1802. The ongoing renewal of confessional practice has helped to form a more accurate view of sin.

Sin as faced in the Sacrament of Reconciliation can be described in terms of its basic reality, its structure, and its degree. In each division, we are concerned with how a truer, more accurate grasp of sin can foster a deeper contrition of heart and, more fruitful celebration of the Sacrament. By correcting common false, erroneous notions of sin, we remove one major factor that has contributed greatly to making past confessionalpracticeineffectiveandroutine. Dimensions of Sin 1. Reality 1803. All moral reality is made up of the objective nature of the act/attitude, the intention of the agent, and the circumstances. Sin as a moral reality is an attitude, an action or failure to act, or a power or force that leads us into evil. Sin separates us from, alienates us from, i.e., makes us strangers (aliens) from . . . what? From our true selves (intra-personal), our neighbors (interpersonal), the larger community (societal), and God, the ground and source of all three (cf. NCDP 259-63). Real sin hurts us and our loved ones. Real sin is no joke; contrary to how it is often portrayed in movies, TV, paperbacks, and comic books, sin is not glamorous at all. Just the opposite __ it really destroys, injures, dishonors, perverts, poisons, corrupts. Yet sin often has a compulsive aspect to it. We seem to be caught in it and addicted, like an illness that weakens us and keeps us in the dark, with its own kind of pain. The real sin, then, is not just a chance slip, or a momentary mistaken act that happened unnoticed. Real sin has roots that involve the objective moral order and our fundamental moral stance, that is, how we view what is good and what is evil for all, and our commitment to do the good. 2. Structure 1804. Sin, taken strictly, is always personal. But in a larger sense we speak of social and structural sin. These are distinguished by their proper structures and remedies. Personal sin is never just private, with no effect on anyone else. Rather, just as all persons are relational, always affecting others and the community in everything they do, and likewise being affected by what others do, so personal sin is neither committed nor overcome in private. The grace of personal conversion and repentance always involves a community dimension. Social sin refers to negative moral attitudes and acts or failure to act that are common to a community or particular society. Its remedy is to change what is negative or lacking in the communitys moral acts or attitudes into what is positive and graced. Structural sin is not a question of a particular persons or a communitys moral knowledge, attitudes and responsibility. Rather, it refers to existing structures that condition society in a harmful and unjust way, such as long-standing racial or sexist prejudicial structures, unjust economic taxation systems, established military and political customs, and unfair immigration legalities. These need to be reformed by a long tedious process of concerted social moral effort.

Therefore, since sin is never just a private, individualistic mistake, but always injures the community, it should not be confessed as some kind of superficial slip. Rather, we must go after the root causes of sin in our lives, like selfishness and pride, and with Gods grace perseveringly work against them. 3. Degree 1805. Sin can be venial or mortal depending on the different levels of MORAL EVIL involved. Traditionally, sin is defined as mortal when its nature, intention and circumstances involve grave matter, sufficient knowledge, and full consent of the will. Precisely because the act involved is serious in itself and we act with sufficient knowledge, profoundly engaging our freedom, such acts

A.

Marriage as Sacrament

1897. Catholic tradition has recognized marriage of the baptized is one of the seven sacraments of the New Covenant (FC 13; cf. Trent, ND 1808; CCC 1638). Marriage is seen as: a) an ongoing saving symbolic action, b) grounded in the ministry of Christ and continued in and through the Church, which c) when proclaimed, realized and celebrated in faith, d) makes present and actually shares in, Gods love and faithfulness in Jesus Christ, in the pattern of his Paschal Mystery. As the Third Preface of the Wedding Mass prays to the Father: The love of man and woman is made holy in the Sacrament of Marriage, and becomes the mirror of your everlasting love. III. LITURGY A. Nature of the Liturgy

1502. Thanks to the liturgical renewal, we now appreciate the original meaning of the word as the peoples work and public duty (cf. CCC 1069f). Liturgy used to bring to mind rubrics, or what priests do around altar in ceremonial worship. But now we realize that in the early Church, liturgy meant everything that all Christians did in taking part in Gods work, the divine plan to sum up all things in Christ (cf. Jn 17:4; Eph 1:10). This included not only divine worship, but proclamation of the Gospel (cf. Rom 15:16) and service of ones neighbor (cf. 2 Cor 9:12). Although liturgy today designates more properly the official public worship of the Church, these origins are important because they confirm PCP IIs stress on full, active participation of the whole People of God __ everyone __ and the essential inner connection of liturgy with social action (cf. SC 26f; CCC 1140f).

