Forgiveness

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The Sacrament of
Penance has it's roots even as far back as the day of resurrection when Christ
breathed out the spirit on the disciples and said to them, 'Receive the Holy
Spirit. If you forgive anyone's sins, they are forgiven; if you retain anyone's
sins, they are retained.' (John 20:22-23). In Paul's second letter to the
Corinthians we see Paul developing this teaching of Christ, when he says 'All
this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the
ministry of reconciliation; that is, God was in Christ reconciling the world to
himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the
message of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his
appeal through us. We beseech you...be reconciled to God. For our sake he made
him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness
of God( 2 Cor. 5:18-21). These two passages would seem to be part of the
sacrament's biblical foundation. The ...

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committed. The bishop would do this by
laying his hands on the penitent. The typical time for this reconciliation to
take place was on Thursday of Holy Week before the Baptisms took place. The
reason it was done at this time was because the early Church believed that both
Baptism and Penance were both sacraments that brought about forgiveness of sins
and that they should be prepared for at the same time. It was just this type of
thinking that also led the early Church to the belief that the sacrament could
only be received once. This time of preparation, for the Sacrament of
Reconciliation, has come to be what we refer to now as the liturgical season of
Lent. This belief that the ...

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