Penance: The Sacrament of Peace
September 16, 2007

Readings for the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Reading 1: Ex. 32:7–11, 13–14

Responsorial Psalm: Ps. 51:3–4, 12–13, 17, 19

Reading 2: 1 Tim. 1:12–17

Gospel: Lk. 15:1–32 or 15:1–10

Link to Readings

By Most Reverend Victor Galeone

“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.” I once heard a preacher comment on this verse from St. Paul’s letter to Timothy by objecting, “No, Paul! With all due respect, I’m the worst.”

Then there was the case of that distraught parishioner who came seeking my help. Whenever she recalled her past sins, even though they had all been forgiven, she became quite despondent. “Father, it’s going to be so embarrassing at the Last Judgment when my family and friends learn about my past sinful life!” I spent some time with her, explaining that God loves us not so much because we’ve been good, but because we need Him.

It’s true! God does love us when we’re good. What parent isn’t proud of their children behaving themselves? But God loves us even more when we need Him as a result of our sins. That’s the lesson of today’s Gospel. The shepherd leaves the ninety-nine good sheep in the corral, while he goes off in search of the stray. And on finding it, what does he do? Does he kick it along, shouting, “Who do you think you are, making me waste all this time? I’ll teach you a lesson!” No! He carries it home on his shoulders, comforting it, “You poor thing, I was so worried about you. We’re going to celebrate when we get back.”

A Cure for Scrupulosity

To reinforce this lesson, I would like to relate an incident from the life a saintly Belgium priest who lived during the 1800s. His name is Fr. Petit. The incident concerns one of his penitents, who was extremely scrupulous. This penitent saw sin where there was none and magnified slight faults into serious sins. After Fr. Petit’s death, the penitent paid a glowing tribute to his former confessor, explaining how he had cured him of his scrupulosity.

One day, after the penitent had repeated a sin already forgiven during his late teens, Fr. Petit turned to him with a look of sadness and said: “My son, you’re being so unfair to God. You imagine him to be an angry judge, eager to damn you to hell—when, in fact, God did what not even your own mother would have done.” Puzzled, the penitent remarked, “Mon père, I don’t understand.”

Fr. Petit continued: “Pretend you were on death row, about to mount the gallows in a few days for some heinous crime you had committed, would your mother want you to die? No—she still loves you! But regardless of her love for you, do you think that she would approach the judge with this request: ‘Your Honor, please spare my son. His brother is willing to take his place.’ Do you think she would do that? Yet, that is precisely what God did. While we were still sinners, he sent his one and only Son to die in our place. So be done with your scrupulosity! You insult God by doubting his love for you.”

Costly Gift

I would like to reinforce the analogy that Fr. Petit told his penitent with what I once heard while listening to an evangelical preacher as I was driving along the expressway. This minister was expounding the passage from Romans 5:6–11. He was explaining that human love at its best gives costly gifts to people worthy of the gift. But regardless of how worthy someone might be, people are rarely willing to die for that person. They sometimes do, but never for someone who’s evil or malicious. For example:

• We read of GIs falling on a live grenade to save their buddies; but it’s unheard of for a GI to have done so to save a terrorist.

• A fireman might risk his life to rescue his neighbor from an arsonist’s fire; but there’s no account of a fireman offering to go to prison for the arsonist.

• A parent may mortgage everything he owns to ransom his child; but have you ever heard of a parent offering to post bond for his child’s kidnapper?

Yet that is precisely what makes God’s love so unique. As St. Paul expressed it in Romans: “It’s not easy to die even for a good person—though for someone really worthy, a man might possibly die. But what proves that God loves us is that Christ died for us while we were still sinners.” (Rom. 5:7–8)

Love is repaid with love. How can we repay the love that Jesus has for us? By repenting of our sins. And the Lord has made that so easy for us by giving us the Sacrament of Penance. A pity that it’s not called the Sacrament of Peace! For that is what it gives to the repentant sinner—great peace. Sound psychology bears this out.

Show Your Wound to the Doctor

Take, for example, AA’s Twelve Step Program. The crux of the entire program is Step Five. Unless it’s fulfilled, sobriety is next to impossible. Step Five says: “Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to one other human being the exact nature of our wrongs.”

The manual goes on to elaborate: “Why don’t we make our admissions to God directly? Why do we need to bring anyone else into this?” The response that follows confronts head-on our habit of rationalizing: “Somehow, being alone with God doesn’t seem as embarrassing as facing up to another person. Until we actually sit down and talk aloud about what we have so long hidden, our willingness to clean house is still largely theoretical.”

St. Jerome expressed the same idea centuries ago when he asked, “How can a sick person expect to be healed if he is too ashamed to show his wound to the doctor?”

Some years back, a Jewish psychologist remarked, “Over the last few decades, as the line of Catholics waiting at the confessional has decreased, the number of my clients has exponentially increased.”

When was the last time we went to confession? Six months ago? Six years? Not since our first Holy Communion? Don’t we realize that God loves us—not so much because we’ve been good, but because we need Him?

And finally, don’t we want to experience the truth of Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel? “There is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance.”

The Most Reverend Victor Galeone is Bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine, Florida.

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