1503. Vatican II describes the liturgy as: an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ in which our human sanctification is manifested by signs perceptible to the senses and is effected in a way proper to each of these signs, so that full public worship is performed by the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, that is, by the Head and his members (cf. SC 7). The Council acknowledged that the liturgy does not exhaust the entire activity of the Church __ preaching the Gospel, inviting all to faith, conversion, observance of Christs commandments and works of charity, are explicitly mentioned (cf. CCC 1072). Nevertheless, the Council went on to affirm that liturgy is the summit towards which the activity of the Church is directed, and the fountain from which all her power flows (cf. SC 9-10; CCC 1074). The Church holds in highest esteem the rich variety of liturgies, both of the Western and of the Eastern Churches (cf. SC 37; EO 6). Trinitarian and Paschal 1506. The Churchs liturgical prayer is directed to the Father, through His Son, Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit. Its specific Trinitarian form takes on a Paschal quality since the liturgy celebrates the Good News of our actual salvation worked by the Blessed Trinity through Jesus Christs Paschal Mystery. The Trinity, then, far from being an abstract god of the theologians, is the concrete living, saving God who comes to us in the Risen Christ and the Spirit, within the Christian community, the Church (cf. CCC 1084ff). 2. Ecclesial 1507. Liturgy is the prayer of the Church gathered in assembly, an ecclesial activity, celebrated by the WHOLE Christ, Head and members (cf. SC 26f; LG 10; CCC 1140). That is, it is the action of Jesus Christ the Priest, and at the same time an activity of the community, a gathering together in an ordered assembly and communion of the baptized. Moreover, the liturgical assembly is arranged according to different roles: priest, deacon, readers, ministers of music and of communion, etc. While we all share the one Holy Spirit of love, different spiritual gifts or charisms are given to community members for the good of all. Thus, the power for salvation is mediated through various relationships within the Church. 1508. This ecclesial quality is especially important for Filipino Catholics because it draws them beyond family bonds of intimacy toward a community solidarity based on faith in Christ. Ecclesial solidarity is a community that has moved beyond the circle of intimacy toward unity and collaborative activity grounded on Christian discipleship rather than merely social relationships. In its authentic liturgy, the Church has always rejected the temptation to limit the understanding of Gods living Word to its earliest historical period, as the fundamentalists do; or to reduce Christian life to individualistic piety or group intimacy, as in sectarianism; or to make of faith a blind leap without any understanding, as fideism proposes. 3. Sacramental

1509. Basically the liturgy celebrates the Churchs prayer through a pattern of symbolic, ritual movements, gestures and verbal formulas that create a framework within which the corporate worship of the Church can take place. By participating in the liturgys sacramental, symbolic activities, the Church members both express their faith in Christ and their desire to deepen it, and actually share in the reality signified, namely, salvation through forgiveness and communion with the Risen, glorified Christ in the Spirit. Among the predominant symbols used in the liturgy are the gathering of the baptized assembly itself, the natural symbols from creation like light, darkness, water, oil, and fire, as well as humanly produced symbols like bread and wine, and specifically Christian salvific symbols like the reading and interpretation of Scripture as the living Word of God, the Sign of the Cross, the Paschal Candle, laying on of hands, etc. But the liturgys use of these symbols always involves persons, for they express the personal mystery of Gods love manifest in Christs Paschal Mystery (cf. CCC 1147-52). 4. Ethically Oriented 1510. The liturgy relates directly to moral life since it empowers the people of God to full Christian discipleship. Concretely, liturgical worship and Christian morality, both personal and social, go together. One goal of liturgical celebrations is that we, the faithful, return to our ordinary activities, newly strengthened in faith, confirmed in hope, and inspired with the power to love. Far from separating us from our ordinary work, duties, recreation, and relationships, the liturgy aims at confirming our mission as Christians to be the light of the world and leaven of the mass (cf. SC 9). For it is through the liturgy that the work of our redemption is exercised . . . [and] the faithful are enabled to express in their lives and manifest to others, the mystery of Christ and the real nature of the true Church (SC 2). One norm for judging authentic liturgical worship, then, is precisely its relation with service of our neighbor. 5. Eschatological 1511. The liturgys ethical dimension just described reveals its eschatological characteristic as well. The liturgy makes present (incarnational aspect) Christs saving Paschal Mystery whereby He inaugurated Gods rule, the Kingdom. But Gods Kingdom, already begun, has not yet been fully accomplished, as the early liturgical prayer, Marana tha, Come, Lord Jesus! clearly depicts. The liturgy, then, at once commemorates Christs past saving Mystery, demonstrates the present grace effects brought about by Christ, and points to the future glory yet to come. 1512. But this future orientation is operative now, and every moment of our daily lives. It is not the future dreamy illusion which the Marxists claimed. They charged that the Christian answer to social injustice and oppression was to suffer now to gain eternal happiness in heaven __ in other words, pie in the sky palliative. Rather this future-orientation is active now, just like the goal which galvanized Christs own ministry and mission, the very mission which Christ shares with us, his disciples, today. The liturgy, far from being some escape from the world, calls us to share in Christs own mission of saving the world. Again, we see the intrinsic connection

