Many people today, for very obvious reasons, are alienated from the Church. A greater number still live on the margins, no longer secure in their Catholic identity. Some of this alienation has its origins in the catalogue of abuses revealed in relatively recent times. But a considerable proportion of the alienation, I would contend, has its origins in the manner in which our culture has evolved. The church is no longer the dominant force it once was in our society. Traditionally, many practised their religion because it was the done thing in society. It was a religion of convention, not a religion of conviction. Practice was imposed, socially at any rate. Our Church as an institution now needs pruning. Many of our practices are there, not for any evangelical purpose now, but they are thought to have been always there. When the conventional props were removed, practice melted away with them. Many were alienated and horrified by recent scandals. But no matter how horrific the sin, the challenge of forgiveness remains. Others I suppose are alienated by the painful demands of the gospel. If the gospel fails to challenge our selfishness, if it fails to prick our consciences, then in all probability the gospel is not being presented properly.

So much healing and forgiving needs to be done in our Church. Yet the sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession) as traditionally practiced has all but fallen into disuse. I hear confessions every Saturday for a couple of hours in the Augustinian. I come out of the confessional most Saturdays in a state of depression. People are obsessed with sexuality and sin. The darkness of their obsession blocks out the light and joy of God's love. I have spoken at length to young women in particular on this matter. They no longer go to confession. These girls -in their 20s and 30s, are deeply spiritual people, genuinely good people. They shun the sacrament as it is presently practiced and I have to say I think they are dead right. They will be spared much pain and much neurosis. And I believe that they are as close to God as their grandmothers and mothers ever were. But, whatever the source of our alienation, today’s gospel extract assures us that we have an indiscriminate saviour. He ‘came to calls sinner, not saints’, to paraphrase Luke.

Jesus entered into the human condition fully, and experienced hurt, pain and temptation, just like us. Throughout his short life, he preached a message of forgiveness: God forgives us and we are asked to forgive one another and indeed ourselves. He was criticised in his own day for this openness to sinners. We see an excellent example of this criticism from religious authority in today’s gospel extract: "Why does your master eat with tax collectors and sinners?" the Pharisee complained. As we see elsewhere in the gospels, his sympathies lie with the one sinner rather than with the ninety-nine righteous ones who have no need of repentance. He was notorious for this forgiving approach to people, obviously. We know from our own experience that forgiveness is the only way hurt can be healed. We know, for example, that if we do not forgive, our resentment eats us up internally. We end up as damaged as our victim. We need to forgive, and to be forgiven, both by God and by our fellow human beings. Forgiveness involves two-way traffic: forgiving and being forgiven. In fact forgiveness is a communal reality. When we damage one member of the community, the entire community is diminished. The traditional ‘Confession Box’ tended to obscure the communal. The impression was given that this was a matter between the sinner and the priest. (Admittedly, God occasionally got a look in!)

Communal Services of Penance and Reconciliation do help to restore this balance. There we face the full reality of our humanity, the full truth about ourselves, the dark side of our lives. The Christian community is, by definition, a sinful community. ‘It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. Go and learn the meaning of the words: what I want is mercy, not sacrifice.’ Jesus recognised that the human condition is flawed and tragic rather than culpable. Of course culpability exists aplenty, but sin is a more all-embracing reality. In fact some theologians have used the ‘Hospital’ as an analogy for understanding our universe and our place in it. That analogy has the advantage of recognition of universal sinfulness, if we equate some sinfulness at any rate with non-culpable illness! Into this hospital steps Jesus the healer. 'It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick.’ All are of course sick in some way or other and all stand in need of the Healer. Otherwise, we would have no need of God. We should be more willing to encourage than to criticise, to build up other people rather than to tear them down or tear them apart.

Evidence of t his sinfulness is everywhere to be seen in our world. We see it in the damaged, lonely people on our streets, we see it more dramatically in the mindless violence and vandalism. We see it in the faces of the poor; we hear it in the cry of the dispossessed. Of course we must take responsibility for our own contribution to this sinfulness. But we must also recognise that sinfulness is much bigger than ourselves, it predates us, and it will survive us. Because it is part of being human. At a Sacramental Reconciliation Service, we take personal responsibility of our contribution to that sordid side of human experience. We own up publicly to the fact that we too have been selfish and partook of evil. But we confess our contribution, not in any fatalistic or morose way, but in the confident hope of full forgiveness.

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