And he isn't at all interested in the young man's confession, only in celebrating. This is not the way we Catholics have viewed the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Nor is its dominant concern what we , the penitents, do. The important point is what God does in, with and through us. A journey home to God God's reconciling work in us doesn't happen in an instant.
Reconciliation is often a long, sometimes painful process.
It is a journey not confined to, but completed in, sacramental celebration. Celebration was seldom, if ever, part of the process. This helps us see why the theology of the new Rite of Reconciliation suggests a reordering in the pattern that we were familiar with in the past. None of the relationships he establishes are lasting. Eventually he discovers himself alone, mired in the mud of a pigpen, just as he is mired in sin.