“To pardon a single sin requires all the omnipotence of God:” St. Alphonsus Liguori on the dignity of the Priest Confessor
[The doctor of the Church gets pretty daring in trying to explain to priests how their abilty to forgive sins indicates the dignity of their priesthood, and thus calls them to holiness of life. From “The Dignity and Duties of the Priest.”]
Were the Redeemer to descend into a church, and sit in a confessional to administer the sacrament of penance, and a priest to sit in another confessional, Jesus would say over each penitent, “Ego te absolve,” [I absolve you] the priest would likewise say over each of his penitents, “Ego te absolve,” and the penitents of each would be equally absolved…
According to St. Ambrose, the dignity of the priest as far exceeds that of kings, as the value of gold surpasses that of lead. The reason is, because the power of kings extends only to temporal goods and to the bodies of men, but the power of the priest extends to spiritual goods and to the human soul. Hence, says St. Clement, “as much as the soul is more noble than the body, so much is the priesthood more excellent than royalty.” Princes,” says St. John Chrysostom, “have the power of binding, but they bind only the bodies, while the priest binds the souls.”
…The sacerdotal dignity also surpasses the dignity of the angels, who likewise show their veneration for the priesthood, says St. Gregory Nazianzen. All the angels in heaven cannot absolve from a single sin. The guardian angels procure for the souls committed to their care grace to have recourse to a priest that he may absolve them : “Although,” says St. Peter Damian, “angels may be present, they yet wait for the priest to exercise his power, but no one of them has the power of the keys of binding and of loosening.” When St. Michael comes to a dying Christian who invokes his aid, the holy archangel can chase away the devils, but he cannot free his client from their chains till a priest comes to absolve him…
Besides, the power of the priest surpasses that of the Blessed Virgin Mary; for, although this divine Mother can pray for us, and by her prayers obtain whatever she wishes, yet she cannot absolve a Christian from even the smallest sin. “The Blessed Virgin was eminently more perfect than the apostles,” says Innocent III.; “it was, however, not to her, but only to the apostles, that the Lord intrusted the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” St. Bernardine of Sienna has written: “Holy Virgin, excuse me, for I speak not against thee: the Lord has raised the priesthood above thee.” The saint assigns the reason of the superiority of the priesthood over Mary; she conceived Jesus Christ only once; but by consecrating the Eucharist, the priest, as it were, conceives him as often as he wishes, so that if the people of the Redeemer had not as yet been in the world, the priest, by pronouncing the words of consecration, would produce this great people of a Man-God. “O wonderful dignity of the priests,” cries out St. Augustine; “in their hands, as in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, the Son of God becomes—incarnate.” Hence priests are called the parents of Jesus Christ: such is the title that St. Bernard gives them, for they are the active cause by which he is made to exist really in the consecrated Host…
The priest holds the place of the Savior himself, when, by saying “Ego te absolvo,” he absolves from sin, This great power, which Jesus Christ has received from his eternal Father, he has communicated to his priests. “Jesus,” says Tertullian, “ invests the priests with his own powers.” To pardon a single sin requires all the omnipotence of God. “O God, who chiefly manifestest Thy almighty power in pardoning and showing mercy,” etc., says the holy Church in one of her prayers. Hence, when they heard that Jesus Christ pardoned the sins of the paralytic, the Jews justly said: Who can forgive sins but God alone. But what only God can do by his omnipotence, the priest can also do by saying “ Ego te absolve a peccatis tuis;” for the forms of the sacraments, or the words of the forms, produce what they signify.
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
romaincrisis
