What is initiation?  According to the dictionary initiation means a “ceremony…. by which somebody is admitted to a group, organization, or religion.”  In our Catholic Faith we have three sacraments of initiation—Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Communion.  They are the three primary sacraments, on which the rest of our life as a Christian depends. In the early church they were tied very closely together, but now the three sacraments are celebrated at different milestones in our spiritual lives.   This weekend at…

 A Sense of the Season First, we kept the forty days, with praying, fasting and giving alms. Then we celebrated the three days of Christ’s passion, dying and rising. Now we delight in the fifty days, with rejoicing, feasting and giving witness! The season of Easter is fifty days long. It is a time of unbridled joy, of exuberant rejoicing. The church tells us, “The fifty days from Easter Sunday to Pentecost are celebrated in joyful exultation as one feast day, or better as one ‘great Sunday.’…

The Sacrament of Penance, popularly called “confession” and recently redubbed the “Rite of Reconciliation,” seems to have undergone a sea change in the last generation. But the difference is form, not substance. The name “Penance” focuses on what we must do to reform our lives. “Confession” emphasizes the need to be honest about what makes such change necessary. “Reconciliation” underscores the purpose of the sacrament: to restore our friendship with God. All of these names point to the same sacramental…