BREATH OF LIFE

²² And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: ²³ whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.

We all know this passage from John about the resurrected Christ communicating the Holy Spirit to the disciples; but at the local Mass for Whitsun/Pentecost I heard an interpretation of it that was completely new to me, and very powerful. Our lively Algerian-born priest Fr Jean-Kamel said, in his homily, that this is not primarily a justification of the spiritual authority of the Church. No: it is about us, he claimed. We have received the Holy Spirit at our baptism: and so this statement about the forgiveness or retention of sin is addressed directly to each of us. If we forgive our neighbour his sin, it is forgiven, and (s)he is freed; if we retain it – if we do not, cannot forgive it – (s)he remains its prisoner.

I found, and find, this vertiginous: such power it adds to the Second Great Commandment.