The Grace and the Sacrament of Penance

by Archbishop, Cardinal Henry Edward Manning

"Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them; whose sins you shall retain, they are retained." — John 20:22-23

It was late in the evening of the first day of the week when Jesus rose from the dead that His disciples were gathered together, and the doors were shut for fear of the Jews. When they least expected it, unawares, and by His divine power, He came — though the doors were closed — and stood in the midst of them; and His first words were, "Peace be unto you." And when He had assured them that it was He Himself, their fears were dispelled. He then said, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and from the Son, and I, the Son of God, breathe upon you — receive ye the Holy Ghost; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; whose sins you shall retain, they are retained." That is, He gave them the proof of His Godhead in the power of absolution. He gave them the proof of His Godhead — for the Pharisees were right when they asked, "Who shall forgive sins but God only?" (Mark 2:7).

God alone can absolve, and God alone can give the power of absolution. When the power of absolution is exercised by any man, he is but an instrument in the hand of God: the absolver is always God Himself. Our Lord exercised, among many other attributes of His Godhead upon earth, these three special powers of divinity: He raised the dead; He multiplied the bread in the wilderness; and He cleansed the lepers — and these three works of almighty power, which are altogether divine, He has committed in a spiritual form to His Church forever. When He said, "Go, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost," in that power of Baptism He gave to His Apostles and their successors the power of raising from spiritual death to spiritual life. Those who are born dead in sin are raised by a new birth to spiritual life. When He instituted the most Holy Sacrament of His Body and Blood, and gave to His Church the authority to say, "This is My Body," gave the power to feed His people with the Bread of Life, and to multiply that Bread forever. When He said, "Whose sins ye shall forgive, they are forgiven unto them," He gave the power of cleansing the leprosy of the soul.

Sometimes, incoherent — or, what is worse, controversial — minds imagine, or at least say, that this power was confined to the Apostles. The very words are enough to prove the contrary; but there is an intrinsic reason in the thing which, to any Christian mind, must be sufficient to show that these three powers are perpetual; for what are these three powers, but the authority to apply to the souls of men forever the benefits of the most Precious Blood of Jesus Christ? The Precious Blood would have been shed in vain, if it were not applied to the souls of men one by one. The most potent medicines work no cures, save in those to whom they are applied; and the Precious Blood, which is the remedy of sin, works the healing of the soul only by its application. Baptism, the Holy Sacrament of the Altar, and the Sacrament of Penance are three divine channels whereby the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ is applied to the soul.

I am conscious that our thoughts hitherto have been full of sharpness and severity. We have been dwelling upon sin — upon mortal and venial sins, and upon sins of omission. We enter now upon another region — the realm of peace, of grace, of pardon and healing. Therefore we will speak of the grace and the works of penance.

Penance is both a virtue and a Sacrament. From the beginning of the world the grace of penance has been poured out upon men. It is an interior disposition of the soul before God; and from the beginning of the world the Holy Ghost, whose office it is to convince the world of sin, has convinced sinners of their transgressions, has converted them to penance, and from penance has made them saints. But penance, in the Christian law, is also a Sacrament; and I have to explain the meaning of the grace and the action of the Sacrament, and how they are united.

1. First, penance is a grace or inward disposition of the soul, and I need not go far to find an explanation. I need not frame any explanation of my own, for we have a divine delineation of what penance is, drawn, as it were, by a pencil of light by our Divine Saviour Himself in the parable of the Prodigal Son. There we have a revelation of what the grace of penance is.

You remember the parable. A man had two sons, and the younger came to him and said: "Give me the portion that falleth to me"; and when he had received it, he went into a far country and wasted it in riot, fell into misery and returned to his father, and was pardoned.

