Dear Sisters, dear brethren, last week I began telling you about the background history and practice of the Jubilee, or Holy Year. Today I am going to tell you in more detail about what it means, how it affects us, and how to get the graces that are given so generously by the Church in this year. First of all, I want to tell you what the Church is doing in granting graces from God. It goes back to the words of our Lord to the Apostles on the first Easter Day: ‘If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained’ (Jn 20:23). That means that while Jesus Himself had the power that belongs by right to God alone, He shared it with His Apostles who in turn shared it with their successors, the bishops, right down to the present day. Remember how the Pharisees and Scribes had been indignant when Jesus forgave sins, protesting, ‘who does He think He is? Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ Now Jesus has given that power to the Church!
All sins, whether original sin or personal sins, are forgiven and remitted in baptism. But what happens if you sin after you have been baptised? A great difficulty arose in the persecutions of the Roman emperors, when under terrible pressure and out of fear of torture or death, many Christians who had been baptised committed the sin of apostasy, of publicly abandoning the faith, in order to save their lives. Then, when the persecution died down, as it often did, they repented and begged to be allowed to return once more to the faith they had denied, rather like St Peter who had denied our Lord three times out of fear, and then after the resurrection had been both forgiven and restored to his former state as the prince of the apostles. If it could happen to Peter, could it not happen to ordinary, frail, fearful Christian souls, if they sincerely repented of their sin and longed to return to the faith?
In this way the Church began to develop in the exercise of the power that Christ had given her: the forgiveness of any sins, so long as they were truly repented of. There could never be forgiveness without repentance, but so too, if there was heartfelt sorrow for sin, then there could certainly be forgiveness. But such sorrow could never be a matter of mere words. ‘Sorry’ is such an easy word to say, but proving it is more demanding. Hence the Church set about devising penances, tasks that demanded great humility and determined perseverance, that penitent sinners had to undergo in order to be readmitted to the Church’s life and sacraments. It is worth recalling that for many centuries in the past, the season of Lent, which we are about to enter, was not only a season of preparation for those looking forward to being baptized at Easter, but also a time of penitence and mourning for the baptized who had fallen away and were now out of sacramental communion. They could not go to Communion, which is what the word ‘excommunicated’ means. Those who were accepted as truly penitent by the Bishop, who alone at first exercised the power to forgive sins in this way, were given long and arduous penances to perform all through Lent, or even for longer if the sin was considered serious enough to warrant a longer period of penance. It was for the bishop to impose a suitable penance on each sinner. It might be fasting on bread and water all through Lent or even several years, or wearing sackcloth and ashes and kneeling for hours on end at the door of the church, unable to enter it until they were publicly reconciled by the bishop, or going on a long and dangerous pilgrimages such as to the Holy Land. Finally, on Maundy Thursday, having completed their penance, they would be presented to the Bishop and were ‘absolved’. Their sins were forgiven and they were readmitted to the life of the Church; thus, at last, they were ‘reconciled’ and could receive holy Communion once more.
All this is at the root of what we mean by penance, absolution and reconciliation, which we are able to receive in the sacrament of confession or reconciliation, but it is now administered to us in a far more gentle and lenient way. When we sin, we also may repent and confess our sins and ask to have our sins absolved and to be reconciled with God and His Church, so as to be able once more to receive Holy Communion. This is why, when we have confessed our sins and expressed our sorrow in the act of contrition, we are given a penance to perform to show our true penitence, our firm purpose of amendment and resolution to turn away from sin once again, for good.
But what does it mean that we can seemingly achieve by a few ‘Hail Marys’ what our ancient Christian forefathers had to achieve by far more rigorous penances? It means that our forgiveness, our reconciliation, is achieved with far less apparent demand on us now. Yet God’s justice is still the same as it was in the 3rd century or in the 13th. Our penances for sin are also meant to help us make amends. When you do wrong and you are sorry, you must do more than simply say ‘sorry’. You must make amends. And the more serious the wrong, the more demanding the restitution we must make in order to restore the balance of God’s justice. If you steal something, you must restore it. If you keep what you have stolen you cannot be truly sorry. You must give it back as well as say ‘sorry’. The same is true for any sin, whether greater or lesser in nature - we must make restitution for it in proportion to its seriousness. But there are some sins that you cannot easily make restitution for, such as murder or adultery. In such cases the restitution has to be a penance of a different kind. In the early Church penances would be both a sign of sorrow for sin and a restitution. Nowadays, it is often the case that we can’t or are not able to make restitution, and we must do a token penance in place of that greater act of restitution. If I murder someone, I cannot bring them back to life, but I must still make amends in some way, and that restitution will be more demanding of me than the penance due for losing my temper when the traffic lights turn red.
