20. The Sacrament of Penance

 

For thirty years Christ, the Son of God, lived at Nazareth, the quiet retired life of a carpenter’s son. At the age of thirty He began His public life which lasted but for three years. In those three years that so changed the course of all history, the Redeemer of mankind was laying the foundations of His Church. Broad and deep must be these foundations, for they were the foundations of a Church that was to last till the end of time. For that reason He had said to His Apostle Simon: “Thou are Peter”, meaning that He was changing Simon’s name to that of Peter. Peter means rock, so Christ continues: “and upon this rock, I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” He was therefore building a Church that was not meant to be the salvation only of those who lived in the time of Christ, but for all men of all time. Hence He would leave with His Church the authority to deal with men of all time, to teach them and to administer the Sacraments that would be necessary for their spiritual life.

Entrance into the Church He made possible through the reception of the Sacrament of Baptism. This Sacrament would wash away from the soul any stain left upon the children of Adam through the sin of the disobedience of their first parents. That sin is called original sin. But Christ knew the weakness of men. He knew the temptations to sin that would surround them in this life, that might lead them to commit sin after their Baptism. He knew that they would need another source of forgiveness. He had come, as was said, not to save those who need not penance but to save sinners that were lost. Hence He gives to His Apostles and their successors the power to forgive sins. After His resurrection, He thus addresses His disciples: “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you. Receive ye the Holy Spirit, whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them, and whose sins ye shall retain, they are retained.” (Matt. 18.18) Again the Church does not dispute with Christ. Rather she takes Christ at His word and knows that her priests have the power of forgiving sins in His name.

All of us must work out our salvation in fear and trembling while we are upon this earthly pilgrimage. What a wonderful feeling of relief and consolation it is, then, to know that if we have sinned, we have the means of reconciliation with God at hand. The Sacrament by which sins committed after Baptism are forgiven is called the Sacrament of Penance. The sinner kneels at the feet of the priest; with sincere sorrow for having offended the Almighty God, he humbly confesses his sins and resolves with a firm purpose relying on God’s sure help to commit them no more. Then he hears the healing words of absolution fall from the lips of the priest who sits there in the place of Christ: “I absolve thee from thy sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Again we may ask, why doubt Christ, merely because He has been so good to us.