Catechesis Notes for the Week — Associating with Sinners—The Ministry of Absolution—The ministry of private absolution is retained in the church because of God’s passion to save the lost sinner. The baptized Christian still “daily sins much and deserves nothing but God’s wrath and punishment.” The devil, the world, and the Christian’s own sinful nature wage an incessant war against faith in Christ. Holy Absolution is spoken that the Christian’s faith in Christ might be restored and that his conscience might be comforted and strengthened against these attacks. Faith lives from the word of the Gospel. How wonderful it is that Christ’s absolution comes to us sinners in many ways: Holy Baptism, the preaching of the Gospel to the congregation in the Divine Service, ongoing catechesis, the Lord’s Supper, and even the comforting words of the Gospel spoken to us by our brothers and sisters in Christ. But it is also offered to us in the consolation our pastor is called to give us privately: Holy Absolution. Private absolution is a sermon of the sweetest Gospel for the individual sinner applied to the sinner’s specific need. Like our Lord who received sinners and ate with them, the Lutheran pastor is called by God to associate with the members of his flock who are tormented by the weaknesses of their sinful nature and plagued by a bad conscience. He is called to believe that he has no greater work than to offer the comfort of Holy Absolution. (Luth. Cat. p. 201)CP230416