Feast of the Apostle St. Andrew - Advent Sunday 2B: "Repentance and Confessing One's Sins..."

SAINT ANDREW, THE APOSTLE

We humbly implore your majesty, O Lord, that, just as the blessed Apostle Andrew, was for your Church a preacher and pastor, so he may be for us a constant intercessor before you. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

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Saint André était de Bethsaïde en Galilée, sur les bords du lac de Tibériade. Avec son frère Pierre, il vivait de la pêche. C'était un assoiffé de Dieu. Il avait entendu la prédication de Jean le Baptiste, avait sans doute reçu son baptême de pénitence et était devenu l'un de ses disciples. Il avait su discerner l'exacte mission de Jean. Aussi, quand il l'entendit désigner Jésus : " Voici l'agneau de Dieu ", il le suivit pour ne plus le quitter. 

Saint André était apôtre, avant même d'en avoir reçu le titre. Il rencontre son frère Pierre et l'amène à Jésus. Il est l'homme qui sait nouer des contacts. Lors de la multiplication des pains, c'est André qui amène le jeune garçon portant ses cinq pains et ses deux poissons. Quand des Grecs veulent rencontrer Jésus, c'est à lui qu'ils s'adressent tout naturellement.

Des sources tardives font état de son supplice à Patras en Grèce. Au 4e siècle, ses reliques furent transférées à Constantinople. Une importante relique, qui avait été déposée au XVe siècle au Vatican, fut restituée en 1966 aux Orientaux en signe de la volonté de communion entre l'Église de Rome et les patriarcats orientaux. L'Ukraine voudrait qu'il ait été le premier évangélisateur de Kiev et l'Écosse l'a choisi comme patron national.

Le 30 novembre 2009, comme chaque année, le Saint-Père a adressé un message au Patriarche œcuménique de Constantinople à l’occasion de la fête de saint André, remis à SS Barthélémy I par le Cardinal Kasper, qui conduit la délégation romaine à Istanbul. Il y rappelle que la commémoration du patron de ce patriarcat, frère de saint Pierre, “doit encourager tous les chrétiens à répondre aux grands enjeux du moment, aux problèmes de plus en plus complexes qui se posent à la chrétienté”.

Nos Églises, écrit Benoît XVI, “se sont engagées depuis plusieurs décades dans la voie du rétablissement de la pleine communion. Et même si l’objectif n’est pas atteint, de grands pas en avant ont été faits, qui ont permis un approfondissement de nos liens”. Cette ouverture guide les travaux de la Commission mixte pour le dialogue qui s’est récemment réunie à Chypre, consacrés “à la mission de l’Évêque de Rome dans la communion ecclésiale du premier millénaire”, un thème reconnaît le Pape, “qui mérite une étude approfondie et un dialogue prudent dans la perspective de rapprocher les traditions ecclésiales orientales et occidentales pour les intégrer... L’Église catholique voit dans le ministère pétrinien un don du Seigneur fait à son Église, qui ne peut être interprété comme pouvoir mais comme communion au service de la vérité et de la charité. L’Évêque de Rome, qui préside cette charité...est le Serviteur des Serviteurs de Dieu... A la lumière du modèle du premier millénaire, il convient de trouver ensemble les formes permettant au Successeur de Pierre d’accomplir un service d’amour envers tous et reconnu de tous”. Au long de ce chemin vers la pleine communion, “il faut offrir un témoignage commun en œuvrant ensemble au bien de l’humanité, en défendant la dignité de la personne, en affirmant les valeurs fondamentales, en favorisant la justice et la paix. Les Églises orthodoxe et catholiques peuvent collaborer aussi dans la sensibilisation des gens aux responsabilités de l’humanité et à la défense de la création”.

Né à Bethsaïde en Galilée, frère de Simon Pierre et pêcheur avec lui, disciple de Jean-Baptiste, il fut le premier appelé par Jésus sur les bords du Jourdain; il le suivit et lui amena son frère.

La tradition rapporte qu’après la Pentecôte, il annonça l’Évangile en Achaïe et mourut en croix à Patras. L’Église de Constantinople le vénère comme son illustre patron.

