Digital Continent Digital Continent Easter 2017 | Page 49

sin.” The penitent is reconciled to God through the blood of the lamb, to “intimate friendship”
through the sacrament of reconciliation. 124
Conversion and penance are man’s answer to God’s offer of a reconciliation,
rendered possible and conveyed by God’s grace. Penance, is therefore, at the
same time a gift of God and a free, morally responsible act of man (actus
humanus), in which man as the responsible subject avows his evil acts but at the
same time changes his life by a personal decision and gives a new direction to
God. 125
The healing sacrament of anointing of the sick, Extreme Unction in the case of those who
are near death, where God’s people are strengthened through Christ’s suffering on the cross.
God’s people exhibit their love of God through the virtue of fortitude whereby God’s people
endure their physical suffering as His Son endured the Cross,
by the sacred Anointing of the Sick and the prayer of her priests the whole Church
commends the sick to the suffering and glorified Lord, asking that he may lighten
their suffering and save them (cf. Jas 5:14-16); she exhorts them, moreover, to
contribute to the welfare of the whole people of God by associating themselves
freely with the passion and death of Christ (cf. Rm 8:17; Col 1:24; 2 Tim 2:11-12;
1 Pt 4:13)” (LG, n.11).
124
St.Pius V, The Catechism of the Council of Trent, Trans., John A. McHugh, OP, Charles J. Callan, OP, (IL: Tan Books
and Publishers, Inc., 1982), 265.
125
International Theological Commission, Penance and Reconciliation, 1982,
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_cti_1982_riconciliazione-
penitenza_en.html, accessed 6/14/2016, n.1.