Now this brings us to the idea of indulgences. An indulgence is a special kind of gift of God’s generosity which we can gain in place of having to do a heavy penance. Let’s say that for committing a murder the penance imposed by the Bishop was to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, or even more than one pilgrimage if the murder was of a really great person. Let’s take human justice as an example; you commit a murder, and the judge sentences you to twenty years in prison. That sentence is meant to be a kind of restitution so that the murderer makes up for his crime by the loss of freedom and all that goes with being imprisoned, for a very long time. This is retributive justice. The same principle applies, in a way, with God. Remember, we are not talking here about forgiveness of sins. God freely grants that to anyone who is truly repentant. But justice still needs to be done. We need to make restitution for our sins even when we are sorry, even after we have been forgiven. Now this is not simply the same thing as going to prison. In God’s justice there is not just restitution to be made, but our conversion to God must be brought to perfection. When we have committed sins, those sins make us less like God, less holy. So we need to be made more like God, more holy, and this is what penance and restitution do for us. So this is why it is never enough just to go to confession and do a penance, we also have to make restitution and in that way grow in likeness to God. This cannot be done automatically, like switching on a light, but takes some time and some commitment on our part. We cannot become holy without our own cooperation in this process, and it can be arduous. Lent is given to us partly for this purpose, to allow us time and commitment to prayer, almsgiving and fasting so as to grow in holiness and reparation for our sins. But there is also the special grace of the Jubilee, the Holy Year, when the means of our achieving holiness are made more generously available to help us, and some of the arduousness is lifted from our hard work of atoning for sin and growing in holiness.
Back in the year 1300 the first Jubilee or Holy Year was declared by the Pope. The Christian people were invited to make a pilgrimage to Rome and there to fulfil certain acts of devotion, prayer and penance so as not only to make restitution and atonement for their sins, but also to draw down upon themselves the holiness of the saints who have gone before us but whose holiness in heaven can aid us here on earth. When we pray to the saints for their assistance, we are praying to those who have themselves passed through this life, they were sinners who did penance and were reconciled in confession and became holy, which is what the word ‘saint’ means. Now that they are in heaven, their holiness can help us, it can help to make amends for our misdeeds. God can take away some of our personal debt on account of what the saints can present to him on our behalf. Therefore, we can under special circumstances do smaller penances, but still get the full effect of larger penances thanks to the holiness of those who have gone before us, and of course, all such holiness really comes from God in the first place. Because it is a smaller penance than we really deserve, and yet gets us the same resulting state of grace, it is called an ‘indulgence’. So an indulgence is not the forgiveness of sins, which is given in the sacrament of penance, but rather the lessening of all the heaviness of the amendment or restitution we owe to God for the offences we have committed against Him and against our neighbour.
So, in each of the many Holy years called by the Church ever since 1300, the Church in the person of the pope has invited the faithful to come to Rome on pilgrimage and there to pray at the tombs of the great saints, above all of Peter and Paul, and in all the other holy places where saints are buried in Rome, which we call the ‘holy city’. The Church has the power to decide exactly what form of words and deeds we should fulfil in order to gain this grace. We have to visit a named place of pilgrimage, to pray for the Pope’s intentions for the good of the whole Church, we have to go to confession and communion, we have to do some act of charity or mercy to our neighbour. All of this is designed to do two things together: to make amends for past sins, and to form within us the habits and attitudes of holiness of likeness to God. That is why it is never mechanical. You cannot become holy by putting money in a box. So you cannot get an indulgence by putting money in a box, either. You can only get it by doing what the Church lays down, and do it from the heart.
Now over the centuries the Popes have broadened the terms and conditions for getting such an indulgence. Whereas originally to get it you had to go to Rome, - which was no small task, but considered worth the effort for the sake of what you got, - much more recently the local bishop, successor of the Apostles, can name certain places in his own diocese where the faithful can now gain the same indulgence. There is a list in the foyer of seven places in this diocese where the Jubilee indulgence can be gained, but note immediately that one of them is right here, a few hundred yards away in St Michael’s church! It is the shrine of Bd Carlo Acutis, who is to be canonised during this holy year.
Now I want you to think after all that I have said; if our ancient forefathers had to undergo fierce and long penances to be reconciled and have their sins taken away, and if our mediaeval forefathers thought it worth going all the way to Rome to get an indulgence to lighten their burden of penance – and did so in an age before quick travel and comfortable accommodation was available – then surely it has to be not only worth the effort but a magnificent gift to us, that in order to gain what our forefathers thought worth enduring harsh penances to achieve, we need only go a few hundred yards away, and in order to have our punishment for past sins wiped out, simply to pray and do deeds of mercy and charity and then leave it to God’s mercy and goodness to bring about the effect in us if we are truly determined to receive what He offers us. As I say, there is a very simple but well laid out list in the foyer explaining what to do and where to do it. This opportunity only lasts for this year. Don’t miss it!
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