Peace be to you.

The three previous sacraments discussed were baptism, confirmation, and the Eucharist.

All of them refer to a life above the physical, namely the participation of the divine life.

By baptism we are born to it, by confirmation we grow into it and accept the full responsibilities

of union with our Lord.

By the Eucharist and in the Eucharist, and in the Eucharist, our union with Him reaches its peak and its ecstasy.

Now we come to another sacrament, which represents a fall away from that divine life, namely the sacrament of penance or confession.

It is the sacrament which refers to the sins that have been committed after baptism.

It is the great sacrament of the mercy of God.

And if we may use the word, it is an indication of how very realistic God is.

Once we are born to divine life, we should live in it.

But practically some fall away, lightly or seriously.

God, therefore, in his mercy, has instituted the sacrament by which the sins committed after baptism may be remitted.

No human being could ever have thought of this sacrament,

for it is something like the resurrection.

We rise after we are dead.

It is a journey back again to God.

It enables us to get rid of infections before they become chronic diseases and epidemics.

It is not an unpleasant and necessary sacrament.

It is not to be viewed merely as a

humiliation. It is the inflowing of God's mercy, an opportunity for the increase

of the grace of Calvary. It is a medicine for the soul, a healing of our wounds, a homecoming, an undoing of the past,

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