itence? One is the mystery in both. But thou sayest: 'It is the
grace of the mysteries that operates in baptism.' And what operates in
penitence! Is it not the name of God? Where you choose, you claim for
yourselves the grace of God: where you choose, you repudiate."[29]

For, in like manner, in the Sacrament of Penance, does the Minister of
Reconciliation say: "I absolve thee from thy sins, in the name of the
Father," etc., etc. Thereupon the words _produce_ what they signify,
if the penitent is genuinely contrite. But the Reconciler is Jesus
Christ, who uses priests as His delegated agents for effecting
forgiveness. On the day of the resurrection, Jesus Christ appeared to
the eleven, whom He had made priests at the Last Supper, and said:
"Peace be to you. As the Father hath sent one, I also send you. When
He had said this, He breathed on them, and He said to them: receive ye
the Holy Ghost; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them;
and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained."[30]

The passage is exceptionally clear, and for fifteen centuries was
accepted in its plain grammatical signification. Our Lord, who is
possessed of all power in heaven and on earth, makes His Apostles
"workers together with Him" in the forgiving of sin. They derive the
power from Him, and receive it by the inbreathing of the Holy Spirit.
It is no product of their learning, or experience, or piety, nor is it
any right inborn in them; but it is a divine gift, given by the
redeemer to His priests for the sanctification of souls. By it are His
legitimate ministers made co-operators in the work of reconciliation.
Already had the Scribes thought that Jesus blasphemed when He said to
the man sick of the palsy: "Son, be of good heart: thy sin is forgiven
thee." They realized not that the Almighty could impart the power of
pardoning to His creatures. To convince them that the Son _of Man_
hath power to forgive sin, Jesus performed this special miracle, and
healed the man of the palsy. The multitude, seeing this, feared and
glorified God, who had given such power _to men_.[31] The power is of
God, who alone can forgive sin, though He exercises it through men as
channels of His grace. The power of working miracles in like manner
belongs to God's omnipotence; yet did He condescend to allow His
Apostles and others to share in it. In this they were but His
delegates.

The passage, in the next place, expresses judicial power: for the
co