between authentic worship and Christian moral witness, which PCP II describes as the thrust for justice and preferential option for the poor. 1513. Both the eschatological future and the now dimensions are effectively brought together in celebrating the feasts and seasons of the Liturgical Year (cf. CCC 1163-73). Vatican II describes how in the course of the year, the Church unfolds the whole mystery of Christ from the Incarnation and Nativity to the Ascension, to Pentecost and the expectation of the blessed hope of the coming of the Lord (SC 102). This cycle includes five stages: 1) the Lords Day, 2) Holy Week, prepared for by Lent, 3) Advent, preparing for Christmas, 4) the 33 Sundays of the Ordinary Time, and 5) special Feasts, especially of Christ and Mary (cf. NCDP 336-41). Surely a practical and informed personal understanding of the liturgical seasons is one chief means for achieving the enthusiastic, active participation of the faithful in the Churchs worship, called for by our Second Plenary Council (cf. PCP II 176-82). 2. Marian Devotion in the Liturgy

1539. Devotion to the Blessed Virgin can therefore be said to be an integral element of Catholic worship (MC 58). The Post-Vatican II reform of the Churchs Liturgy made more organic and closely-knit the commemoration of Christs Mother in the annual cycle of the mysteries of her Son. Four Marian Solemnities are highlighted in the liturgical year: the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in Advent, December 8th; the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, January 1st.; the ancient feast of the Annunciation of the Lord, March 25th; and finally the Solemnity of the Assumption, August 15th, which is prolonged in celebrating the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary seven days later.

1540. Various other Marian feasts commemorate salvific events involving the Blessed Virgin: her nativity, September 8th; Our Lady of Sorrows, Mater Dolorosa, September 15th; Our Lady of the Rosary, October 7th; the Feast of the Presentation, La Candelaria, February 2nd; Our Lady of Lourdes, February 11th; her Visitation, May 31st; and Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, July 16th. In addition, there are the Saturday Masses of Our Lady, and the revised Liturgy of the Hours __ all of which manifest the singular place that belongs to Mary in Christian worship as the holy Mother of God and the worthy Associate of the Redeemer (MC 15). 3. Mary, Model of the Church in Prayer 1541. Mary is proposed as a model of the spiritual attitude with which the Church celebrates and lives the divine mysteries (MC 16). She is the exemplar of the Church in the order of faith, charity, and perfect union with Christ (LG 63). Paul VI develops this in terms of Mary as the attentive Virgin, the Virgin in prayer, the Virgin-Mother, and the Virgin presenting offerings (cf. MC 17-20). Mary becomes not only an example for the whole Church in offering divine worship, but also a teacher of the spiritual life for individual Christians (MC 21).

1542. The Church expresses this relationship to Mary in various attitudes of devotion. These include: profound veneration before the Woman chosen by God to be Mother of the Incarnate Word, Jesus; burning love for Mary, our spiritual Mother as members of the Church; trusting invocation to Mary our Advocate and Helper; loving service to the humble Handmaid of the Lord; zealous imitation of Marys virtues and holiness; profound wonder at the faultless model, the most excellent fruit of the redemption (cf. SC 103); and attentive study of the Associate of the Redeemer, already sharing the fruits of the Paschal Mystery (MC 22).