Let us take the main features of this. First, the son who, under the roof of a loving father, had need of nothing for his father was rich — chafed and was fretful because the authority of a superior will was upon him. He could not bear the yoke of living under a paternal rule, and his imagination was all on fire with the thought of liberty. He looked at the horizon — it may be the mountains that bounded the lands and fields of his father — and pictured to himself the valleys and plains and cities full of youth and happiness and life and freedom — a happy land, if only he could break away from the restraints of home. He came to his father, and with a cold-hearted insolence said: "Give me the portion that falleth to me"; which being translated, is, "Give me what I shall have when you are dead." There was a spirit of undutifulness and of ingratitude in that demand — but the father gave it; and the parable says that not many days after — that is, with all speed, in fact — "gathering all things together," all he had and all he could get, he went off into a far country, and there he spent all he had in living riotously.

Then there came a mighty famine, and he, having spent all things, was reduced to beggary. His fair-weather friends all forsook him; the parasites who fed at his table all abandoned him: and those that spoke him fair when he was rich and had anything to give them, turned their backs upon him: his very servants were not to be seen. He found himself isolated, destitute, and brought to such extremity that "he went to one of the citizens of that country," and offered himself as his servant. The citizen accepted him; not into his house — he did not even send him into his garden, no, nor into his vineyard. He sent him into his fields; and not to tend his sheep, no, nor to watch over his oxen, but "to feed his swine." Such is the degradation of a sinner.

In that extremity of need no man gave to him; all his old friends were afar off; if they possessed anything, they kept it to themselves, or at least they gave nothing to him. There was no memory, no gratitude of their past friendship. He was fain to fill his hunger with the husks — not only the husks which the swine did eat, but the husks which the swine had left — the husks which fell, as it were, from the trough of a herd of swine. Reduced to such misery, which is the picture of a soul in mortal sin, as I have described before, he came to himself — the word is, he "returned to himself." He not only had left his father, but had forsaken himself — he was out of himself, beside himself; for sin is madness. When he returned to himself, he said: "How many hired servants of my father have bread in abundance, and I here perish for hunger. I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him: Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son; make me as one of thy hired servants."

Here was the consciousness of unworthiness. He did not aspire to be a son again; that, he thought, was lost forever. It was enough for him, and he was content, to accept the position of a hired servant under his father's roof. And he arose and went to his father. And as he was coming — it may be, down the path of the mountainside, barefoot and ragged, up which he had gone a little while ago in all the bravery of his apparel and his pride — before he caught sight of his father, his father saw him afar off, for love gives keenness of sight to a father's eye: he saw his son returning, and he ran towards him. He was as eager to forgive as the son was to be forgiven — ay, more; he fell upon his neck, and the Prodigal Son began his confession: "Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before thee"; but before he could finish — the words "make me as one of thy hired servants" never came out of his mouth — his father fell upon his neck and kissed him, and forgave him all. He was perfectly absolved. And the father said: "Bring forth quickly" — that is, make haste, no delay — "the first robe," the robe he had before, and put it on him. Put shoes on his feet and a ring on his hand. Restore him not only to the state of pardon, but to the full possession of all he had before his fall; for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.

We see here in the Prodigal Son the grace of penance — that is, self-knowledge, self-condemnation, sorrow for the past, conversion, self-accusation, and the will to amend one's life. We have here then, I say, a divine delineation of what it is. Let us take another example.

There was in Jerusalem one who was rich, and abounded in all things. She possessed also the fatal gift of beauty, which has been eternal death to tens of thousands. She was living in wealth and luxury and enjoyment, and, as the Apostle said, was "dead while she lived." She decked herself out in gold and in fine apparel, like the daughters of Jerusalem of whom the Prophet Isaias says, that they were haughty, and walked with their necks stretched out, with wanton glances in their eyes, and making a noise with their feet, and walking with a mincing step, with the affectation of an immodest and luxurious life. She was known to be a sinner and was notorious in the city. On a day — we know not when, we know not where, for it is not written — she chanced, as we say, to light upon the presence and to hear the voice of our Divine Redeemer. It may be that it was in the Temple where He daily taught. It may be she had gone up to the Temple in all the bravery and all the ostentation of her apparel, not to worship the Holy One of Israel, but from curiosity, and to be seen, and to show herself to men. But she found herself in the presence of One whose calm dignity abashed her.

