9781644135945

The Light of the World
whereby we may regain peace with God and with ourselves. “Peace be to you.” This holy
sacrament is His Easter greeting to His apostles, to His Church, and to us. He thus provides
a new proof of His love and solicitude for us. He wishes to enrich us with grace and grant
us forgiveness, even when we have been unfaithful.
“Peace be to you.” He sets no limits to the number of times we may receive this sacrament,
for He knows only too well our weakness and our instability. Neither does He set any limit on His
mercy in this sacrament. There is no sin, however frightful, which cannot be forgiven. Even venial
sins and the daily minor failings of which we are guilty, are matter for this sacrament. “Whose
sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them.” Christ’s mercy in giving us this sacrament shows us
how concerned He is that we become incorporated in Him through baptism and the Eucharist.
He wills that we be free from all sin and live as pure children of God. He desires that we begin
a new life, free of all sin or infidelity to the Father. Would that we might carry out His designs!
Mortal sin breaks and interrupts the organic and vital union of the baptized with Christ;
it separates the member from the head; it shears off the branch from the vine. Just as baptism
unites us to Christ the head, and elevates us so that we can participate through Christ in the
divine life of the Father and the Holy Spirit, so grievous sin destroys our vital union with Christ
the head, and thus also our union with God. In the moment of sin we cease to be children of
God, the objects of His benevolence and loving providence. We become loathsome and displeasing
to Him. He can no longer take up His abode in our souls. He is obliged to cast us off as
once He turned His face from Adam and Eve in Paradise and drove them from His presence. We
are cast forth from the kingdom of light; we cease to be children of God; we are hurled down
into the ugly abyss of sin. Our “end is destruction” (Phil 3:19).
But the Lord came in order that we “may have life” ( Jn 10:10), that holy life that overcomes
the world and death; the same life that He had after His Resurrection. On Easter day He instituted
the holy sacrament of penance, through the power of which our union with Christ,
broken by sin, is re-established. By this means we are reinstated in grace and become again
living members of the mystical body of Christ. “I desire not the death of the wicked, but that
the wicked turn from his way and live” (Ez 33:11).
We acknowledge with gratitude and faith the precious Easter gift which the Lord has given us
in the sacrament of penance. We recognize the apostles and their successors, the bishops and
priests, as having the commission and the power to forgive or retain our sins. They are, therefore,
placed over us as judges of our conscience. Because of these Easter gifts we subject ourselves
in obedience and with confidence to the priests who have been placed over us. From them we
seek and receive the forgiveness of our faults.
Since the Lord receives us in the sacrament of His mercy with so much love and solicitude,
it is fitting that we respond to His advances with a like generosity. Knowing the importance and
the efficacy of this sacrament, we should be eager to use it for the salvation of our soul and the
enrichment of our spiritual life.
Prayer
Grant, we beseech Thee, O almighty God, that we who have celebrated the paschal solemnity,
may by Thy bounty show forth its effects in our life and conduct. Through Christ our
Lord. Amen.
328