C. Solution of the Question

213. As to the third article [n.194], the opinion of the Master [Sent. IV d.18 ch.6 n.3] seems to be: “In pardoning and retaining guilt,” he says, “the Gospel priest works and judges as the priest of the law [of Moses] did in the case of those who were infected with leprosy, which signifies sin.” And he proves it from the remark of Jerome, which is there adduced [n.191].

214. But this seems to take too much from the sacrament of penitence. For, according thereto, sin would never be deleted by the sacrament of penitence but it would have to be deleted by confession first so that the sacrament of penitence might be worthily received, because no one is shown to be clean of sin unless he is free from it first. And a further unacceptable result would follow, that never could the sacrament of penitence be a second plank [n.13], because the one shipwrecked would never be free from danger of sinking.

215. Therefore is it said that thus does God require a disposition by congruity, so that he may confer grace on the sinner - and this such that he not bind his power to the sacraments, but that it may, without the preparatory and fitting disposition that would suffice, confer grace through the sacrament. And this is a mark of greater mercy, namely to institute a double way by which the sinner may be justified, than to restrict it to one way. Just as therefore an adult can have the first grace, which destroys original sin, in a double way, namely from a good movement disposing him for grace by congruity, or from receiving baptism, so also in the issue at hand.

216. This is made clear as follows: that for the first reception of grace [sc. in baptism] there is required in adults some motion meritorious by congruity [sc. being a catechumen]; but for the second [sc. in penitence] there is required only a [sc. preceding] reception of baptism, voluntary and without pretense, and with the intention of receiving what the Church confers, and without will or act of mortal sin; so that in the first way there is required some intrinsic work that is somehow accepted as meritorious by congruity; in the second way there is only required an extrinsic work, with removal of exterior impediment.

217. Not only, then, does someone exercising attrition for some time up to a certain instant receive, in the final instant, the grace that destroys sin committed (as if by virtue of merit by congruity, as was made clear in the preceding solution [nn.134-138]), but he who does not have such an act as may suffice for merit by congruity, but has only the will of receiving the sacrament of the Church and without obstacle of mortal sin inhering in him either in fact or in will - he receives the effect of this sacrament, not by merit but by divine pact [Ord. IV d.1 n.308, 315, 323, d.4 n.103, d.8 n.146], as thus having done little attrition, even with the attrition that does not have the idea of merit for remission of sin.

218. He however who wants to receive the sacrament of penitence as it is dispensed in the Church, and without obstacle and will of mortal sin in act at the last moment of the pronouncing of the words (wherein is the force of the sacrament) - he will receive the effect of the sacrament, namely penitential grace; not indeed by merit (because this interior disposition was not enough by way of merit), but by pact of God who aids his sacrament to this effect for which he instituted the sacrament. Otherwise it would not appear how the sacrament of penitence is ‘a second plank’ [n.13], if through it (as it is a sacrament) can never be recovered a lost second grace, but only through attrition as a preparatory disposition, and through contrition as through a completive disposition.

219. If you ask whether penitence is a sacrament, I say that what you want is done in the word ‘penitence’ if this word is taken as it is in the two preceding questions, namely for actual ‘holding a penalty’ according to any of the above significations [nn.62-65]; or also taken for habitual ‘holding a penalty’, which is a certain special virtue whose act is actual ‘holding a penalty’ [nn.120-126]. According to the first signification penitence is not a sacrament, because it is not a sensible sign; but in the latter ways it could be called a sacrament of penitence, when taking that in a transitive and not intransitive sense [n.189] the way ‘creature of salt’‘Creature of salt’ in the intransitive sense is, ‘creature that is salt’, and in the transitive sense, ‘creature that comes from salt’. In several rites, including that of baptism, the words ‘I exorcize you, creature of salt’ are used for blessing salt. One could speak instead here of objective and subjective genitive, as in the case of ‘love of God’, which in the objective sense means the love we have for God, and in the subjective sense the love God has for us. So ‘sacrament of penitence’ in the transitive or objective sense is the sacrament that has penitence for object (namely the penitent sinner receiving forgiveness), and in the intransitive or subjective sense it means the sacrament that penitence is (namely the sacrament in which the penitent, by confessing, receives the sacramental grace). ²⁰ is taken, unless the name ‘penitence’ is here used equivocally.