At first, it may be, she resisted the sound of the voice; but there was something in it which thrilled to the depth of the heart. There was something in the still steady gaze of that divine eye which she could not escape. A shaft of light cut her heart asunder, and an illumination showed her to herself, even as God saw her, covered with sins red as scarlet, and, as the leper, white as snow. She went her way with the wound deep in the heart — a wound which could never be healed save only by the hand that made it. She went to her own home, no doubt, and cast over in her mind what she had heard. The gaze that had been fixed upon her and the sound of that voice were still in her memory. She could escape them nowhere. No doubt there was a conflict going on day after day, and her old companions, her evil friends, and the manifold dangers of life came thick about her as before; but she had no soul for them.

At last, laying aside her finery and ostentation, unclasping the jewels from her head, and with her hair all loose about her — with an alabaster box of ointment, she walked through the streets of Jerusalem before the eyes of men, caring for no one, thinking of no one but of God and her own sins. Hearing that Jesus of Nazareth sat at meat in the house of Simon the Pharisee, she broke into the midst of the banquet, under the scornful, piercing, indignant eyes that were fixed upon her; without shame, because her only shame was before the eye of God; without fear, knowing what she was, because she had come to know of the love and tenderness of Him who had spoken to her. She stood silent behind Him, weeping. She had the courage even to kiss His feet, to wash them with her tears, to wipe them with the hair of her head; while the Pharisee secretly rebuked our Divine Lord, and asked himself in his heart: "If this man had been a prophet, would He not have known what manner of woman this is? She is a sinner, and He would not have allowed her to touch His feet."

But those feet had in them the healing of sin. The touch of those feet, powerful as the touch upon the hem of His garment, cleansed that poor sinner. He turned, and in the hearing of them all, He said: "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven her, because she has loved much." Here is an example of the grace of penance; and an example not of penance only, but of perfect and full absolution given in a moment; more than this, of a complete restoration of purity given to the most fallen. In token of that absolution and of that restoration, privileges were granted to Mary Magdalen beyond others. She, out of whom Jesus cast seven devils, was the one who stood at the foot of the cross with the Immaculate Mother of God. It was she who had kissed His feet at that supper who afterwards anointed them, and wound them in the fine linen for His burial. It was she, the greatest of sinners, who, next after His Immaculate Mother, saw Him before all others when He arose from the dead; and these tokens of the love of Jesus to penitents, and to the greatest of penitents, have been followed in the kingdom of Heaven with a glory proportioned to her sorrow and to her love. Mary Magdalen is set forth forever as an example of the grace of penitence, and of the perfect absolution of the most Precious Blood.

But perhaps you will say, she had never known our Saviour. She committed all her sins before she came to the knowledge of His love. I have known Him, and therefore the sins I have committed I have committed against the light; and my sins are more ungrateful than hers, and are therefore guiltier, and I have less hope of pardon. Let us see, then, if there be another example. Is there an example of any friend, who had been highly privileged, greatly blessed, who had known everything, who had received all the light and grace which came from the presence and the words of our Divine Saviour in those three years of His public life — is there any such who afterwards sinned against Him?

There was one to whom the light of the knowledge of the Son of God was first revealed by the Father in Heaven. There was one who was First of all the Apostles, because of this illumination of faith, and to whom our Divine Lord said: "I say unto thee, thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will build My Church; and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it: and unto thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of Heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven." This friend, preferred above all others, dignified above all others, protested to his Master: "Though all men should forsake thee, yet will not I. I am ready to go with thee to prison and to death. Though all men shall deny thee, I will never deny thee." (Luke 22:33). He had the courage to draw his sword in the garden, and cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest; yet this man three times denied his Master. He denied him utterly: "I never knew the Man. I am not of His disciples." And with cursing and swearing he renounced his Lord.

