For the past couple of weeks, we have seen the power that Jesus has in bringing physical healing to those who need it most. The ability for the sick to immediately become well, for the blind to be able to see, for the leper to be cleansed, for any ailment, any sickness, whether physical or even demonic to instantly vanish at the touch or the words of Jesus.

However, in today’s Gospel, Jesus demonstrates a power that is even, arguably, greater than all of those combined, a power that goes beyond the physical to reach the very core of our soul and, therefore, reserved for God alone, the power to bring about spiritual healing, the power to forgive sins.

In fact, that is why after the paralytic is healed, the people were astounded, not just because he could walk again, but because Jesus took away his sins, so that, in awe and amazement all they could say was: “We have never seen anything like this.”

And, the beautiful thing is that Jesus still exercises that same power in His priests. For, whether we fully understand it or not, whether some priests fully understand it or not, by virtue of their ordination, all priests were given the power and authority to forgive sins, to stand in the Person of Christ, to bring forth mercy and to absolve us of our sins.

That is why many priests will tell me that, as I experienced myself, it is in the sacrament of reconciliation when a priest feels like a priest, because he realizes who he is and who he has become before God.

Seeing within the sacrament a palpable and tangible sign of God’s love and how He reaches out in consolation and mercy. So that the priest can witness, firsthand, a transformation in a person unlike they have ever seen before, so that, in what seems like an instant, they leave different than how they arrived.

The priest becomes as it used to be said in Latin an “Alter Christus,” that is, “Another Christ,” so that as He stands “In Persona Christi,” that is, “In The Person of Christ,” He becomes not so much a wielder or great power, but, rather, a humbled instrument, whom God chose for whatever reason, to bring forth the graces He wishes to bestow.

And, as that instrument, he brings healing, forgiveness and absolution, but it is only God who can bring the rest, it is only God who can bring the very essence of forgiveness, because, it is only God who can bring mercy.

And, mercy, as Isaiah beautifully puts it in our first reading today, is forgetting, “your sins I remember no more.” For, as foolish as it may sound, God forgets our sins, fully wiping away, for His sake, our offenses.

There is a great story about a woman who would not go to confession because she believed that her sins were so horrible that they were unforgivable. Her spiritual director instructed her to ask Jesus to tell her what his greatest sin was. When she met with her spiritual director again he asked her what Jesus said. She said that He had forgot.

Yet, that is exactly what happened in our Gospel today, Jesus never again reminded the paralytic of his sins, instead, the next words He spoke to the paralytic were: “rise, take up your mat and go home.” Jesus not only healed the man, and forgave him of his sins, but He forgot those sins as well.

Perhaps then, as we begin to enter the season of Lent this week, we might begin in that confessional, letting the words of Isaiah echo in our hearts, knowing that with forgiveness comes mercy and with mercy the greatest healing of all, the healing of our very soul.