Confession for RCIA Candidates And More on the Prayer of the Faithful

ROME, NOV. 1, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University.

Q: Recently I received a baptized Christian into the Catholic Church during a Mass in which the person received holy Communion. The RCIA ritual encourages the candidate to go to confession before the Mass and Communion, and this was done. However, since the confession was made before the candidate was actually in the Catholic Church, how could it have been a valid Catholic sacrament? Or does the absolution take effect only when the person is received into the Church? I cannot fit this event into my traditional understanding of Catholic sacraments. -- D.J., Buffalo, New York

A: We briefly addressed this question in a follow-up on April 27, 2004, in which we said:

"A catechist from Michigan asked if candidates in the RCIA may receive the sacrament of penance before they have been formally initiated into the Church.

"In this case we are dealing with Christians validly baptized but who have not yet made their solemn entrance into the Catholic Church nor received the sacraments of confirmation and Eucharist.

"This case is already foreseen in the appendix to the Introduction to the Rite for the Christian Initiation of Adults.

"Norm No. 9 stipulates that if the candidate is to admitted to the Catholic Church during Mass (the usual practice), then beforehand, the candidate, having considered his personal condition, confesses his past sins after having informed the priest of his proximate admission.

"Any priest with faculties for hearing confessions may receive this confession.

"Thus, not only may the future Catholic make his confession before being formally received but in general he or she should do so."

Thus there is no question regarding the canonical legitimacy of the practice described. Yet, this does not answer the theological difficulties experienced by our reader.

Perhaps an answer could be found by making a distinction between impediments to the valid reception of a sacrament stemming from divine law and those stemming from Church law.

From the point of view of divine law, baptism is absolutely necessary before receiving any other sacrament. Once baptism has been received, however, the person has at least the root possibility of receiving some of the other sacraments even though other impediments might exist.

A person baptized as a Protestant (Eastern Christians are in a very different position) is usually impeded from receiving the sacraments of confirmation, Eucharist, penance, anointing and holy orders due to their lack of communion with the Catholic Church.

The Church usually recognizes the sacramental quality of any valid marriage between a baptized man and woman.

Since most of the impediments to valid reception of these sacraments by non-Catholic Christians are rooted in Church law, not divine law, the Church itself may decide under what conditions a person not within her fold may receive the comfort of some of her sacraments and thus lift the impediment to invalidity.

Such conditions are set out, for example, in the Ecumenical Directory, and usually require grave conditions such as danger of death, the spontaneous request of the person desiring the sacrament, and faith in the Catholic understanding of the sacrament by the person requesting it.

In the case of the person who is about to be received into full communion, the Church creates, so to speak, an automatic exception which makes the sacrament of reconciliation both valid and licit for the person involved.

Although this answer may be a trifle speculative, I hope it is sufficient to clear up the difficulties.

* * *

Follow-up: Concluding the Prayer of the Faithful

Readers sought some clarifications regarding aspects of the Prayer of the Faithful (see Oct. 18).

Before responding, I would point out that, although this form of prayer has very ancient roots, its present form is fairly novel in liturgical practice and thus there are no traditional norms regarding its practice.

As a consequence, several slightly diverse customs have arisen and it is not easy to say if one is necessarily more correct than another.

Apart from the norms quoted in the previous column we could say that a rule of thumb is that they be guided by common sense and that the petitions should be clear and brief, couched in general terms, and should not be multiplied beyond measure.

Some readers asked if it were permissible for the faithful to be invited to formulate spontaneous petitions from the pews.

While there is no rule forbidding this, I think it is a practice best reserved for smaller groups who have the necessary experience to formulate appropriate petitions. Such groups could be those who regularly attend daily Mass, religious communities, and prayer groups.

It is probably wisely avoided at a parish Sunday Mass, since the number of petitions could easily become inflated or their content turn out to be excessively personal, verbally garbled or political. They could even create annoyance if the same people tend to dominate the "spontaneous" petitions week after week.

Some other readers asked about the practice of reciting the Hail Mary during the Prayer of the Faithful.

While this custom is not universal, it seems to have its roots in English liturgical practice from even before the Second Vatican Council. One reader suggested that a document exists impeding this practice, but I have been unable to find it. I would say that, barring some authoritative intervention, the practice could continue where it has been customary to do so.

The objections to the use of the Hail Mary are usually based on the principle that liturgical prayers are practically always directed to the Father, and on rare occasions to the Son.

However, when the Hail Mary is used in the Prayer of the Faithful she is not addressed directly but is usually invoked as a mediator to carry our prayer to the Father within the context of the communion of saints.

This invocation is certainly unnecessary from a liturgical standpoint, and it is probably better not to introduce it where it does not exist. However, I do not believe it needs to be forbidden where already well established.

