![]() ![]() “Behold the days shall come, saith the Lord, and I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Juda: Not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt: the covenant which they made void, and I had dominion over them, saith the Lord. Rather my subject is this idea of God “forgetting” my sins. But this sacrament is not the subject of my present essay. As Saint Thomas says (and the Church teaches) all mortal sins can be forgiven by penance even those of just man who has fallen. The quote above is a warning, not a sentence. On the other hand, the same prophet also says: “But if the just man turn himself away from his justice, and do iniquity according to all the abominations which the wicked man useth to work, shall he live? all his justices which he hath done, shall not be remembered: in the prevarication, by which he hath prevaricated, and in his sin, which he hath committed, in them he shall die” (Ezechiel 18:24).ĭo not be disheartened if you have fallen from Grace. Remember, then, that the two sins against hope are presumption and despair. “Then Judas, who betrayed him, seeing that he was condemned, repenting himself, brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and ancients, Saying: I have sinned in betraying innocent blood” (Matthew 27: 3-4, my emphasis). A person who despairs is someone who hates himself and his sin more than he loves God. Or, we lose hope in His mercy and despair. Without holy confidence we lose faith in God’s justice we imagine His mercy trumps His justice. So it is attached to the supernatural virtues of both faith and hope. ![]() “Confidence”! The word comes from the two Latin words “con-fides,” with-faith. So much so that He promises not only to forgive but to “forget” our offenses. He wants repentant sinners to have confidence in His paternal mercy. What a consoling truth this is from the inspired Word of God! This is our Father speaking to us His children. When I read this passage from the Book of Ezechiel, I was amazed. I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done: in his justice which he hath wrought, he shall live” (Ezechiel 18:21).” “But if the wicked do penance for all his sins which he hath committed, and keep all my commandments, and do judgment, and justice, living he shall live, and shall not die. 1 uses this quote from Ezechiel in his Sed Contra to refute the error that not all mortal sins can be forgiven by Penance. Saint Thomas in the third part of his Summa Theologica, Q. It is written ( Ezechiel 18:22): “I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done: in his justice which he hath wrought, he shall live.”
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