Who Instituted the Sacrament of Penance?

Jesus himself instituted the sacrament of Penance when he showed himself to his apostles on Easter day and commanded them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (Jn20:22a-23.

Nowhere did Jesus express more beautifully what happens in the sacrament of Penance than in the parable of the Prodigal Son: We go astray, we are lost and can no longer cope. Yet our Father waits for us with great, indeed, infinite longing; he forgives us when we come back; he takes us in again, forgives our sins.
Jesus himself forgave the sins of many individuals; it was more important to him than working miracles.

Jesus forgave sins in power of the Holy Spirit, and he handed the power on to his Apostles. We fall into the arms of our heavenly Father when we go to a Priest and confess. God alone can forgive sins. Jesus could say “Your sins are forgiven” (Mk 2:5) only because Jesus has given them that authority.

Many people say, “I can go directly to God; why do I need a priest?” God, though, wants it otherwise. We rationalize our sins away and like to sweep things under the rug. That is why God wants us to tell our sins and to acknowledge them in a personal encounter. Therefore, the following words from the Gospel are true of priests: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (Jn 20:23).

When did Christ institute the Eucharist?

Christ Instituted the Holy Eucharist on the evening before his death, "on the night when he was betrayed" (1 Corinthians 11:23), when he gathered the Apostles around him in the Upper Room in Jerusalem and celebrated the Last Supper with them.

"For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said 'This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way also the chalice, after supper, saying, 'This chalice is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me' (1 Corinthians 1123:25).

This, the oldest account of the events in the Upper Room at the last Supper, is by the Apostle Paul, who was not an eyewitness himself, but rather wrote down what was being preserved as a holy mystery by the young Christian community and was being celebrated in the liturgy.

The celebration of the Eucharist is the heart of the Christian communion. In it the Church becomes Church. We are not Church because we get along well, or because we happen to end up in the same parish community, but rather because in the Eucharist we receive the Body of Christ and are increasingly being transformed into the Body of Christ.

What is the Holy Eucharist?

1. "THANK YOU JESUS" for the Gift of Yourself.
Holy Eucharist is the Sacrament in which Jesus Christ gives his body and blood - HIMSELF - for us, so that we too might give ourselves to him in love and be united with him in Holy Communion. In this way we are joined with the one body of Christ, the Church.

2. Jesus sacrifice on the cross is made present.
After baptism and confirmation, the Eucharist is the third sacrament of Initiation of the Catholic Church. The Eucharist is the mysterious center of all these sacraments, because the historic sacrifice of Jesus on the cross is made present during the words of consecration in a hidden, un-bloody manner. Thus the celebration of the Eucharist is "The source and summit of the Christian Life" (Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium,11).

3. Eucharist unites us with the Love of Jesus for us.
Everything aims at this; besides this there is nothing greater that one could attain.
When we eat the broken bread, we unite ourselves with the love of Jesus, who gave his body for us on the wood of the Cross;
When we drink from the chalice, we unite ourselves with him who even poured out his blood out of love for us.

We did not invent this ritual. Jesus himself celebrated the Last Supper with his disciples under the signs of bread and wine and commanded them from then on, even after his death, to celebrate the Eucharist. "Do this in remembrance of me" (1 Corinthians 11:24)

What does Sacred Scipture say about the Sacrament of Confirmation?

In the Old testament, the People of God expected the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Messiah. Jesus lived his life in a special Spirit of love and of perfect unity with his Father in heaven.

This Spirit of Jesus was the "Holy Spirit" for whom the people of Israel longed;
 - this was the same Spirit whom Jesus promised to his disciples,
 - the same Spirit who descended upon the disciples fifty days after Easter, on the feast of Pentecost.  - and it is again this same Holy Spirit of Jesus who descends upon everyone who receives the Sacrament of Confirmation.

In the Acts of Apostles, which were written a few decades after the death of Jesus, we see Peter and John traveling about to confirm new Christians by imposing hands on those who previously "had only been baptized in the name of Lord Jesus", so that their hearts might be filled with the Holy Spirit.

"From that time on the apostles, in the fulfillment of Christ's will, imparted to the newly baptized by the laying on of hands the gift of the Spirit that completes the grace of Baptism. For this reason in the Letter to the Hebrews the doctrine concerning Baptism and the laying on of hands is listed among the first elements of Christian instruction. The imposition of hands is rightly recognized by the Catholic tradition as the origin of the sacrament of Confirmation, which in a certain way perpetuates the grace of Pentecost in the church" (Pope Paul VI).

What happens in Confirmation?

In Confirmation the soul of a baptized Christian is imprinted with a permanent seal that can be received only once and marks this individual forever as a Christian. The gift of the Holy Spirit is the strength from above in which this individual puts the grace of his Baptism into practice through his life and acts as a "witness" for Christ.

To be confirmed means to make a "covenant" with God.

The confirmand says:
"Yes, I believe in you, my God; give me your Holy Spirit, so that I might belong entirely to you and never be separated from you and may witness to you throughout my whole life, body and soul, in my words and deeds, on good days and bad."

And God says:
"Yes, I believe in you, too, my child- and I will give you my Spirit, my very self. I will belong entirely to you. I will never separate myself from you, in this life or eternally in the next. I will be in your body and your soul, in your words and deeds. Even if you forget me, I will still be there - on good days and bad".

Candidates for Confirmation, as for Baptism, fittingly seek the spiritual help of a sponsor. To emphasize the unity of the two sacraments, it is appropriate that this be one of the baptismal godparents.