Mass practically begins with a “penitential act.” It’s the first order of business, right after the Sign of the Cross and a basic greeting. It says, “first things first”—let’s acknowledge our sins.¹

We should not discount that immediacy. The Penitential Act, which is a normative element (albeit with optional variations) of Mass throughout the liturgical year, signals an indispensable element of right worship and liturgy: man’s moral standing before his God.

God is holy; man is not. That dissonance is the barrier to right worship because it is the barrier to the divine-human relationship. The Old Testament repeatedly insists, for example, that cultic ritualism is no substitute for moral rectitude (though the latter also does not thereby dispense proper cult). Rite demands right heart.

So, putting God and man in right relationship is the first order of business in any liturgy. It’s reinforced by the priest in terms of his connection to both Word (his prayer before proclaiming the Gospel) and Sacrament (the washing of hands, Lavabo, during the offertory).

Sins and Sensibility

That said, exactly what is the sense and purpose of the penitential act?

I ask this question for a basic reason: it is not some quasi-sacramental absolution. It is a recollection that we are sinners and that sin impedes our relationship to God.

I am old enough to remember, when the Novus Ordo was introduced, that some priests (without rubrical warrant) would make a sign of the cross during the priest’s prayer (“May Almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins….”) following the communal acknowledgement of sinfulness (as, indeed, some laity do today). It almost suggested some form of absolution. Remember that the Novus Ordo preceded the revised Rite of Penance by about five years and, in the early 1970s, there was anticipation in some quarters for liberal general absolution.²

The Penitential Act is not a quasi-sacrament of Penance. Persons in mortal sin need recourse to the sacrament of Reconciliation to be put right with God; the Penitential Act is not the place for that. It is not a substitute for the sacrament.

Yes, persons contrite about venial sin can secure forgiveness through various acts, including devout reception of the Eucharist with detestation of sin. But there is a qualitative, not a quantitative difference between mortal and venial sins: mortal sins are not “grown up” venial sins. Venial sins represent an inhibition of divine grace, which can be forgiven if one is in a state of grace, for example, through Mass, prayer, or devout reception of the Eucharist. Mortal sin is the absence or rejection of God’s grace and can only be pardoned by recourse to Baptism or, subsequently, sacramental Penance.

The Penitential Act, for example, only implicitly recognizes sorrow for sin. The first (and most typical) option for the Penitential Act, Option A, is a truncated version of the old Confiteor. But the Confiteor is not an act of contrition per se: it acknowledges sinfulness and asks God for pardon and the communion of saints for prayer. But explicit regret for sin and firm purpose of amendment is not spoken.

The priest’s prayer concluding the Penitential Act is not declaratory but imprecatory, whereas Catholic teaching states that a valid act of absolution requires a declaration of binding or loosing, not just a prayer seeking it. Christ, after all, entrusted the ministry of the keys to his human ministers—persons, not to the ministry of praying for God to do it.

These observations—and how they interplay with mortal and venial sin—seem particularly apt in our times for two reasons. First, the phenomenon of frequent Communion but infrequent Confession, which raises the question of spiritual dullness to a sense of sin and complacency in its presence. Second, the relative lack of addressing that topic in the liturgy (e.g., St. Paul’s admonition against unworthy reception of the Eucharist in 1 Corinthians 11:27-28) appears relegated by the Lectionary to a weekday in Ordinary Time.

That is not to say that the Penitential Act is redundant. It is not. It is only to say it is not a sacramental encounter intended to deal with one’s spiritual state of mortal sin. It is a constant opportunity to “call to mind” the fact of human sinfulness, that is, to reacquire what for humans is always an eroding sense of sin, in order to seek God’s forgiveness. Properly understood, the dispositions stirred in the Penitential Act should kindle a greater connection to the Sacrament of Penance, and not just for “serious” sinners. That the great saints considered themselves great sinners when, objectively, that seemed not to be the case was not a matter of scrupulosity or false humility: it was a recognition that, in the presence of the Thrice-Holy God, all sin is alien, a lack of being—being which the Creator gave you and intended you to have.

The Penitential Act is also not an examination of conscience, in the sense the Sacrament of Penance requires, because it affords neither the time nor detail necessary for such an examination. Examining one’s conscience prior to Confession is intended to identify all mortal sins and their number to ensure an integral (and, therefore, valid) Confession. Nor is the Penitential Act something like the nightly examen, which not only should include a review of one’s failings throughout the day but also an overall look at how one responded (and did not) to God’s graces, to ask to “see one’s self as God sees him.” It is an awareness of our sinfulness, which is not generic (my sinfulness has specific contours that anybody honest with himself knows), but also sees it within the big perspective of human alienation from God by sin.

Sins and Sinners

Recovering that sense of sin is the purpose of the Penitential Act, along with recovering its dimensions both vertical (acknowledging to God our state and asking “blessed Mary, ever virgin, [and] all the angels and saints” for spiritual support) and horizontal (seeking spiritual solidarity “with you, my brothers and sisters”) in that effort. In that sense, Option A of the Penitential Act is also an expression of the communion of saints. (The same is true in the priest inviting us, including himself, to acknowledge our sins).

It’s why I have a liking for the French form of the Act. The Penitential Act in English begins with some version of the priest inviting us to “call to mind our sins.” That translation is accurate, because the Latin text—agnoscamus peccata nostra—focuses on sin.

The French text seems to be different: Preparons-nous a la celebration de l’Eucharistie en reconnaissant que nous sommes pecheurs (“Let us prepare for the celebration of the Eucharist by recognizing that we are sinners”). In some way, that French text seems better to express what seems to be the sense of the Penitential Act: not an examination of conscience for individual sins as much as an awareness that we are sinners and that reality is our major problem.

I am certainly not advocating for ex tempore liturgy that abandons the normative text (especially when it clearly matches the Latin text) but am asking what the other text might be telling us about this act and moment that’s valuable.

Option A, the most common, is a rich text. The other options, essentially variations on the Kyrie express another truth in connection with our sinfulness: the primacy of God’s love and mercy ready to forgive us if only we want it.

A final request: given the attenuated sense of sin in today’s world, celebrants should recognize the value of some silent time³ after inviting people to “acknowledge our sins.” A rapid and almost perfunctory jump to the Confiteor also sends the signal that reckoning with our sinfulness is given short shrift.

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1. “Their purpose is to ensure that the faithful, who come together as one, establish communion and dispose themselves properly to listen to the Word of God and to celebrate the Eucharist worthily” (General Instruction on the Roman Missal (GIRM), 46).
2. The GIRM unfortunately abets this thinking when it describes the Penitential Act as “a formula of general confession” (51).
3. GIRM, 45.