Here, then, is the ingratitude and the sin of a cherished friend. But on that night he went out, and he wept bitterly; and his bitter tears upon that night of sin obtained for him not only perfect absolution in the evening of the first day of the week, but the power of absolving the sins of others, sinners like himself. "Receive ye the Holy Ghost; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven unto them." Peter received his own absolution, his own forgiveness, and in that moment he was restored to his dignity as Prince of the Apostles. Though he was upbraided in the gray of the morning on the Sea of Tiberias by the three questions of tender reproof: "Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me, lovest thou Me more than these?" to remind him of his three falls, Peter was restored to more than he had before. He was made head on earth of the Mystical Body of Christ; he died a martyr for his Lord, and he reigns in Heaven by his Master's side.

We have here again an example of the grace of penance; and what do we see in it? Just the same sorrow, self-accusation, reparation as before. Here is the virtue and grace of penance; what, then, is the Sacrament? This grace of penance is as old as the world: it is to be found everywhere where the Holy Spirit works in the hearts of men, if they are faithful and correspond with it. What, then, is the meaning of the Sacrament? Our Lord has instituted a Divine Sacrament, in which He gives the absolution of His most Precious Blood to those that accuse themselves. He instituted it on that night, when He spoke the words with which I began; and the reason for which He instituted it is this — that we may have something more than our self-assurance on which to depend for the hope of our absolution. The Pharisee in the Temple, who stood afar off and said, "God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are — extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican" (Luke 18:1 l ) — that Pharisee absolved himself; but his absolution was not ratified in Heaven. And so it is often among men.

There are men who absolve themselves all the day long. They forget the sins of their childhood, boyhood, youth, and manhood — ay, the sins of last year, the sins of yesterday; and, having a slippery treacherous memory of their own sins, though retentive and tenacious of the sins of other men, they are perpetually absolving themselves, and assuring themselves that they are pardoned and forgiven before God. There cannot be a state more dangerous, delusive, or fatal; and in order to guard us from this, our Divine Lord has instituted a Sacrament, in which to assure us of our absolution, in which our absolution is a judicial act, an authoritative sentence, an act pronounced by one who is impartial, and who has authority. We are not left to absolve ourselves; we are absolved in the name and by the power of Jesus Christ by a judge empowered by Himself.

Moreover, for our preparation for that Sacrament there is actual grace given; and that grace is the grace of the Holy Ghost, having two effects: first, to give us light to know ourselves more truly, and thereby to understand, to count up, to measure, and to appreciate our sins and the gravity of them; and secondly, that same grace enables us to be contrite, and to make the acts of sorrow. Our Lord instituted the Sacrament; thus He took the grace of penance which was working from the beginning of the world, and incorporated it in a visible sign: and He communicates His absolution to those who come for it, as He gives the Bread of Life to those who receive Holy Communion at the altar.

Every Sacrament, as you know, is an outward sign of inward grace. It has what is called the form and the matter. What, then, is the form of the Sacrament of Penance? It is these words: "I absolve thee from thy sins." But who can forgive sins except God only? Is it the priest? Do you imagine for one moment that the Holy Catholic Church is — I will not say so superstitious, but is so dull of heart, so dark of understanding as either to believe or teach that it is the man who absolves? It is the office that absolves; and what is the office? The priesthood of Jesus Christ Himself. There are not two, there is but one Priest and one priesthood; and the priesthood that we bear is the participation of that one priesthood of Jesus Christ Himself. What we do, we do not of ourselves. It is He who does it by us. It is simply ministerial on our part. Absolution is given solely and entirely by His power. When at the altar we say, "This is My Body, this is My Blood," do we speak in our own name? Is it possible that anybody with Catholic books before them can be either so dull of sight, or so dull of understanding? There is but one Absolver, Jesus Christ Himself; but He has ten thousand ministers on earth, through whom He applies His Precious Blood to souls that are truly penitent. The act of absolution is His.

