Final Words on Penance

The proclamation of God’s mercy and forgiveness also formed a prominent part of Saint Paul’s teaching:

God has reconciled us to Himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. (2 Cor 18-20)

The image of binding and loosing in Jewish tradition seems to have been originally used to describe the power of a judge in dealing with an accused person. If the judge found the person guilty, he would order the person to be bound and led off to prison; if he found the person innocent, he would order the person to be loosed from his bonds and released.

In Saint Matthew’s gospel, Jesus uses the same image to describe how the Church is to deal with wayward members. If your brother has offended you, He says, try to work out the problem with him privately. If that does not succeed, bring two or three witnesses.

If he refuses to listen to them, bring the matter to the Church. If the offender will not listen even to the Church, ban him from the community! Jesus assures His disciples that whatever the community binds or looses will be bound or loosed in heaven.

If he refuses to listen even to the Church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector. Amen, 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. (Mt. 18.18 cf. Mt. 16.19)

In other words, Jesus says to the Church: “When you ban the sinner, God bans him as well. When you reconcile the sinner, God reconciles him. When you keep the sinner bound by his sin, God keeps him bound. When you loose him from his sin, God looses him as well.”

Notice the universal scope of power: “Whatever you bind…Whatever you loose…” God sets no limits on the Church’s power of binding and loosing, forgiving or retaining sins—presupposing, of course, that the person is truly repentant.

In Christ,

Rev. Jeffery A. Fasching