Jubilee of the Missionaries of Mercy: The Sacrament of Penance

The days 28th - 30th March 2025 are being marked as a Jubilee of the Missionaries of Mercy. A news report ahead of this event can be found at Vatican News: Jubilee of Missionaries of Mercy bringing 500 priests worldwide. The event coincides with the 2025 celebration of "24 hours for the Lord".

For several years now the Friday/Saturday immediately before the fourth Sunday in Lent has been marked by a celebration of "24 Hours for the Lord", a particular time of prayer and recourse to the Sacrament of Penance. It is intended that the celebration take place at all levels in the Church, including at parish level. An introduction to the theme of the celebration for the Jubilee Year is here.

The purpose of the event is to put the sacrament of reconciliation back at the center of the pastoral life of the Church, and consequently, of our communities, parishes, and all ecclesial realities. This is the centre of the Gospel message: the Mercy of God, which gives us the certainty that before the Lord no one will find a judge, but rather will find a father who welcomes him, consoles him and also shows him the way to renewal.

I have a preference for referring to the sacrament as the Sacrament of Penance because that is the title used of the sacrament in the Code of Canon Law (cc. 959-997). The Catechism of the Catholic Church (nn.1423 - 1424), however, explains several different names for the sacrament. I have added the bold below to highlight each of them:

1423 It is called the sacrament of conversion because it makes sacramentally present Jesus' call to conversion, the first step in returning to the Father from whom one has strayed by sin.
It is called the sacrament of Penance, since it consecrates the Christian sinner's personal and ecclesial steps of conversion, penance, and satisfaction.

1424 It is called the sacrament of confession, since the disclosure or confession of sins to a priest is an essential element of this sacrament. In a profound sense it is also a "confession" - acknowledgment and praise - of the holiness of God and of his mercy toward sinful man.
It is called the sacrament of forgiveness, since by the priest's sacramental absolution God grants the penitent "pardon and peace."
It is called the sacrament of Reconciliation, because it imparts to the sinner the love of God who reconciles: "Be reconciled to God." He who lives by God's merciful love is ready to respond to the Lord's call: "Go; first be reconciled to your brother."

One of the more remarkable books about the sacrament is Adrienne von Speyr's book entitled Confession. The German original dates from 1960, with the Ignatius Press English translation dating from 1985. The book has a preface by Adrienne's close collaborator Hans Urs von Balthasar. (The site Balthasar and Speyr gives more information about the lives and work of these two). Adrienne's book ranges from a presentation of confession in its Christological and ecclesial dimensions (two early chapters are entitled "Confession in the life of the Lord" and "The Confession on the Cross") to very practical insights into the experience that we should have of  the sacrament (in chapters entitled "Types of Confession" and "The Act of Confession", which respectively look at confession in the context of different states and experiences of life and at the different specific steps taken in approaching and receiving the sacrament). It is striking that one can dip into this book, written essentially before Vatican II, and yet recognise in it much that is reflected in the passage from the Catechism quoted above, even though the book itself inescapably depends on the term "confession" used of the sacrament.

The attitude out of which the Son speaks his "I am thirsty" and "My God, why have you forsaken me?" on the Cross is not only an expression of his unique suffering; it is simultaneously the essence of every correct confessional attitude. The penitent who receives the sacrament of the fruit of the Cross, who stands naked and exposed before the Father, must thirst for absolution and for the nearness of God that he has lost through sin. If he confesses openly and with humility, God will grant him this thirst and this yearning to be stilled - not as something the penitent imagines or presses out of himself, as it were, but as an objective gift of grace.... Only when he receives absolution does sin become an objective quantity for him, something that no longer clings to his person, yet something from which he still must separate himself and take leave of in a highly conscious act.... The sinner's burning, thirsting desire for absolution should generate something enduring, namely, that perpetual search for God that characterises love here below, a searching which is the discipleship of the suffering and "confessing" Son on the Cross who thirsts more and more until finally "it is finished".

The International Year of Quantum Science and Technology

 The Jubilee 2025 coincides with the marking by the world of science of the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. The year 2025 has been chosen as it marks the centenary of the publication by Werner Heisenberg in 1925 of his work on matrix mechanics. Erwin Schrodinger followed with his work on wave mechanics in 1926. Whilst artificial intelligence (AI) has been gaining attention in the media and in public awareness, perhaps through publicity surrounding some of its practical applications, it is the technological applications of quantum phenomena that are more leading edge. The development of computers based on quantum states of atoms is an objective of this research, with the prospects of significant increases in computing capacity as a result. Consequently, the Year has both a historic glance to the past and a contemporary look to the future.