Such, then, is the form; next, what is the matter? There are two kinds of matter: there is the matter which is called remote, and the matter which is called proximate. The remote matter of the Sacrament is the sins that we have committed. It is called remote for this reason — they may be the sins of our childhood, a long way off; the sins of our youth, long forgotten, but now at last remembered; the sins that we have committed, and have long hesitated to confess; all these are remote from the present moment, because they are a long way off in our past life; or if they were only of yesterday, still they are not present now. Proximate matter is that state of heart which we must bring with us at the moment, then and there; it is the penitent's contrition, confession of sins, and willingness to make satisfaction.

Now the remote matter is of two kinds. First, there is the necessary matter which we are bound to confess under the pain of eternal death; and there is what is called the voluntary matter, which it is good, wholesome, safe, and better to confess, though it is not of absolute necessity. Now the first means all mortal sins committed after Baptism. As we know of no revealed way in which the mortal Original Sin in which we are born can be absolved except by Baptism, so we know of no other revealed way whereby mortal actual sins committed after Baptism can be absolved, save only by the Sacrament of Penance.¹ You will remember the principles which I laid down in the first and second lectures on these subjects on which I have spoken to you — how one mortal sin separates the soul from God. A soul separated from God is dead; and therefore it is a necessity that every mortal sin we have committed should be confessed and absolved. The voluntary matter is our venial sins.

As to venial sins, there are two reasons why it is good to confess them. The first is because, as I showed you, venial sins may easily pass into mortal sins. Sometimes, through the self-love which is in us, we do not distinguish between them; and we consider what God knows and sees to be mortal to be only venial, and in this we may make dangerous mistakes. Again, to promote humility, self-accusation, sorrow, and therefore the grace of perseverance, and to renew our peace with God, it is good to accuse ourselves of everything we know we have committed since our last confession, even in the least — even in the venial sins of omission of which I lately spoke. It is safer, better, and more wholesome to confess these sins of omission, and to ask God to forgive them; nevertheless, it is quite true that these sins, when they are venial, are not of necessary confession.

Well, the proximate matter means the state of the heart, mind and will. If any man were to kneel down in the confessional, and accuse himself without sorrow for his sins, he would commit another sin. It would be an act of sin in itself. It would be a sacrilege to come and attempt to receive that Sacrament without the proper dispositions, that is, without being worthy; and the man who has no sorrow for sin is not worthy. Nevertheless, it is not necessary that this sorrow be felt with the emotions; rather, it is the decision of the will to hate and turn away from the sins one has committed.

Next, there must be a decision of the will to amend one's life. If a man come and ask for pardon, even were he to accuse himself perfectly, without having a resolved purpose not to sin again — which includes avoiding the occasions of sin — that man would commit a sacrilege. Therefore, the heart and mind must be sorrowful, and the will resolved not to commit sin again. You will say: "How can a man say this, knowing his weakness and instability?" The answer is that if any man sincerely resolves not to sin, and is conscious of his own weakness, and afraid of it, that is a true and a good resolution — and God will accept it, even though afterwards through suddenness or subtlety of temptation he should be cast down. At the time, he was perfectly sincere in his resolutions, and that is all that God requires.

Now, the Sacrament of Penance has three effects, which is indeed one threefold effect. The first is that it absolves or looses the soul from the bond of sin. We are using metaphors; to bind and to loose is a metaphor. What is it that binds a soul? It is the sin. And what is the sin? I told you in the beginning. It is the variance or the opposition of the will against God; it is the crookedness and perversity of the will, resulting in the palsy of the heart, the darkness of the conscience, and, in the case of mortal sin, carrying with it the penalty of eternal death. This is the bond of sin. Now the Sacrament of Penance takes away our sins and the guilt of our sins, and if we are absolved of mortal sin, it cancels out the penalty of eternal punishment in Hell (though there remains the debt of temporal punishment to be suffered either on this earth or in Purgatory). This Sacrament gives the grace of the Holy Ghost; and it is the Holy Spirit of God which brings the will back to God by a change wrought upon the will itself.