Finally an Irish priest asked if the celebrant could reserve a particular petition, such as for the soul for whom Mass is celebrated, to himself rather than to the deacon or reader. I would say that this may be done for good pastoral reasons, just as the priest may also add a particular intention which he believes should be kept in mind at that moment.

She may get a conditional baptism since she's not sure of the words used (does she know the denomination?) But that's at the discretion of her priest and after investigation, to-wit:

Can. 869 §1. If there is a doubt whether a person has been baptized or whether baptism was conferred validly and the doubt remains after a serious investigation, baptism is to be conferred conditionally.
§2. Those baptized in a non-Catholic ecclesial community must not be baptized conditionally unless, after an examination of the matter and the form of the words used in the conferral of baptism and a consideration of the intention of the baptized adult and the minister of the baptism, a serious reason exists to doubt the validity of the baptism.
§3. If in the cases mentioned in §§1 and 2 the conferral or validity of the baptism remains doubtful, baptism is not to be conferred until after the doctrine of the sacrament of baptism is explained to the person to be baptized, if an adult, and the reasons of the doubtful validity of the baptism are explained to the person or, in the case of an infant, to the parents.

She's going to have to clear this with her priest first, because if she's re-baptized that IIRC remits all sins committed prior to baptism. But if she's BEEN baptized already, she can confess beforehand.

I've found that priests are HAPPY to answer questions about stuff like this . . . I've never had one be grouchy or put me off, no matter how picky the question!

Thank you, please do add me to your ping list.

You have been added to the ping list.

I am coming from a Baptist background, so much of the ceremonies and actions are new to me

A suggestion. If you have cable or satellite dish, check the listings for EWTN. Monday evenings at 8pm, Marcus Grodi (a convert) hosts a live program, The Journey Home. Each week, he invites a guest to discuss his journey into the Cathoic Church. A word of caution: it's addictive ;-).

but I feel much more comfortable and relaxed in mass than I ever did in other services.

From Scott Hahn’s The Lamb's Supper - The Mass as Heaven on Earth.
Foreword by Fr. Benedict Groeschel.
Part One - The Gift of the Mass

Hahn begins by describing the first mass he ever attended.

"There I stood, a man incognito, a Protestant minister in plainclothes, slipping into the back of a Catholic chapel in Milwaukee to witness my first Mass. Curiosity had driven me there, and I still didn't feel sure that it was healthy curiosity. Studying the writings of the earliest Christians, I'd found countless references to "the liturgy," "the Eucharist," "the sacrifice." For those first Christians, the Bible - the book I loved above all - was incomprehensible apart from the event that today's Catholics called "the Mass."

"I wanted to understand the early Christians; yet I'd had no experience of liturgy. So I persuaded myself to go and see, as a sort of academic exercise, but vowing all along that I would neither kneel nor take part in idolatry."

I took my seat in the shadows, in a pew at the very back of that basement chapel. Before me were a goodly number of worshipers, men and women of all ages. Their genuflections impressed me, as did their apparent concentration in prayer. Then a bell rang, and they all stood as the priest emerged from a door beside the altar.

Unsure of myself, I remained seated. For years, as an evangelical Calvinist, I'd been trained to believe that the Mass was the ultimate sacrilege a human could commit. The Mass, I had been taught, was a ritual that purported to "resacrifice Jesus Christ." So I would remain an observer. I would stay seated, with my Bible open beside me.

As the Mass moved on, however, something hit me. My Bible wasn't just beside me. It was before me - in the words of the Mass! One line was from Isaiah, another from Psalms, another from Paul. The experience was overwhelming. I wanted to stop everything and shout, "Hey, can I explain what's happening from Scripture? This is great!" Still, I maintained my observer status. I remained on the sidelines until I heard the priest pronounce the words of consecration: "This is My body . . . This is the cup of My blood."

Then I felt all my doubt drain away. As I saw the priest raise that white host, I felt a prayer surge from my heart in a whisper: "My Lord and my God. That's really you!"

I was what you might call a basket case from that point. I couldn't imagine a greater excitement than what those words had worked upon me. Yet the experience was intensified just a moment later, when I heard the congregation recite: "Lamb of God . . . Lamb of God . . . Lamb of God," and the priest respond, "This is the Lamb of God . . ." as he raised the host. In less than a minute, the phrase "Lamb of God" had rung out four times. From long years of studying the Bible, I immediately knew where I was. I was in the Book of Revelation, where Jesus is called the Lamb no less than twenty-eight times in twenty-two chapters. I was at the marriage feast that John describes at the end of that very last book of the Bible. I was before the throne of heaven, where Jesus is hailed forever as the Lamb. I wasn't ready for this, though - I was at Mass!

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