A striking aspect of Heisenberg's work is that it was premised on our not being able to observe, in the ordinary sense of the word, the exact properties of a particle (such as an electron in an atom). He instead developed a mathematical formalism that was able to successfully account for the behaviour of atoms whilst keeping a certain distance from wishing to exactly assert the properties of the electrons giving rise to this behaviour. Schrodinger's approach was to represent particles seen in their essentially classical way by a waveform that obeyed equations analagous to such principles as conservation of energy. The waveform came to be interpreted as a probability function, introducing a lack of precision in the understanding of the idea of the position of particle, for example. Both Heisenberg's work and Schrodinger's work were eventually shown to give the same outcomes that accorded with experimental observations.

Before the advent of quantum physics it was possible to readily identify the idea of things existing as their existing in the form of specific materially perceivable objects, and a scientific description of those objects used a language that corresponded to our perception - space, time, velocity, acceleration and the like. With the advent of quantum physics it is no longer possible to so readily connect the existence of phenomena to the existence of materially perceivable objects (though, to borrow the idea of "complementarity", such connection can be achieved at scales larger than those at which quantum effects become significant). Likewise, the idea of a a readily identifiable causal link between one perceived event and another (through an interaction between one object and another) is lost to the outcomes of measurements related to probabilistic descriptions.

A Christian is prompted  to reflect on what it means for things to exist; and on what it means for one thing to cause another. In philosophical terms, they are prompted to reflect on the idea of being, the subject of the study of metaphysics in its strict sense. From a Christian point of view, a certain reconsideration of the doctrine of creation takes place in this context. Whilst on the one hand a Christian will recognise that the created world has some form of initial starting point - "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen.1.1) - they will also recognise that the term "creation" also refers to a "bringing into being" which is sustained from that initial starting point and not isolated to it alone.

In this context it is worthwhile to re-read the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the creation of the world ( nn. 279-301).  The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church summarises this teaching, and the questions cited below are part of that summary.

54. How did God create the universe?

God created the universe freely with wisdom and love. The world is not the result of any necessity, nor of blind fate, nor of chance. God created “out of nothing” (ex nihilo) (2 Maccabees 7:28) a world which is ordered and good and which he infinitely transcends. God preserves his creation in being and sustains it, giving it the capacity to act and leading it toward its fulfillment through his Son and the Holy Spirit.

53. Why was the world created?

The world was created for the glory of God who wished to show forth and communicate his goodness, truth and beauty. The ultimate end of creation is that God, in Christ, might be “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28) for his glory and for our happiness.

The answer to this  last question has a reflection in the conclusion of the Prayer for the Jubilee 2025:

May that same grace spread the joy and peace of our Redeemer throughout the earth.

To you our God, eternally blessed, be glory and praise for ever.

Jubilee 2025 and the Witness of Martyrs: "confessors of the life that knows no end"

 In the Bull of Indiction for the Jubilee Year (n.20), Pope Francis reflects on how the sacrament of Baptism offers the gift of a new life that sheds a light on the reality of death. As we set out on the Lenten journey, with its baptismal character, it may be worthwhile to recall Pope Francis' words (my emphasis added):

The reality of death, as a painful separation from those dearest to us, cannot be mitigated by empty rhetoric. The Jubilee, however, offers us the opportunity to appreciate anew, and with immense gratitude, the gift of the new life that we have received in Baptism, a life capable of transfiguring death’s drama. It is worth reflecting, in the context of the Jubilee, on how that mystery has been understood from the earliest centuries of the Church’s life. An example would be the tradition of building baptismal fonts in the shape of an octagon, as seen in many ancient baptisteries, like that of Saint John Lateran in Rome. This was intended to symbolize that Baptism is the dawn of the “eighth day”, the day of the resurrection, a day that transcends the normal, weekly passage of time, opening it to the dimension of eternity and to life everlasting: the goal to which we tend on our earthly pilgrimage (cf. Rom 6:22).

The most convincing testimony to this hope is provided by the martyrs. Steadfast in their faith in the risen Christ, they renounced life itself here below, rather than betray their Lord. Martyrs, as confessors of the life that knows no end, are present and numerous in every age, and perhaps even more so in our own day. We need to treasure their testimony, in order to confirm our hope and allow it to bear good fruit.

