Through the Passion of Christ We Are Freed from Sin

Third Sunday of Lent

Through the Passion of Christ We Are Freed from Sin

He loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood. (Revelation 1:5)

Christ’s Passion is the proper cause of the forgiveness of sins in three ways:

1° By way of exciting our charity, because, as the Apostle says (Rom 5:8): God commendeth His charity towards us: because when as yet we were sinners, according to the time, Christ died for us. But it is by charity that we procure pardon of our sins, according to Luke 7:47: Many sins are forgiven her because she hath loved much.

2° Christ’s Passion causes forgiveness of sins by way of redemption. For since He is our head, then, by the Passion which He endured from love and obedience, He delivered us as His members from our sins, as by the price of His Passion: in the same way as if a man by the good industry of his hands were to redeem himself from a sin committed with his feet. For, just as the natural body is one though made up of diverse members, so the whole Church, Christ’s mystical body, is reckoned as one person with its head, which is Christ.