Your sins are forgiven

Friday of the First Week in Ordinary Time A-1

Entrance Antiphon Upon a lofty throne, I saw a man seated, whom a host of angels adore, singing in unison: Behold him, the name of whose empire is eternal.

Collect Attend to the pleas of your people with heavenly care, O Lord, we pray, that they may see what must be done and gain strength to do what they have seen. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Scripture today: 1 Samuel 8:4-7.10-22; Psalm 88; Mark 2:1-12 After some days Jesus again returned to Capharnaum. People learned that he was in the house and so many came together that there was no room, not even at the door. He preached the word to them. A person sick with the palsy was brought to him carried by four. When they could not reach him because of the crowd they uncovered the roof where he was, and opening it they let down the bed on which the man sick of the palsy lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the palsied man “Son, your sins are forgiven you.” There were some of the scribes sitting there who thought in their hearts, “Why does this man speak thus? he is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins, but God only?” Jesus immediately knew that they were thinking thus and he said to them, “Why are you thinking thus in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the palsied man ‘Your sins are forgiven you’ or to say ‘Arise, take up your bed, and walk?’” But that you may know that the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins, (he said to the sick man,) I say to you “Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” Immediately he arose, and taking up his bed, went his way in the sight of all, so that all wondered and glorified God, saying “We have never seen the like.” (Mark 2:1-12)

It is generally recognized that the Gospel of St Mark is really the Gospel of St Peter, which is to say that Mark was Peter’s companion and assistant, and that the Gospel he wrote was the record of Peter’s teaching and preaching (probably at Rome). Well then, let us notice a detail in our passage today. It contains the first great shock that our Lord gave to “the scribes”, according to the recollection of St Peter as recorded in Mark’s account. The occasion was our Lord’s calm, assured, unhesitating and very public forgiveness of sin. He was in the presence of a great number of people. The sick were everywhere and scribes of the Law were included in the throng listening to Jesus teach and heal. This occasion included the first great surprise to the scribes of what we might call a doctrinal character that led to their rejection of Jesus. Jesus forgave the palsied man his sins — which is to say that he uttered the words “Your sins are forgiven” in such a way as to indicate unmistakeably that on his own authority he was forgiving sins. He was not just declaring that in view of the repentance of the palsied man God had forgiven him his sins. He was taking God’s place and doing what belonged exclusively to God to do. The scribes had not objected to what the Baptist had done and what initially our Lord’s disciples also had done. This was to administer a rite in which a person declared his sins in a spirit of repentance, and was then washed in a baptism that indicated faith in God’s pardon. No, what Jesus did here was very different. He read the heart of the sick man and forthwith personally and with unhesitating authority forgave his sins as would God himself. John the Baptist had not done this, nor had any prophet in the history of God’s people. It was a display of singular power and authority in the life of God’s chosen people and it startled the scribes, who thought “Why does this man speak thus? He is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins, but God alone?” They saw the implications immediately. It was an omen of more to come. In Mark’s account (and therefore in Peter’s recollection) this happened early in our Lord’s public ministry and it was part of a piece in our Lord’s extraordinary claims.

“Why does this man speak thus? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:1-12) This is a response that has been heard at various times in the Church’s long ministry of the forgiveness of sins. Before our Lord began his ministry John the Baptist pointed him out to his disciples as the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world. The forgiveness of sin was at the forefront of Christ’s mission. He forgave the sins of various people during his public ministry as a sign of what was to come. The forgiveness of sins is a principal benefit of the Kingdom of God and those who enter the Kingdom, as present in the Church Christ founded, have access to this inestimable benefit. On the first day our Lord rose from the dead he appeared to the Eleven and breathed on them the gift of the Holy Spirit and entrusted them with a share in his mission. Then what did he do? He gave to them the power to forgive sins: “whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them.” Christ entrusted to the Apostles a share in this power which he exercised repeatedly during his public ministry, which no other before him had presumed to exercise, and which was part and parcel of his unfolding claim to be the very Son of God. The Apostles were endowed with this ministry and it is transmitted from them to all those who receive the Sacrament of Holy Orders in the life of the Church. Thus it is that the forgiveness of sins is so readily available to all the Church’s faithful. It is available in the Sacrament of Penance administered by the ordained priest through whom Christ continues to forgive sins. The forgiveness of sin occurs in the first instance, of course, at the moment of baptism. It occurs in various other ways too, such as when a person makes what the Church calls a genuine and true act of contrition. But repeatedly and easily and completely and with power it is available in the Sacrament of Penance. All of Christ’s faithful, all the Church’s children ought to receive this Sacrament repeatedly and often and, of course, with true repentance. The Catholic Church has insisted on this Sacrament and has condemned in the past those who have denied its legitimacy.

“Your sins are forgiven you”, Christ said to the sick man. The response of the scribes was, “Why does this man speak thus? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” Christ as present in his body the Church continues to forgive sins through the ordained priest. He does so in the Sacrament of Penance, a Sacrament we should devoutly and with gratitude avail ourselves of all through life on our path to holiness in Christ.

(E.J.Tyler)

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