The second effect of the Sacrament of Penance is that it infuses grace, as it blots out the sin, so that the soul returns to life. That is to say, a man in mortal sin comes to his confession without Charity, without the love of God, for this reason: that a man in a state of mortal sin no longer has Charity or the love of God (which springs from sanctifying grace). Charity or the love of God is the life of the soul; and if he had this life he would not be in mortal sin. The commission of mortal sin extinguishes the Charity or love of God in him, and the soul dies for that reason. He, therefore, when he comes to accuse himself, has nothing left in his soul but Hope and Faith; he hopes to be pardoned, and he believes that God will pardon him if his confession be good. Then, after his act of self-accusation, as he receives his absolution, the grace of Charity is restored to him, the life of the soul is given back, he is united with God once more, he possesses Faith, Hope, and Charity, as he did in his Baptism — as he did before he fell, for the Sacrament puts him back again into the state of grace as at first.

Thirdly, it does something further: it restores the soul to its previous condition. You remember that I told you some time ago that if any man had lived a life of faith, charity, piety, generosity, and good works, and afterwards fell into one mortal sin, all those fruits would be dead upon the tree, because the tree itself was dead. But when he is restored to grace, all those fruits that were once dead revive with the tree also, though to a greater or lesser degree according to the depth of the penitent's contrition. The leaves expand once more in their tenderness and freshness, and the fruits are once more ripe upon the bough. All the supernatural acts of the past life, which were mortified and lost by one mortal sin, come to life again; and when they are restored to life, the merit of every such act — and you remember what I told you merit is, the link between the action and the reward constituted by the promise of God in His free and sovereign grace — all this merit likewise is restored; and with this, also, the supernatural powers of the soul are renewed. The soul in mortal sin had lost its grace, its conscience was blind, its ear was deaf, and its will was weak. Like as our Divine Lord, in His miracles, opened the eyes of the blind, and the ears of the deaf, straightened the feet of the lame, and made the man with the withered hand to stretch it out like the other, so, when the soul is restored by absolution and grace in the Sacrament of Penance, the powers of the soul are again restored. The man is again able to perform acts of supernatural saving Faith, Hope, and Charity, and all the other Christian virtues.²

You see, then, what the Sacrament of Penance is. It is the grace of penance enlarged, multiplied, assured, brought within the reach of men, offered all the day long, within the power of everybody. That which in the beginning was unseen and secret, now is embodied visibly in a Sacrament of grace, that men may know where to find the Fountain in which they may wash and be clean.

I can say but few words more. When He instituted, in our behalf, this holy Sacrament out of the tenderness of His love and the superabundance of His grace to sinners, our Divine Lord set no limit whatever to its efficacy. It is like His own Precious Blood. It is powerful and omnipotent to cleanse all sin. He sets no limit; there is indeed a limit, as I will show you, but it is not God who imposes it. There is no sin of any kind, howsoever deep, dark, black as midnight, and often committed, nothing so inveterate, nothing which in the sight of God is so hateful, nothing which to the soul of man is so deadly, that there cannot be absolution for it in the Sacrament of Penance.

Do not for one moment imagine that you have sinned beyond the power of pardon. There is no man who hears me, whatever his sin may have been, who, if he will turn and repent and accuse himself with sorrow, shall not be washed as white as snow. Next, there is no kind of sin that is beyond the reach of absolution. There is no number of sins, however frequent, which shall not be pardoned. Though a man were to go on all his life long — sinning day and night, repeating sins over and over again — yet repenting of them on his deathbed, the Precious Blood shall wash him white as snow. Our Divine Lord has said that "if our brother offend against us seventy times seven, ay, and that in one day, and turn and repent, we are to forgive him." (Luke 17:4; Matt. 18:22). In saying that, He used a form of speech to show there is no number — there is no numerical limit.

