confession

If you forgive anyone, I also forgive him. And what I have forgiven - if there was anything to forgive - I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes. (2 Cor 2:10-11)

Evidences for Christianity

The object of love informs the love of the lover. And it informs the lover in his loving. The beloved, in being loved, shapes the love given. This is true in marriage, and everywhere in the world. This is true for every mortal relationship.

The virtuous pagans did not worship matter itself. They loved the Incomprehensible Deity, although they did not always know it. As for the wicked pagans, however, whether they worshiped gods or gold, spirits or stone, it does not matter: the object of their latria was the created, not The Uncreated. And we become holy only by loving the Holy One, only by letting the Object of our adoration shape us into His image. "Since it was the will of God's only-begotten Son that men should share in his divinity, he assumed our nature in order that by becoming man he might make men gods."

The strongest evidence I can think of for the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church is the Eucharist. If the object Catholics adore is not the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ Jesus, really Present under the appearance of bread and wine, than countless saints would have been informed and degraded by prostrating themselves, body and soul, before the Host in absolute and supreme worship. That sinners have done the same and remained unchanged is not an argument against this: it is not the submission of the body but of the person that is needed. And the saints are precisely those who have done this most of all, who surpassed all others in holiness because they lowered themselves before all others in prayer.

I promise you, in adoration you will find the Lover of your soul.

forgiveness of sins

Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven." (John 20:21-23)

The Holy Spirit it seems was necessary for this kind of forgiveness. Peter's earlier question about how many times he should forgive a brother was a question about one man sinning against another, and of one man forgiving another. But if the Holy Spirit is necessary to forgive sins in the way the apostles are now forgiving sins, then God himself is involved in this forgiveness; that is, the apostles are forgiving sins in the name of God and in the person of Christ.