangelization must first be evangelized themselves. We must first come to Jesus ourselves before we can go out to others in His Holy Name. But, the sacrament of reconciliation evangelizes the evangelizers, as it brings us sacramentally into contact with Jesus, who calls us to conversion of heart, and inspires us to answer His invitation to repentance. As we learned in philosophy, nemo dat qoud non habet ("no one gives what he does not have")."

This wonderful Sacrament of freedom and new beginning was so instrumental in my return to the Church as a young man. I still remember the day as if it were yesterday. The sun drenched retreat grounds stretched out before my young eyes. I was eighteen years old, a new "revert" to the Catholic faith and living in Florida. I had registered to attend a spiritual retreat featuring a Benedictine Monk speaking on how to develop an intimate relationship with the Lord through prayer. I was ready.

Though I never "officially" left the Catholic Church, I had certainly lost my commitment to the faith and the Church into which I had been baptized. My return to a personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ- and my knowing, mature decision to embrace the full teaching of the Catholic Church -was an extraordinary event - a type of conversion story. It is a journey being played out in the lives of thousands in our day. It was my own experience of a new Evangelization because it was an encounter with the One who makes us new creations. (2 Cor. 5:17)

The ancient Catholic Church is coming alive with the sons and daughters who are either rediscovering her beauty and depth or discovering both for the first time. Her sons and daughters coming home are founding new movements, ecclesial communities, ministries and works. Everything old is new again! An experience of a return home, a personal conversion to the Church often characterizes the journey home of so many Catholic Christians.

I had wandered far from the faith of my childhood during my adolescence and my teenage years. I was caught up, as were so many of my generation, in a passionate search for truth and meaning. Through what many would have seen as a misspent youth I was actually reaching out to answer the existential questions that were burning in my soul. I was sincere in my search for truth and the Lord knew it. The search eventually led me back to the One whom Himself claimed to be the Truth.

At the encouragement of a Jewish friend, who had become a Christian while traveling in Jerusalem, I re-examined the claims of Jesus Christ. This friend and I had wandered the pilgrim road of a spiritual journey for years together. Eventually, at the ripe age of seventeen, I set out hitchhiking across America on a pilgrimage of sorts and he did the same, choosing to backpack across Europe. He ended in Israel and I in California.

He wrote me from the Mount of Olives and told me--his Catholic friend---about an encounter with "Yeshua", Jesus. He had dedicated the rest of his life to following Him. He quoted the Psalmist David: "how can a young man keep his way pure." in the opening paragraph of a letter that lasted for pages. We began our journey together. He, raised in a nominally Jewish home, had hungered to find truth. He set out with a backpack and journeyed across Europe. He ended his search in the Holy Land, where he accepted the claims of Jesus Christ. Because of our friendship, he knew that he had to give this wonderful gift to me.

I realized as I read his powerful letter that I was that "young man" of whom the Psalmist's timeless words spoke. I longed to be made new again. I began to reflect on my life. I had been baptized a Catholic. In fact my family had a devout and real faith when I was very young. However, a family tragedy shook our world when I was only ten years old and our practice of the faith grew nearly non-existent. That day I did not fully realize that my journey, like Dorothy in of the Wizard of Oz, would lead me all the way home to the Catholic Church because there truly is "no place like home." I only knew I was no longer close to God. The letter made me remember former days.

I had fond memories of a time when I was very close to Him as a boy. Like when I served ...

1 | 2 | 3 Next Page

Rate This Article

Was this helpful to you? Very Helpful Somewhat Helpful Not Helpful at All

Would you be interested in more articles like this? Yes, I am Interested No, I am not Interested

Rate Article

1 - 6 of 6 Comments

Andrew M. Greenwell
6 months ago
What a lovely story. I appreciate you sharing it with your readers (which includes me!).
Adam Hordos
6 months ago
I am coming up to age 65 and have yet to have somebody explain to me what penance is nowhere in your message brother Deacon do you give examples. All those years taught in catechism nothing. I think this new evangelization is a smoke screen for all the underlying problems with our Universal Church. "Transparency" should be the new norm. when you have so much secrecy in a Church which I am a baptized member, what are all the innuendos, supposition,suspicion, about. When Jesus instituted our Church he did it openly. He said himself if there was anything else I would have told you. The next conclave for choosing a new pope must be done in public we need to know who these Cardinals are.

When our beloved Clergy tell us we must except Vatican 11, lets go back open the books and let us see what transpired. Take a look what has transpired. Take a look and stop deceiving ourselves that everything is okay. I will follow my parish priest and do as he says but with a very heavy heart. What is scarey is that when I look throughout the world I do not see any, mother Theressa, Padre Pio's.etc.

Come lord Jesus come and renew the face off the earth come quickly.

Holy Micheal the archangel..........
Terri Kimmel
6 months ago
What beautiful and inspiring story. I have said before, and it's worth saying again: The nicest thing anybody has ever said to me is, "I absolve you from yours sins."
Dr. Ray
6 months ago
Does this apply to the Cardinal and the others bishops who have never spokenout truthfully about artificial contraception?
SaraPalen
6 months ago
thanks for the comments, Deacon.
It had been about ten years before I had made a good confession. But as Fulton Sheen had once said, I felt like the woman at the well with Jesus. Being a bow hunter, I can understand the meaning of this "missing the mark", sin. It is much more more painful. I once shot at a deer who may have flinched as she was looking right at me when I took my shot, My husband ended up shooting her a month later during rifle season, as the kids were then calling her Holy Mama). And what you said, and what St. Augustine said is on the mark. It is like you want to breath in His presence, take it all in. But it is so hot we cannot do it all at once, and we sin and miss our mark. What happens during pennance is more beautiful than the brush in the hand of any of the most famous of earthly painters or sculpturs.
Anthony Coffey
6 months ago
REPENTANCE

It would seem that some have lost the sense of sin and the need to repent.