In England and Wales there is a very specific experience of martyrdom during the reformation period in the 16th and 17th centuries. The lives of forty martyrs from England and Wales who were canonised on 25th October 1970 shows the range of this experience: the group included lay men and women, secular and religious priests and members of religious orders. In his homily on that occasion Pope St Paul VI has a paragraph that reflects Pope Francis' characterisation of martyrs as "confessors of the life that knows no end":

Much is spoken and written about the mysterious being that is man: on the resources of his intelligence, capable of penetrating the secrets of the world and of subjecting material things to use them for his ends; on the greatness of the human spirit that shows itself in the wonderful works of science and of art; on his nobility and his weakness; on his triumphs and his misfortunes. But that which characterises man, that which is the inmost in his being and in his personality, is the capacity to love, to love even to the end, to give himself with that love that is stronger than death and that continues in eternity.

 Pope St Paul VI went on to say:

The high tragedy in the lives of these martyrs was that their honest and genuine loyalty [to their country] came into conflict with their fidelity to God and with the dictates of their conscience illumined by the Catholic faith. Two truths especially were involved: the Holy Eucharist and the inalienable prerogatives of the Successor of Peter who, by God's will, is the universal shepherd of Christ's Church.

At the end of his homily, the Holy Father expressed a hope for the overcoming of the separation of the Anglican Church from the Catholic Church  with a regard for the "patrimony of piety and usage proper to the Anglican Church" that today seems prophetic of the Personal Ordinariates established under the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus. 

And in his Encyclical Letter Ut Unum Sint (n.84), Pope St John Paul II makes an observation that suggests an ecumenical import for every martyrdom and which complements the hope expressed by his predecessor:

The fact that one can die for the faith shows that other demands of the faith can also be met. I have already remarked, and with deep joy, how an imperfect but real communion is preserved and is growing at many levels of ecclesial life. I now add that this communion is already perfect in what we all consider the highest point of the life of grace, martyria unto death, the truest communion possible with Christ who shed his Blood, and by that sacrifice brings near those who once were far off (cf. Eph 2:13)

Jubilee of the World of Volunteering

On Sunday 16 May 1999, Pope St John Paul II preached at a celebration of Mass to mark the World Meeting "Reconciliation in Charity". 

 I am very pleased today to welcome you, dear brothers and sisters, who have come in such large numbers for the Day of Charity organized by the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum”. I am very happy to celebrate the Eucharist with you and for you, remembering all the “witnesses of charity” who in every part of the world dedicate themselves to eliminating the injustice and poverty which unfortunately still exist in so many obvious and hidden forms. I am thinking here of the countless faces of volunteer service, of those whose work is inspired by the Gospel: religious institutes and associations of Christian charity, organizations for human development and missionary service, groups involved in the civil sphere, and organizations for social, educational and cultural work. Your activities embrace every area of human life and your actions reach countless people in trouble. I express my esteem and gratitude to each of you....

How could we fail to emphasize [the] divine source of service to our brothers and sisters? Yes, love of neighbour conforms to Christ's mandate and example only if it is joined to the love of God. Jesus who gives his life for sinners is the living sign of God's goodness; at the same time, through their generous self-giving Christians enable the brothers and sisters they meet to experience the merciful and provident love of the heavenly Father. 

 The world of volunteering has many different expressions. There can be very informal occasions for volunteering (eg the person who looks out for the needs of their neighbour and might occasionally shop for them); there are those situations where people volunteer to support a one-off kind of event (eg the Olympic Games or a World Youth Day); there are situations where an individual regularly spends time supporting a small scale initiative (eg helping on a weekly soup run in an inner city). There are also situations where an individual regularly commits a period of time within a more organisational context (eg volunteering within a formally established charity or visiting in a hospital or prison). And, in some instances, there is a kind of "professionalised" volunteering (eg by way of a placement or paid employment with a charity or non-governmental organisation). 

Whilst some will involve themselves in these activities from the kind of Christian inspiration described by Pope St John Paul II, many will do so without any specifically religious intention, and this is a feature to be borne in mind when we reflect on the world of volunteering. The United Nations, for example, marks an International Day of Charity on 5th September each year, the date chosen because it is the anniversary of the death of Mother Theresa.

The invitation to the Jubilee of the World of Volunteering, to be marked 8th-9th March 2025, reflects this variety:

Volunteers from all associations, members of non-profit organizations, NGO workers and social workers are especially invited to this jubilee event.

