Our Lord makes the healing of the body secondary to that of the soul. When He delivers the body from its distempers His object is to win the confidence of the spectators by compelling them to recognize Him as the soul's Physician. He says, for instance, to the palsied man, "Thy sins are forgiven."(436) The scribes are offended at our Savior for presuming to forgive sins. He replies, in substance: If you do not believe My words, believe My acts; and He at once heals the man of his disease. After he had cured the man that had been languishing for thirty-eight years He whispered to him this gentle admonition, "Sin no more, lest some worst thing may happen to thee."(437)
As much as our spiritual substance excels the flesh that surrounds it, so much more did our Savior value the resurrection of a soul from the grave of sin than the resurrection of the body from that of death. Hence St. Augustine pointedly remarks that, while the Gospel relates only three resurrections of the body, our Lord, during His mortal life, raised thousands of souls to the life of grace.
As the Church was established by Jesus Christ to perpetuate the work which he had begun, it follows that the reconciliation of sinners to God was to be the principal office of sacred ministers.
But the important question here presents itself: How was man to obtain forgiveness in the Church after our Lord's ascension?
Was Jesus Christ to appear in person to every sinful soul and say to each penitent, as He said to Magdalen, "Thy sins are forgiven thee," or did He intend to delegate this power of forgiving sins to ministers appointed for that purpose?
We know well that our Savior never promised to present Himself visibly to each sinner, nor has He done so.
His plan, therefore, must have been to appoint ministers of reconciliation to act in His name. It has always, indeed, been the practice of Almighty God, both in the Old and the New Law, to empower human agents to execute His merciful designs.
When Jehovah resolved to deliver the children of Israel from the captivity of Egypt He appointed Moses their deliverer. When God wished them to escape from the pursuit of Pharaoh across the Red Sea, did He intervene directly? No; but, by His instructions, Moses raised his hand over the waters and they were instantly divided.