Reconciliation is the sacrament, instituted by Christ, through which we acknowledge our sins to God’s chosen representative. After his resurrection, Jesus told his Apostles, “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained” (Jn 20:23). Jesus’ decision to give particular human beings the power to forgive or retain sins, may sound odd; after all, sin is a personal matter between God and an individual. Or is it? St. Paul says that all God’s commandments “are summed up in this saying, You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Rom 13:9). God created us as social beings, thoroughly dependent on one another for survival and affection, as well as for coming to know the love of God and that peace which “surpasses all understanding” (Phil 4:7). Finding ultimate fulfillment through love of God and neighbor is the very reason for life, so sin, in St. Paul’s definition, is whatever leads us away from our true end. If an action of mine harms another person, an apology is certainly called for. However, the love to which Christ invites us goes far beyond the need for an occasional apology. Loving as Christ loves requires that we grow in the cognizance of our sins, and of the serious effects they have on us and on those around us. Such knowledge takes work, and we are prone to easy excuses. The “rich man” of a recent Gospel was worried that the moral insensitivity of his brothers would land them alongside him in eternal punishment (Lk 16:19-31).