A Vatican News report ahead of the event can be read here: 25 000 pilgrims to gather in Rome for Jubilee of Volunteers.

There is an interesting dimension to some of these volunteering opportunities. In volunteering in a hospital, for example, or in port chaplaincy and ship visiting, the volunteer brings their religious inspiration (or at least a level of commitment to human dignity) into encounter with a professional context. In their activity, the volunteer needs to achieve a competence in the practices of the relevant professional context alongside their goodwill as a volunteer. 

A hospital volunteer needs to respect the processes of a hospital ward or department (infection prevention and control, for example), develop the skills to meet with patients experiencing different medical conditions and understand how their role exists in relation to the roles of clinical staff. A ship visitor needs to respect the security and safety requirements specific to docks and ships, and to have an understanding of the circumstances of seafarers who may spend many months of the year away from home but only a few hours in each port before sailing again. Prison visiting or industrial chaplaincy equally need a volunteer to engage with a specific professional competence.

One paragraph of the Jubilee Prayer can speak particularly to the World of Volunteering:

May your grace transform us into tireless cultivators of the seeds of the Gospel. May those seeds transform from within both humanity and the whole cosmos in the sure expectation of a new heaven and a new earth, when, with the power of Evil vanquished, your glory will shine eternally.

Jubilee 2025 and Migrants

 In his Bull of Indiction for the Jubilee 2025 (n.13), Pope Francis identified migrants as being one of the recipient groups for whom "signs of hope" should be expressed during the Jubilee year:

Signs of hope should also be present for migrants who leave their homelands behind in search of a better life for themselves and for their families. Their expectations must not be frustrated by prejudice and rejection. A spirit of welcome, which embraces everyone with respect for his or her dignity, should be accompanied by a sense of responsibility, lest anyone be denied the right to a dignified existence. Exiles, displaced persons and refugees, whom international tensions force to emigrate in order to avoid war, violence and discrimination, ought to be guaranteed security and access to employment and education, the means they need to find their place in a new social context.

Each year, the Catholic Church marks a "World Day of Migrants and Refugees". Pope Francis chose the theme "Free to choose whether to migrate or to stay" as the theme for the day celebrated in September 2023. The theme is described in Pope Francis' message for the day:

 Joint efforts are needed by individual countries and the international community to ensure that all enjoy the right not to be forced to emigrate, in other words, the chance to live in peace and with dignity in one's own country. This right has yet to be codified, but it is one of fundamental importance, and its protection must be seen as a shared responsibility on the part of all States with respect to a common good that transcends national borders. ....

.... even as we work to ensure that in every case migration is the fruit of a free decision, we are called to show maximum respect for the dignity of each migrant; this entails accompanying and managing waves of migration as best we can, constructing bridges and not walls, expanding channels for a safe and regular migration. In whatever place we decide to build our future, in the country of our birth or elsewhere, the important thing is that there always be a community ready to welcome, protect, promote and integrate everyone, without distinctions and without excluding anyone.

There is a right, recognised in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in Protocol 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights, to freedom of movement within the territory of one's own country. The kind of internal movements governed by this right should perhaps also be included under the heading of migration, and might clearly be seen as such in territories where conflict forces peoples to move from one region to another. But a reason for such movements in developed nations - the seeking of better employment opportunities and better life chances in general - is instructive for how we might view migration more generally. The legitimacy of migration to flee conflict or persecution may be readily accepted; but migration for economic reasons when the alternative is to remain in dire poverty, that is, a migration in favour of a life more fully in accord with the dignity of the person, also has a legitimacy.

If Pope Francis' suggestion that peoples should be genuinely free to choose between migrating and staying is correct, it is clear that the establishing of such a freedom does not rest with the receiving country or the home country in isolation from each other. It needs to be a shared endeavour and not a unilateral one. 

A recent intervention on the subject of migrants and refugees is Pope Francis' letter to the Bishops of the United States, written in response to events in that country with regard to the deportation of migrants who are in the country illegally. 

Homily for the Jubilee of Deacons

 Pope Francis is currently in hospital and so was not able to celebrate Mass for the Jubilee of Deacons earlier today. His homily was read by Archbishop Fisichella, the pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelisation. The full text is available from the website of the Holy See: Holy Mass and Ordinations to the Diaconate.

In a manner typical of Pope Francis, the homily was structured around three words:

The message of today’s readings can be summed up in a single word: “gratuity”. That is surely a word dear to you as deacons, gathered here for the Jubilee celebration. So, let us reflect on three specific aspects of this fundamental dimension of the Christian life in general and your ministry in particular: forgiveness, selfless service and communion.