V. SACRAMENTALS AND POPULAR RELIGIOSITY A. Sacramentals

1532. Besides the seven ritual sacraments, the People of God, the Church, over the centuries has instituted sacramentals (cf. CCC 1667-73). They are objects, actions, practices, places, and the like, that help us become aware of Christs grace-filled presence around us or liberate from the presence of the Evil One (exorcism). They help us receive the sacraments with greater fruit, and render holy various occasions in life (SC 60). Like the sacraments, they are sacred signs/symbols which signify some spiritual effect which is realized through the action of the Church. But they differ from the seven sacraments in that they are not instituted by Christ as described above, but by the Church, which uses them to sanctify everyday life. They do not directly modify our grace-relationship with Christ, but rather arouse us to acts of virtue and piety which strengthen Gods grace-filled presence within and among us. 1533. In disposing us toward more fruitful celebration of the sacraments, sacramentals continue the work of the sacraments and thus can be viewed as extending or prolonging the sacraments. For example, the sprinkling of holy water at the beginning of Mass extends the sacrament of Baptism; the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament prolongs the sacrament of the Eucharist; the blessing of place of our work is an extension of the sacrament of Confirmation. Vatican II describes how sacraments and sacramentals work together: For well-disposed members of the faithful, the liturgy of the sacraments and sacramentals sanctifies almost every event in their lives with divine grace that flows from the Paschal Mystery of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ. From this source all sacraments and sacramentals draw their power (SC 61). 1534. Sacramentals are very popular among Filipinos, who eagerly make use of blessings (homes, cars, buildings), actions (kneeling, bowing, making the Sign of the Cross), words (grace

before and after meals, indulgenced novena prayers, pious invocations, litanies), objects (ashes, palms, candles, crucifixes, rosaries, scapulars, statues), places (churches, shrines), and time liturgical seasons (cf. Advent, Lent, Holy Week). Filipinos tend naturally to seek concrete sensible expression of their Faith and religious experience. This is most manifest in their popular religiosity. B. Popular Religiosity

1535. PCP II called for a renewal of popular piety that involves the critical and fervent use of popular religious practices. It praised these as rich in values in that they manifest a thirst for God and enable people to be generous and self-sacrificing in witnessing to their faith. They show a deep awareness of Gods attributes: fatherhood, providence, loving and constant presence. They engender attitudes of patience, the sense of the Cross in daily life, openness to others and devotion (PCP II 172; cf. CCC 1674-76). 1536. But the Council also expressed the need to foster these popular religious practices in such a way that they do not become distortions of religion or remain superficial forms of worship, but become rather true expressions of faith. It warned that our pastoral practice must ensure that the Catholic religion does not become saint or Mary-centered, but that it always remains Christ-centered. This can be done if popular religious practices lead to the liturgy and are vitally related to Filipino life by serving the cause of full human development, justice, peace, and the integrity of creation (PCP II 173-75). But for the great mass of ordinary Filipino Catholics, popular religiosity means some form of devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Ang Mahal na Birhen. It is fitting to conclude this Exposition of Catholic Prayer and Worship for the Filipino by explaining in some detail authentic Catholic devotion to Mary. IV. SACRAMENTS 1517. The Churchs basic response to the obstacles posed above is the Vatican II sponsored radical renewal of the liturgy of the sacraments. The PCP II depicts the sacraments as the center of Catholic life. Just as without Christ, Christian Faith is impossible, so without the sacraments, there could be no Catholic Church. Two new emphases stand out: first, the seven ritual sacraments are grounded directly in both Christ, the Primordial Sacrament, and the Church as the basic or Fundamental Sacrament. Thus, the seven ritual sacraments are defined as actions of Christ and of the Church (CJC 840) which unite us to Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, and incorporate us into his Body, the Church. The second emphasis is drawing the sacraments closer to everyday life, especially by recognizing the essential role of symbol in all human life. 1518. The basics of the sacraments remain the same. A sacramental celebration is an encounter of Gods adopted sons and daughters with their Father, through Christ in the Spirit, expressed as a dialogue through actions and words (CCC 1153). Catholic sacraments are at once sacraments:

of Christ in origin and presence, of the Church, in the sense that they are by and for the Church, of Faith, as condition and ongoing expression, of salvation, as efficacious and necessary means, of eternal life, as their ultimate goal.

