The Lord worked two miracles in our Gospel, He heals a man of his sins and then heals the same man from his physical ailments. It is only after He heals the man of his sins that He turns around and commands him to walk.
Of these two miracles that were worked only one of them can be seen with the human eye, healing a man so that he can walk, and the other is impossible to see with the human eye, your sins are forgiven. Despite being unseen the forgiveness of sins is the greater of the two miracles which were worked.
Through both of these miracles the Lord is working on His Divine authority. Through such authority being used we can conclude that the Lord is more then a simple human. Rather, He is God, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity who has taken on our human flesh and made His dwelling place among us.
The forgiveness of sins remains something close to the life of the Church. We are able to rejoice in the sacrament of confession where we come in order to be absolved of our sins. To leave the confessional is to leave behind a life of sin and walk out forgiven and fortified with the gift of God’s grace.
In the sacrament of confession it is the priest who hears the sins of another and it is the priest who grants absolution. In the words of our Blessed Lord directed to His apostles, “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”
An objection made against the sacrament of confession is that only God can can forgive sins and not man. After all in our Gospel it was Christ under His Divine authority that forgave the sins of this man. I agree that the priest is merely man, but this limitation does not mean that Christ is unable to work through Him.
The priest is ordained which means that he is set apart and is able to work in the Person of Christ. This statement does not mean that He turns into Christ when celebrating the Mass, hearing confessions, or at other times. This statement is to say that at these key moments that it is Christ. As the picture in the Baltimore Catechism would show what you see, the priest, and what you should see, Christ.
In the Book of Acts we are told of how Saint Peter healed a crippled man. Peter stated, “I have neither silver nor gold, but what I do have I give you: in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, rise and walk.” Here Peter is able to heal through Christ and so too through Christ He as priest and bishop is able to forgive sins.
Therefore, when we make use of the sacrament of confession we allow the Lord to treat us as He did this man stricken with palsy. Let us trust in Him in order that our sins may be forgiven.
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