The faith of our fathers - Carmel Apologetics

"What""THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE. 397and the Master confirms the sentence of His servants.Whose sins you shall retain, they are.For, He says,retained.power, I ask, can be greater than this ?The Father hath given allpower to the Son ;and Isee all this same power delivered to them by Godthe Son.*To cleanse the leprosy of the body, or rather topronounce it cleansed, was given to the Jewish priestsalone. But to our Priests isgranted the power notof declaring healed the leprosy of the body, but ofabsolutely cleansing the defilements of the 1soul."And again: If a sinner, as becomes him, woulduse the aid of his conscience, and hasten to confesshis crimes, and disclose his ulcer to his physician,who may heal and not reproach, and receive remediesfrom him ;if he would speak to him alone, withoutthe knowledge of any one, and with care lay allbefore him, easily would he amend his failings ; for,the confession of sins is the absolution ofcrimes" 2 ,St. Jerome writes : If the serpent,the devil,secretly bite a man, and thus infect him with thepoison of sin, and this man shall remain silent, anddo not penance, nor be willing to make known hiswound to his brother and master ;the master, whohas a tongue that can heal, cannot easily serve him.For, if the ailing man be ashamed to open his caseto the physician, no cure can be expectedfor medi;cine does not cure that of which it knows nothing."31Lib. iii.,34De Sacerdotio.3Comment, in Eccles.aIbid., Horn.