There can only be a moral limit, and a moral limit there is; but what is it? I said before: "All sin and all blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men, save only the blasphemy of the Holy Ghost; that shall never be forgiven in this world or in the world to come." (Matt. 12:31, 32). But what is this blasphemy of the Holy Ghost? It is the resistance to the known truth. It is the refusal of the grace of penance. It is the outrage done to the Absolver Himself, the Giver of Life; and that by the impenitence of the sinner. The one only sin which is beyond the reach of absolution, the one only sin which the Precious Blood cannot absolve, is the sin that is not repented of; that is the sole and only sin that shall not be washed as white as snow.

Finally, as our Divine Lord has set no limit to His forgiveness, and as the limit is set by man, and by man only through his own impenitence, so our Divine Saviour has attached to this grant of His pardon only those conditions without which He would cease to be what He is — holy, just, true, and merciful. If He were to require more, He would require more than we can do. If He were to require less, He would violate His own divine perfections. The Sacrament of Penance is the Precious Blood and the pardon of the Precious Blood let down within the reach of the lowest sinner — lower it cannot be; for it is within the reach of all. The conditions which are attached to it are the following. The first is that we be sorry. God would cease to be God — He would cease to be just, holy, and pure — if He were to forgive those who are not sorry for their sins, who still love them, and are therefore at variance with Him, and at variance with His perfections.

Secondly, we must come to Him. If the Prodigal had lingered in the far country, his father could not have fallen on his neck. If Mary Magdalen had not broken into the midst of that banquet, she would not have heard the words of her absolution. We, then, must come to Him. He has commanded us to come. He has said: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me." (John 14:6). And the way He has ordained for penitents to come to Him is in self-accusation, in the Sacrament of Penance.

Then, when we come to Him, we must accuse ourselves honestly, truly, sincerely. There must be no excusing, no painting of the face. We cannot paint the heart, and God looks at the heart, and not at the countenance. Our accusation must be truthful to the very last. Every mortal sin that we have committed from our earliest childhood, so far as we remember, it must be at some time confessed before it can be absolved. It is not requiring much of the sinner that he should come and say what is his disease, that he should show his wounds, and his miseries, and the symptoms of death that are upon him. The physician requires no more for healing, and he can require no less.

And, He requires of us a steadfast resolution to sin no more, and to avoid the occasions of sin — of which I will speak hereafter — that is, a steadfast change of the will, retracing the variance and the opposition of the will against His will, and a sincere resolution to offend Him no more. Less than this He could not require; and more than this He does not.

Lastly, there must be a willingness to make satisfaction to God for the offense we have committed against Him. True it is, that finite man cannot make up for an offense to the Infinite God; yet there is a certain measure of expiation which God requires of man for his every sin, even though the guilt of that sin be washed away in the Precious Blood of our Saviour in the Sacrament of Penance. This expiation, made in the state of grace, by a living branch in union with the Vine which is Christ, possesses a divine, supernatural value. And we know, as I have said before, that those sins which are not expiated on earth, remain to be expiated in Purgatory.³ Here, then, are the conditions: sorrow for having offended God; the coming to Him in His own way; true self-accusation; steadfast resolution to sin no more, and the willingness to make satisfaction.

O, dear brethren, anticipate the Day of Judgment. Be beforehand with it. That day is coming, inevitably coming, as the rising of tomorrow's sun. The day is not far off when the Great White Throne will be set up, and we shall stand before Him; and the eyes, that are as a flame of fire, will search us through and through; and not His eyes alone, but the eyes of all men will be upon us; and the ears of men will hear that which the accuser will say against us in that day. There will be no secrecy then; no hiding of our sins, nothing concealed from God, or from that multitude which is around the Great White Throne.