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Second Sunday in Advent (Year “B”) - December 4, 2011

Luca Giordano (1634-1705), St. John the Baptist Preaching (circa 1695)
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

“REPENTANCE FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS”
[Texts: Isaiah 40.1-5, 9-11 [Psalm 85]; 2 Peter 3.8-15; Mark 1.1-8]

Next summer we will celebrate ten years since Blessed Pope John Paul II attended Toronto’s World Youth Day.  One of the highlights of World Youth Day in Toronto was Duc in Altum Park. 

There, on the shores of Lake Ontario, steps from the main gathering point at CNE Grounds, the Knights of Columbus arranged a peaceful setting for young people to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  Large numbers of bishops and priests made themselves available to hear confessions.

And celebrate this encounter with Christ's representatives mediating forgiveness they did—in droves!  Similar scenes were replayed during the overnight vigil at the Downsview Lands where the closing Mass was held.

In May of that year, prior to coming to Toronto, Pope John Paul had referred to a similar embrace of the Sacrament of Penance by youth at Rome's Circus Maximus at the 2000 World Youth Day—along with other signs of a return to Confession—as reasons for pastors to show greater confidence, creativity and perseverance in presenting the worth of sacramental confession to the faithful.

In his personal administrative document (motu proprio) entitled Misericordia Dei (“God's Mercy”), the Holy Father had laid out specific steps to be taken by conferences of bishops to ensure, as much as they can, that God's people are able to personally receive the graces of this sacrament.

The Holy Father said that this was particularly needed in regions where there was a danger of people abandoning personal confession because widespread use of general or communal absolution (permitted by the Third Rite of Reconciliation) made it no longer appear to be what it was meant to be, an extraordinary pastoral means for exceptional circumstances. 

This, Pope John Paul said, leads to grave consequences for the spiritual life of the faithful and the holiness of the church.

At one of their annual plenary assemblies, the Canadian Bishops discussed the varying circumstances in their respective dioceses and drafted a response in answer to the Pope's request.  In it they committed themselves to do everything possible to foster communal celebrations of reconciliation in which penitents are able individually to confess their sins and individually receive absolution (the Second Rite of Reconciliation).  This step was to be taken along with that of encouraging priests to make themselves readily available to individuals for confession (the First Rite of Reconciliation).

Atonement, reconciliation and the forgiveness of sins are writ large in today's scriptural readings from Isaiah (“speak tenderly to Jerusalem...that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins”), the second epistle of Peter (“strive to be found...at peace, without spot or blemish”) and Mark's gospel.

Greek manuscripts did not use punctuation marks.  So the opening verse of Mark's gospel may be a title or the start of his message.  If the latter, Mark was stressing that, “the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was John baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet....” 

In other words, the gospel begins with repentance, confession and forgiveness!

We learn that when John preached repentance in view of God's offer of forgiveness, people who came to him for baptism were engaged in “confessing their sins”.  This was their response to the Baptist's invitation to “prepare the way of the Lord (=Jesus), make his paths straight”.

When Isaiah proclaimed the text John quoted, it told of God's arrival in the wilderness to bring people home from the Exile.  However, early Christians for whom Mark wrote understood it to refer to Jesus. And the exile that he released people from was the alienation from God in sin.

Though the Dead Sea Community—the Essenes of Qumran near where the Baptist preached—also practiced ritual washings, their ablutions were repeated.  John's immersion, however, occurred only once, like Christian baptism.  The ceremony either expressed their repentance or conveyed God's forgiveness and cleansing to the penitent.  The water ritual was understood to be effective only when the convert was truly contrite.

There is no reason that John's invitation to repent should not include Christians.  For the gospel-inspired call to repent post-baptismal sins has echoed through the ages, leading to various confessional practices in different eras. 

Lent especially and Advent have been liturgical seasons favouring celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, the confession of one's sins. It’s that time, then, this Advent for a spiritual check-up with one’s confessor to taste the renewal of life Christ offers his disciples in confession—the Sacrament of Reconciliation, of Healing, of Peace.