And as it is through Baptism that our bountiful Lord first recalls us from the ways of sin and makes us members of his flock, so in the sacrament of Penance He has provided a means by which we may at all times be recalled from our wanderings and restored to His friendship. Penance is an inexhaustible means of reconciliation between the erring soul and God. It lasts throughout our lives, it stretches even to the end of time. If only we are men of goodwill and have at heart our eternal interests, we need not be disturbed at our frailty, or at repeated lapses into sin. There is no sin which cannot be forgiven by the sacrament of Penance. Not that anyone, knowing that he can be forgiven, should presume to [pg 078] abuse God's gracious sacrament, and yield freely and without restraint to the voice of sin; nor that we are not to be truly sorry to the end of our days for having even once offended our benign Maker and Redeemer; but we must be confident that, whatever may have been our faults and failings, however prolonged and extraordinary our transgressions, if we approach the sacrament of Penance with sincere sorrow and a firm purpose of amendment, God will always lovingly receive us back to Himself, and remember no more our unfaithfulness. God hates sin, because it is opposed to Himself and is the only evil in the world, but He loves the wounded sinner who is made in His own image and likeness. Precious in the sight of God is the penitent sinner. Does He not tell us Himself that, like a good shepherd, He leaves ninety-nine just to go in search of one lost sheep? Yea, He assures us that there is rejoicing among the [pg 079] angels of Heaven over one sinner who does penance.[25]
To make worthy use of the sacrament of Penance we must be truly sorry for having offended God, and be resolved, at the time of confession, to do what lies in our power never again to turn away from Him. To these dispositions must also be joined the intention of doing something to repair the injury which sin has done to God. Given such conditions, and we need only speak the word to God's duly appointed minister and our sins are no more. The dark veil which hung around the soul like a cloud is lifted, and we again rejoice in the smile of our heavenly Father. How simple, yet how potent are the means provided for our salvation! None but God could have thought of them, nothing but the love of God could have arranged them!
But even before the sinner is brought to [pg 080] penance, even while he is wandering and reveling afar off in the vile delights of sin, God is pursuing him, God is seeking after him, calling him by name, whispering to his heart, disposing him for repentance. We cannot return to God, once we have deserted Him, without His help. It is our awful power to be able to leave Him, but to return alone we are not able. Wherefore He comes after us when we have wandered into the wilds of sin; He pleads as it were, with our souls, and offers us the grace to repent. Oh privileged are our souls to be thus appraised by God, and happy those who hear and heed the appealing voice of His grace!
VI. He Leadeth Me in the Paths of Justice for His Name's Sake.
The shepherd country of the East is full of walks and pathways, some leading this way, some that. Some lead to dangerous precipices over which the sheep might fall and be lost, others would expose them to the attack of wild beasts, while still others would lead them so far astray that they could not find their way back. It is, therefore, always needful that the shepherd go ahead of his flock and lead them in the right path. The Psalmist, in the title of the present chapter, is applying this carefulness of the shepherd for his sheep to our Lord, in His regard for our spiritual welfare. The Saviour goes before us with the blessings of His goodness to help and lead us aright, lest perchance we become lost and perish in our journey.
This solicitude of our Redeemer in providing for the various needs of our souls is characteristic of Him as Saviour. It is implied in the meaning of his name. Before He was born, before He was conceived in His Mother's womb, it was foretold of Him that He should be called Jesus, which means Saviour, for He would save His people from their sins.[26] He exercised, as we know, this mission of saviour throughout His earthly career. It was for this that He came into the world, for this that He was born in Bethlehem with a manger as His cradle, for this that, at the age of twelve, He was found teaching in the Temple, for this that He retired to Nazareth and was subject to Mary and Joseph, for this that He labored and suffered and bled and died. And with His passing from this visible scene to the bosom of His Father, He did not cease to be that for which He had been [pg 083] eternally anointed—the great High Priest, the Mediator between God and man, the Saviour of the world. His work is everlasting; and now that He has gone up on high, He pleads for us ever more with the Father. We belong to Him, He has purchased us with His blood, and He must needs care for our safety to the end.
Inasmuch as we are heirs, according to divine decree, to thrones beyond the skies, it was necessary, as we have seen, that He who is our Saviour and Shepherd should have left behind Him in this world of ours a doctrine, a code, or system of instructions and laws, which should safely direct and guide us to our royal destiny. Those who lived with Him on earth, those who heard His assuring, life-giving words, and felt the inspiration of His example and visible presence needed not to fear for the direction or safety of their course. The divine, living voice and sacred presence of their Lord and Master they enjoyed, and care and [pg 084] anxiety fled from their souls. But not for these alone had the Redeemer come, but for all mankind, for all who in future were to breathe the breath of human life. He came to save all, He died for all; and thus the teaching which He gave to the world, and which He committed to His chosen followers, was for every human being, even to the end of the world, that through it all might live and attain to life everlasting.
The doctrine which the Saviour left us, and the laws which He prescribed were vastly different from the teachings of men. Guiding, saving words of a Shepherd to his flock, they engendered safety, comfort, peace. Free from error or mistake, sealed with the seal of Heaven, holding out a promise of future glory, they exhaled the perfumes of the eternal city, they told of mansions not built with hands. And since this immaculate doctrine, given for the souls of men, was to last till the end of time, there was need that it should be shielded against [pg 085] the assaults of the world and protected from the influence of our changing human teachings. It could not be corrected, because it contained no mistakes; it could not be changed or altered, because it came from the changeless God; it could have no substitute from the part of men or creatures of any kind, because it was given by Him who alone was the way, the truth, and the life. Consequently the truths which the Saviour declared to the world as the only means by which we can be saved, were at once infallible in themselves, and so provided for that no human agency, no lapse of years or revolutions of time and place should ever be able to infringe on their eternal, changeless character. It was to preserve these truths in their integrity and freshness that He founded His unerring Church and committed to it the office of custodian and expounder, under the guidance of His Holy Spirit, of all He had revealed for the salvation of human kind. Hence to hear our Shepherd's voice, [pg 086] to understand what He says to us, to know what we must do to obey His laws and save our souls, we need but listen to the voice of His Church. Before it was established He declared that He should build His Church upon a rock, and that no enemy, or group of enemies, not even the gates of hell should ever prevail against it.[27] He established the Church as His mouthpiece, and He said to the little band that constituted it in the beginning, “he that heareth you, heareth me, and he that heareth me, heareth Him that sent me;”[28] and, as if to emphasize this declaration, He added that any one who would not hear and obey the Church should be considered as a heathen and a publican—types of all that was bad.[29] The Church, therefore, is the oracle of God, it is His mouthpiece; it possesses and guards the only revelation which God has made to His rational [pg 087] creatures; it alone has the words of eternal life.