Which is easier?

The Navarre commentary for today's Gospel reading (Mat 9:1-8) provided by the Daily Word Google group includes critical insights from St. Thomas Aquinas along with a neat little catechesis on Confession. The explanation of the "Which is easier ..." query Jesus poses to the scribes is very helpful; I could have used it last night when I stumbled my way through explaining the passage to my children. (We try to review the day's saint and Gospel the night before.) And unbeknownst to me, the paralytic in the story is the same man dropped through the ceiling in Mark 2:2-5. Consider adding this service to your bookmarks. It's an excellent, free way to engage in daily lectio divina.

3-7. Here "to say" obviously means "to say and mean it", "to say producing the result which your words imply". Our Lord is arguing as follows" which is easier -- to cure the paralytic's body or to forgive the sins of his soul? Undoubtedly, to cure his body; for the soul is superior to the body and therefore diseases of the soul are the more difficult to cure. However, a physical cure can be seen, whereas a cure of the soul cannot. Jesus proves the hidden cure by performing a visible one.

The Jews thought that any illness was due to personal sin (cf. John 9:1-3); so when they heard Jesus saying, "Your sins are forgiven", they reasoned in their minds as follows: only God can forgive sins (cf. Luke 5:21); this man says that He has power to forgive sins; therefore, He is claiming a power which belongs to God alone--which is blasphemy. Our Lord, however, forestalls them, using their own arguments: by curing the paralytic by saying the word, He shows them that since He has the power to cure the effects of sin (which is what they believe disease to be), then He also has power to cure the cause of illness (sin); therefore, He has divine power.

Jesus Christ passed on to the Apostles and their successors in the priestly ministry the power to forgive sins: "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained" (John 20:22-23). "Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven" (Matthew 18:18). Priests exercise this power in the Sacrament of Penance: in doing so they act not in their own name but in Christ's--"in persona Christi", as instruments of the Lord.

Hence the respect, the veneration and gratitude with which we should approach Confession: in the priest we should see Christ Himself, God Himself, and we should receive the words of absolution firmly believing that it is Christ who is uttering them through the priest. This is why the minister does not say: "Christ absolves you...", but rather "I absolve you from your sins..." He speaks in the first person, so fully is he identified with Jesus Christ Himself (cf. "St. Pius V Catechism", II, 5, 10).