Repentance is a hatred of sin because it is an offence to God.
The motive for repenting is love of God. To repent of evil doing, because of mental suffering, or social loss, is not sincere repentance, because it is selfish, e.g. Judas Iscariot repented to the High Priests, by returning the thirty pieces of silver he had been paid for betraying Christ. He was not motivated by his love for God, but by his self disgust, for having betrayed Christ.

Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden of paradise, because sin cannot coexist with God. While God is infinitely merciful, God has no tolerance of sin. To enter Heaven we must be sincere in repentance. It is noteworthy that Adam sinned [disobedience] because he feared God would take Eve, and leave him alone in the garden, therefore he valued companionship more than his love for God…impossible for Adam to repent at this time. For the Soul to be truly repentant it must be sincere, with a resolve not to sin again. Self - denial, i.e. Penance, shows sincerity to God. The effect of sincere repentance is peace and calm of conscience with intense consolation of soul.

The soul is reconciled to God by true repentance, which means confessing all mortal sins done by the penitent; repentance is made void, by refusing to admit a particular sin.
Some people experience great distress and anxiety wanting to confess their sins to a person strong enough to listen and understand, and not to despise them for the sins they have done. We are not ashamed to sin, but often we are ashamed to confess. It is vital for salvation that we obtain forgiveness of sins through the Sacrament of reconciliation.
Repentance is always necessary to be reconciled to God.

When Adam and Eve sinned they tried to hide from the Creator, because of self disgust guilt and remorse but they were unrepentant, they blamed. Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the devil in the form of a serpent. The reason for their denial was fear, fear of the consequences of having offended God. Their denial meant loss of Paradise because whenever in the future, if they sinned, they would deny.

This harsh chastisement was necessary to prove positive repentance in the future, in the hope, on reflection they would admit to having sinned. So began a history of relationship between God and Man culminating in the gift of the Church to the followers of Christ, this wonderful gift of Christ included the power to forgive sins.
It is the natural state of Man to sin, that is why we need to define Human Rights, if it is not a sin, then it is a Right. However the Sacrament of Reconciliation helps us to overcome our nature and achieve holiness of not sinning.

Luke 15:7.

“There is more joy in Heaven when one sinner repents, than ninety nine just people doing good deeds, who have no need of repentance”
John 20. 22-23.

When he had said this , He breathed on them; and He said to them, receive the
Holy Spirit.
Whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain,
they are retained.

John 8 : 3-11.

And the Scribes and the Pharisees bring a Woman to him who had been caught in the act of Adultery and they placed her in the middle of the gathering.

And they said to him: Master, this woman has just been caught in the act of adultery, and according to the law she should be stoned to death for this sin, but what do you say ?

They said this to trap him so that they could accuse him of disagreeing with Moses.

Christ leaned down and wrote with his finger on the ground saying:
Let him among you that is without sin throw the first stone.
Then beginning with the eldest they all walked away.

He then lifted himself up and said to her, where are they that accused thee ? has no man condemned thee ? She replied no man, neither will I, but go now and sin no more.

Matthew 5. 27-28.

You have heard that it was commanded to them of old: Thou will not commit the sin of adultery, but I say to you that who ever looks at a woman to lust after her, has already done the sin of adultery in his heart

SAINT JOHN 6 : 47.

Amen, amen I say to you: those that believe in me, have everlasting Life.

I am the bread of life.

Your fathers did eat manna in the desert but are now dead.

This is the bread that has come down from Heaven, whoever eats, will not die.

I am the living bread who has come down from Heaven.

Whoever eats this bread, will live forever; and the bread that I will give, is my Flesh, for the life of the world.

The Jews argued among themselves saying: how can this man give us his flesh to eat ?

Then Christ spoke to them again: Amen, I am telling you, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of man, and drink his Blood, you will not have Life in you.

Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood, has everlasting Life: and I will raise them up on their last day.

Because my Flesh is food indeed; and my Blood is drink indeed.

Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood lives in me, and I in them.

As the living Father has sent me, and I live in the Father, therefore, they that eat me, will also live in the Father.

This is the bread, which came down from Heaven. Not as your fathers ate the manna in the desert and are now dead, but whoever eats this bread will live forever.

QUESTIONS

[1] What is everlasting life ? Does life live forever ?

[2] “The bread of life” what is bread ? does bread have life ? what is life ?

[3] Those that ate the manna in the desert are dead, what does Christ mean ?

[4] To explain who he is Christ states: “Living bread from Heaven” [explain]

[5] “Whoever eats this bread will live forever” [explain]

[6] “And the bread that I will give” [When, explain]

[7] Why did the Jews not believe Christ ?

[8] “And the bread that I will give is my Flesh for the life of the world” [explain]

[9] “Amen I am telling you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his Blood, you will not have life in you” does this mean we are dead without the sacrament ?

[10] “And I will raise them up on their last day” what happens to others ? [explain]

Comments submitted must be civil, remain on-topic and not violate any laws including copyright. We reserve the right to delete any comments which are abusive, inappropriate or not constructive to the discussion.

Though we invite robust discussion, we reserve the right to not publish any comment which denigrates the human person, undermines marriage and the family, or advocates for positions which openly oppose the teaching of the Catholic Church.

This is a supervised forum and the Editors of Catholic Online retain the right to direct it.

We also reserve the right to block any commenter for repeated violations. Your email address is required to post, but it will not be published on the site.

We ask that you NOT post your comment more than once. Catholic Online is growing and our ability to review all comments sometimes results in a delay in their publication.

Name *

Email *

Comment *

Send me important information from Catholic Online and it's partners. See Sample

Post Comment