They are efficacious signs of grace, originating in Christ and confided to his Church, by which the divine life of grace is instilled or deepened within us (cf. CCC 1114-31). 1519. What is new in the Churchs sacramental renewal is evidenced in how it enlarges the older vision, while correcting and purifying many misunderstandings and inadequate ideas and attitudes that had grown up. Thus we shall structure this exposition according to the traditional three-part definition of a sacrament, namely, a sensible sign, instituted by Christ, to give grace. 1520. Sensible sign. For many, this sign notion is one step away from real reality, separated from the daily work-a-day world, a bit of play-acting best fitted for children and pious people. Just the expression receiving rather than celebrating the sacraments can indicate that for many Filipinos, sacraments are still commonly reduced to individual acts of piety, isolated from daily practical moral life, and from any real ecclesial activity. Separated, too, are they from the great biblical themes of liberation and freedom. 1521. In contrast, todays sacramental renewal recognizes the difference between mere indicative signs and signs that are symbols. Some signs merely point to something else __ like indicating the proper direction to take, and therefore have one, single meaning. But others are super-charged with a variety of meanings that we discover rather than create; these we call Symbols. Taken as symbolic acts, sacraments are performative word events __ like Jesus own ministry of words and deeds __ real happenings that make present the spiritual reality they express. This absolutely essential importance of symbol is true of every aspect of our lives, natural/secular as well as religious. All interpersonal human life depends on symbols __ our family relationships, our friendships, the very reality of all our social, political, and cultural ties. 1522. Far from being separate from daily real life, or fit only for children and the pious, then, sacraments as saving symbolic actions have a concrete anthropological basis. As human persons we are embodied spirits who live and act with others in community, in and through our bodies. Spiritual realities like love and freedom touch us through the material conditions of our lives. Seen from this anthropological view, sacraments communicate through touch (anointing, imposing hands, washing, embracing), through gestures (standing, bowing, sitting, kneeling) and through words (proclaimed, listened to, spoken and responded to). It is through these human means of communication that the divine life and love is communicated in the sacraments. 1523. Stressing symbol in understanding the sacraments helps avoid our common temptation to an overly materialistic view that locates the sacred solely in the objectified, mechanical elements, isolated from their proper liturgical usage which includes words, gestures and acts. It is not the isolated, objectified, physical baptismal water, or the oil/chrism that

mechanically sanctifies, but rather their use in the total symbolic action of washing/bathing and anointing when celebrated in faith in the liturgical ritual. 1524. Instituted by Christ. This expresses the essential link between the sacraments and Christ. But unfortunately through the centuries this link became reduced to Jesus started them all. How precisely, or why Christ did so, and how the sacraments were continued in the Church up to the present, were lost sight of. The liturgical renewal has vigorously made up for these deficiencies by the key insights of Jesus as Primordial Sacrament, and the Church as the Foundational/basic Sacrament. Briefly, Jesus in his humanity is the sacrament of Gods saving love for all; the Church is the sacrament of Jesus, and the seven ritual sacraments are sacraments of the Church, that is, they visibly manifest and effectively enact the Churchs mystery and mission of making Christ present. 1525. Instituted by Christ does not mean that Jesus taught his apos-tles in detail that there were to be seven sacraments, and how to administer them. Rather Jesus instituted the sacraments by first being the sacrament of his Father through his whole life of word and action, and then by establishing the Church to be his basic sacrament. The Church makes Christ present to all persons in every age first, by being his Body, and second, by celebrating those actions that continue Christs own ministry. The Church has had a definite role to play in the gradual development of our present seven ritual sacraments. Yet, each of the sacraments celebrated by the Church re-enacts certain acts of Jesus own public ministry. 1526. Actions of Christ Leading to His Fullness. By being the Primordial Sacrament, Jesus Christ is much more than simply the originator of the Sacraments. He is at once the SOURCE, the PRIMARY AGENT and the GOAL of all sacramental activity. As SOURCE, Christ is the one in whom all the sacraments are rooted and from whom they derive their efficacy. As PRIMARY AGENT, he is the one who, through the actions and words of the minister celebrating the various sacraments, baptizes, confirms, forgives, and reconciles, heals, offers himself in sacrifice, binds in faithful love and consecrates for service. As GOAL of all sacraments, Christ is the perfection toward which our life on earth tends. Not only does he challenge us to a response of love, but effectively empowers us, through the Holy Spirit, to grow into his fullness, i.e., to attain the perfection of holiness that he is. When properly received, then, the sacraments gradually fashion us ever more to the image and likeness of Christ. Thus, briefly expressed, when we say that Christ is the Primordial Sacrament in reference to the seven ritual sacraments, we mean that they: a) arise from the saving ministry of Christ, b) are continued in, by and for the Church, and c) form us in likeness to Christ in his Paschal Mystery (cf. CCC 1114-18).