What does He require of you now? The Great White Throne is veiled in His mercy. In the holy Sacrament of Penance He sits as the Judge, not arrayed in the splendors which will dazzle and blind us at the Last Day, but as the Good Shepherd, and as the Good Physician, the Friend of sinners, who is "come not to call the just, but sinners to repentance." There He sits in His mercy. Come to Him, then, one by one. Be beforehand with the Day of Judgment. That which you confess now will be blotted out and forgiven in that day. That which you hide now will be in the book of God's remembrance, laid up for a record in the day of the great assize. It is not much He requires of us — to come and tell it in the ear of one man in His stead — a man bound under a seal, which, if he were to break, he would commit a mortal sin of sacrilege; a seal which no priest would break, even if it cost him his life upon the spot. If it be painful to you, if shame cover your face, offer up the pain and the shame as a part of the penance, as Mary Magdalen in the midst of that great banquet. It is precisely for this purpose: that the salutary pain may be the medicine of our pride.

Dear brethren, then, be beforehand with the Day of Judgment, while the day of grace lasts: and come to Him as you are. Do not say, "I must wait" — do not say, "I cannot come with all my sins upon me, stained as I am, covered from head to foot with spots crimson as blood. I cannot come as I am. Let me wait a little while. I shall be better and fitter hereafter." Do not reason thus with yourselves. These are the whispers of the enemy, who desires to stand between you and your absolution. Come with all your sins upon you, though they are more numerous than the hairs of your head, though they are black as night, though they are beyond all count and all measure. Come just as you are. If you had a mortal sickness, would you put off going to the physician until the symptoms are abated? The more intense and threatening the symptoms, the faster you will go for counsel and for healing. Do not say to yourselves, "I am so hard-hearted. I have not a tear. I have not the feeling of sorrow." How can you, if you are in sin? It is sin that hardens the heart and dries the eyes.

In the Sacrament of Penance the grace of the Holy Ghost will deepen your sorrow and perhaps even give you the emotion of sorrow. Do not say, "I am so unstable. If I were pardoned today, I should fall tomorrow." Are you more likely to stand tomorrow because you will not be forgiven today? Oh, no.

Dear brethren, whatever be your sins, how many, however guilty, come with them all, like the poor woman who touched the hem of His garment, like the poor Prodigal, barefooted and ragged, when he came back to his father's house. Come as you are, and do not lose time. Time and grace are God's gift: we know not how long they may last. At this moment the Sacred Heart of Jesus bleeds for you on the Cross, yearns for you in Heaven. The father who saw the Prodigal afar off, and who ran to meet him, is the pledge, ay, and the earnest of that yearning fervent love and thirsting desire with which Jesus is waiting to forgive you.

Every soul washed in the Precious Blood is a joy to the Good Shepherd. He knows what is stirring in you. He has seen the strings of your conscience. He has seen the wavering of your will. He has seen the good impulses that have been prompting you. He knows the temptations that are keeping you back, and the aspirations that have been lifting you up towards Him — the longing for strength and courage to cast yourself at His feet, and make your peace with Him. He knows all this. Dear brethren, do not resist Him. Take heed lest you quench those emotions of grace that are within you. How long, how long, how long shall He wait for? Remember His own words: "There is joy in heaven over one sinner doing penance more than over ninety-and-nine just persons that need no repentance." (Luke 15:7).

Notes

1. It is true that perfect contrition, or contrition arising from true love of God, procures the remission of even mortal sins without the actual reception of the Sacrament of Penance; however, this contrition must contain, at least implicitly, the intention of receiving the Sacrament at the earliest opportunity. Thus it is indeed true that every mortal sin we have committed must be confessed and absolved. Very often, or even in most cases, our contrition is imperfect, arising from a lesser motive such as fear of God's punishments or sorrow over the loss of sanctifying grace. In the Sacrament of Penance, imperfect contrition is sufficient for the forgiveness of sins, including mortal sins. Furthermore, imperfect contrition is sufficient for the remission of mortal sin in the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, if the sick person is not able to make his confession.

2. Yet the soul may be out of the way and the habit of practicing these virtues, and must needs exert itself with diligent efforts, with the help of God's grace, to return these powers to their former strength.

3. The penance assigned by the priest in the Sacrament of Penance — usually the reciting of a few prayers — in most cases constitutes only a very partial expiation.

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