Reconciliation and the Divine Liturgy

[Little_Boy_Lost]

Hi all,

I recently encountered a dilemma. I usually meet with my spiritual father about once a month, usually I try for twice, and in most cases I end our meeting by asking for the mystery of reconciliation from him. Last time we met I asked him about Byzantine confession frequency and how it relates to the reception of the Eucharist since I’ve heard varying opinions from EOs. I asked about the words before communion ‘be not for my condemnation’ and ‘shed for the remission of sins’ as well as what defined a “mortal” or “grave” sin. He told me that the definition of a Grave sin is not clear cut or as categorized as in Western theology and pointed out 5 sins that Church Fathers suggested are necessary for the reception of reconciliation before the partaking of the Body of Christ. Beyond that, the mercy of our Lord is given to us in the Sacrifice during the Divine Liturgy and said the words of the priest are not just “Body of Christ” or “Blood of Christ” but also included “For the remission of sins”.

The Mystery of Reconciliation he said is a synergy with Holy Communion that works together for our Deification and is not a prerequisite or something that must be checked off before being allowed to receive the precious body and blood. So I asked him when must a Byzantine go to confession then? And he said that the Fathers prescribed seeking the Holy Mystery at least once during the four great fasting periods.

This was interesting but I hadn’t really read anything about the Holy Mystery from a Byzantine Catholic (or other Eastern Catholic) perspective so I have no reference or comparison. The reason I brought this up was I just went to mass last night and received communion at the Feast of Saint Nicholas and I hadn’t been to mass in two weeks so I really wanted to go. I mentioned it to a Traditionalist Roman friend of mine and he was mortified that I was gonna go and not seek reconciliation before hand and proceeded to council me for a a half hour about the sacrilege I was going to commit. I felt guilty and so I prayed about the decision all through mass and felt nothing either barring me from communion or pushing me forward so I communed. Now I guess what I’m trying to get at is are the regulations and customs about different than Rome’s Canons and was my father telling me right about how confession is understood in the tradition I am practicing in? Sorry for the lengthy description but I wanted to provide as much information as possible. Thanks in advance!

 

[Alveus_Lacuna]

At my Serbian Orthodox parish we always do confession before Holy Communion, so if one communes weekly (which is uncommon in the Serbian Church, but most in our congregation do) then one is expected to participate in all of the fasting requirements for the week. So I don’t receive the Body and Blood if I have been lax in fasting without a confession first, or if I have the guilt of a serious sin on my soul.

But as long as one is doing the weekly fasting, doing all of the pre-communion prayers the night before or the morning of, and doing the strict fast from midnight the night before, and has no serious sins on their conscience or soul, then one can receive without confession. But at my parish even if we do not confess our priests asks us to approach as if we were to confess at Vespers or Matins and receive a blessing to partake, simply letting him know we are at peace. I think the main concern is to prevent people from just walking up every week for communion with no preparation at all, because this is very dangerous. One can be eating and drinking judgment on themselves, and as St. Paul says this can cause sickness or even death, so it’s not something to take lightly (not to imply that you are).

I think in the Greek/Arab traditions confession is typically pretty infrequent. I don’t know that I could adjust to this and would probably just ask the priest for a weekly confession anyway if he would do it, because I seem to manage to fall into some grave (“mortal”) sin almost every week, unfortunately.

Anyway, if your conscience is clear, then yes partaking of the Mysteries washes away all sins, and our God is merciful.

 

[Little_Boy_Lost]

Thanks Alevus. During the afternoon since I posted I found two essays on Communion and Confession from the Greek Orthodox Church in the US and the Orthodox Church in America. Here is the OCA document.

oca.org/DOCencyclical.asp?SID=12&ID=3

This part begins the section that was of most interest to me.

When the communion of the entire congregation at each Liturgy, as an act expressing their very participation, in the Liturgy, ceased to be a self-evident norm and was replaced by the practice of a very infrequent, usually once-a-year, communion, it became natural for the latter to be preceded by the Sacrament of Penance i.e., confession and reconciliation with the Church through the prayer of absolution.

This practice, natural and self-evident in the case of infrequent, once-a-year, communion, led to the appearance in the Church of a theory according to which the communion of laity, different in this from the communion of clergy, is impossible without the Sacrament of Penance, so that confession is an obligatory condition - always and in all cases - for communion. I dare to affirm that this theory (which spread mainly in the Russian Church) not only has no foundation in Tradition, but openly contradicts the Orthodox doctrine of the Church, of the Sacrament of Communion and of that of Penance.