It is a short passage at the end of the homily that caught my attention (my emphasis added, as it reflects something of my previous post for the Jubilee of Deacons):

Dear deacons, your mission sets you apart from society only to be re-immersed in it in order to enable it to be an ever more open and welcoming place for everyone. It is one of the finest expressions of a synodal Church, one that “goes forth.”

Soon some of you, in receiving the sacrament of Holy Orders, will “descend” the steps of the ministry. I deliberately say “descend,” and not “ascend,” because being ordained is not an ascent but a descent, whereby we make ourselves small. We lower ourselves and divest ourselves. In the words of Saint Paul, through service, we leave behind the “earthly man,” and put on, in charity, the “man of heaven” (cf. 1 Cor 15:45-49). 

 

Jubilee of Deacons

 The days 21-23 February 2025 are to be marked as a Jubilee of Deacons, that is, as a celebration of the life of the Permanent Diaconate in the life of the Church. Alongside the immediate events of the Jubilee, the Dicastery for the Clergy are holding an International Meeting: Deacons in a Synodal and Missionary church: being witnesses of hope, intended to examine the future of the ministry of Deacons in the Church and launching a consultation to that end.

The introduction to the Basic Norms for the Formation of Permanent Deacons (1998) refers to how, in its Constitution Lumen Gentium, Vatican II allowed for the restoring of a Permanent Diaconate, indicating three reasons for this choice:

The second Vatican Council established that “it will be possible for the future to restore the diaconate as a proper and permanent rank of the hierarchy....(and confer it) even upon married men, provided they be of more mature age, and also on suitable young men for whom, however, the law of celibacy must remain in force”, in accordance with constant tradition. Three reasons lay behind this choice: (i) a desire to enrich the Church with the functions of the diaconate, which otherwise, in many regions, could only be exercised with great difficulty; (ii) the intention of strengthening with the grace of diaconal ordination those who already exercised many of the functions of the Diaconate; (iii) a concern to provide regions, where there was a shortage of clergy, with sacred ministers.

The Basic Norms for the Formation of Permanent Deacons (n.9) describes the office of the Deacon as follows:

The ministry of the deacon is characterised by the exercise of the three munera proper to the ordained ministry, according to the specific perspective of diakonia.

In reference to the munus docendi the deacon is called to proclaim the Scriptures and instruct and exhort the people. This finds expression in the presentation of the Book of the Gospels, foreseen in the rite of ordination itself.

The munus sanctificandi of the deacon is expressed in prayer, in the solemn administration of baptism, in the custody and distribution of the Eucharist, in assisting at and blessing marriages, in presiding at the rites of funeral and burial and in the administration of sacramentals. This brings out how the diaconal ministry has its point of departure and arrival in the Eucharist, and cannot be reduced to simple social service.

Finally, the munus regendi is exercised in dedication to works of charity and assistance and in the direction of communities or sectors of church life, especially as regards charitable activities. This is the ministry most characteristic of the deacon.

 So far as I can tell, the ministry of Permanent Deacons in my own country is exercised mostly in the context of parishes. I think this does lead to a problem, in that the ministry of the Deacon is too easily perceived and experienced as being carried out as a delegation from the parish priest. It also lends itself to the phenomenon of "retirement ministry", that is, the Diaconate being undertaken as something that is done as a man retires from a secular job.

On the contrary, I feel that the Permanent Diaconate is more fully exercised in a secular or professional context. A Deacon who is a school chaplain, for example, can readily exercise aspects of all three of the munera described above within the educational context, and in all likelihood with Qualified Teacher Status. Likewise, a hospital chaplain can exercise their ministry within the professional context of a health care setting, and might well be a trained healthcare professional themselves. Port and industrial chaplaincy can likewise be areas of work for a Deacon who has themselves a competence in one or other of those environments.

Some years ago now Deacon Pat Kearns posted Catholic Deacon - is he a parish activist or something else?, a post in which he describes how he understands his office as a then recently ordained Permanent Deacon. Deacon Pat has now, so far as I can tell from more recent posts on his blog, at least "semi-retired" from a post as a Director of Nursing at a 99 bed in-patient psychological hospital, a post which he held for a number of years. He had previously served as a medic in the US Navy, before working in the civilian nursing profession. If you wish to explore further the life and ministry of Deacon Pat, the homepage of his blog is Diakonia - Deacon Pat Kearns.