Penance Or Perish

 

To My Readers: This week I get to take a much needed respite from writing a post in order to catch up on everything else in my life! This post by Lee, is on the important topic of penance, a subject that deserves our attention all the more as we approach the Lenten season. I hope you find it edifying (as I did), and please feel free to comment as usual. If anyone asks a question specifically for me, I will be checking in and will answer as always; it might just take me a little longer to respond this week.

God Bless you all, my dear readers---Introibo 

Penance or Perish

By Lee

During my youth at public school, most kids growing up with me were passionate Protestants and were constantly trying to get anybody they could to join their churches. For them it wasn't about which church was the True Church but who had the best church based on the activities going on at church. Sadly, but not surprisingly, a few Novus Ordo "Catholics" were converted either because they could have more fun or they could spend more time with their close friends for the sake of fellowship. They were "SAVED" as long as they "accepted Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior," whatever that meant.

One particular objection that triggered them most was the idea of doing penance for sin. They would say things like "Jesus paid the full penalty on the cross so why should we have to suffer" or " Jesus will forgive your sins if you are sorry and as long as you believe in Him you won't need to suffer," etc. In a nutshell, doing penance went against the easy life of just simply believing in Christ, because the implication meant that they weren't "saved" as they had falsely thought. Not knowing whether anything I said back then ever had any effect on them (i.e., my defense of Catholic teaching with the use of Scripture), my goal in this writing is to explain why doing penance is one of the most necessary and important ways in living the Christian life.

The Necessity of Penance

"If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For he that will save his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for my sake, shall find it." (St. Matthew 16:24). 

The purpose of doing penance is to expiate for ones sins whether they be mortal sins absolved in the confessional or venial sins which with time rust out the soul. If full expiation is not completed before this life is over, despite being in the state of sanctifying grace, Purgatory will be where the soul will have to be finish it.  Penance mortifies, disciplines and repairs for the damage caused by sin. It also helps a person get into Heaven. In order to do penance with the right disposition, one must be in the state of grace and offer it in either atonement for ones sins (or others) or to give glory to God by resigning our will to whatever He wills. While prayer is of absolute importance, so too is penance. It should not be ignored. 

Doing penance can range from a multitude of acts whether it be fasting, almsgiving, accepting the death of a loved one, living with a person who is a thorn in the side, illness, unfortunate events, eating food which is not very tasty, making yourself unnoticed, etc. Penance is not just for those professed in the religious state of life, but also for the married and single living in the world. Penance, along with prayer, increases virtue and makes a person pleasing to God.    

Church Teaching on Doing Penance

Council of Trent, Session Fourteen declares:

CHAPTER VIII (THE NECESSITY AND FRUIT OF SATISFACTION)

Finally, in regard to satisfaction, which, of all the parts of penance, just as it is that which has at all times been recommended to the Christian people by our Fathers, so it is the one which chiefly in our age is under the high-sounding pretext of piety assailed by those who have an appearance of piety, but have denied the power thereof, the holy council declares that it is absolutely false and contrary to the word of God, that the guilt is never remitted by the Lord without the entire punishment being remitted also. For clear and outstanding examples are found in the sacred writings, by which, besides divine tradition, this error is refuted in the plainest manner. Indeed the nature of divine justice seems to demand that those who through ignorance have sinned before baptism be received into grace in one manner, and in another those who, after having been liberated from the servitude of sin and of the devil, and after having received the gift of the Holy Ghost, have not feared knowingly to violate the temple of God and to grieve the Holy Spirit. 

And it is in keeping with divine clemency that sins be not thus pardoned us without any satisfaction, lest seizing the occasion and considering sins as trivial and offering insult and affront to the Holy Spirit, we should fall into graver ones, treasuring up to ourselves wrath against the day of wrath. For without doubt, these satisfactions greatly restrain from sin, check as it were with a bit, and make penitents more cautious and vigilant in the future; they also remove remnants of sin, and by acts of the opposite virtues destroy habits acquired by evil living.

Neither was there ever in the Church of God any way held more certain to ward off impending chastisement by the Lord than that men perform with true sorrow of mind these works of penance. Add to this, that while we by making satisfaction suffer for our sins we are made conformable to Christ Jesus who satisfied for our sins, from whom is all our sufficiency, having thence also a most certain pledge, that if we suffer with him, we shall also be glorified with him. Neither is this satisfaction which we discharge for our sins so our own as not to be through Christ Jesus; for we who can do nothing of ourselves as of ourselves, can do all things with the cooperation of Him who strengthens us. Thus man has not wherein to glory, but all our glorying is in Christ, in whom we live, in whom we merit, in whom we make satisfaction, bringing forth fruits worthy of penance, which have their efficacy from Him, by Him are offered to the Father, and through Him are accepted by the Father. 

The priests of the Lord must therefore, so far as reason and prudence suggest, impose salutary and suitable satisfactions, in keeping with the nature of the crimes and the ability of the penitents; otherwise, if they should connive at sins and deal too leniently with penitents, imposing certain very light works for very grave offenses, they might become partakers in the sins of others. But let them bear in mind that the satisfaction they impose be not only for the protection of a new life and a remedy against infirmity, but also for the atonement and punishment of past sins.

For the early Fathers also believed and taught that the keys of the priests were bestowed not to loose only but also to bind. It was not their understanding, moreover, that the sacrament of penance is a tribunal of wrath or of punishments, as no Catholic ever understood that through our satisfactions the efficacy of the merit and satisfaction of our Lord Jesus Christ is either obscured or in any way diminished but since the innovators wish to understand it so, they teach, in order to destroy the efficacy and use of satisfaction, that a new life is the best penance.

CHAPTER IX (THE WORKS OF SATISFACTION)

It [the Council] teaches furthermore that the liberality of the divine munificence is so great that we are able through Jesus Christ to make satisfaction to God the Father not only by punishments voluntarily undertaken by ourselves to atone for sins, or by those imposed by the judgment of the priest according to the measure of our offense, but also, and this is the greatest proof of love, by the temporal afflictions imposed by God and borne patiently by us.

Our Lady of Lourde's message:

The Blessed Virgin Mary said to St. Bernadette of Lourdes "Penance! Penance! Penance! Pray to God for sinners. Kiss the ground as an act of penance for sinners!" on February 24, 1858.

Abbe Francois Trochu wrote the following in the book Saint Bernadette Soubirous: 1844-1879:

One might have expected to see Sister Marie-Bernard engaging in unusual austerities for she had a lasting memory of the call three times repeated by the Lady of the Apparitions: 'Penance, penance, penance!' Sensibly and submissively she complied with her confessor's directions: in view of her feeble health there were to be no corporeal penances beyond those permitted by the rule: abstinence on the days prescribed, the constraints of obedience, the discomforts of common life, then the practices of daily self-denial: custody of the eyes, silence of the tongue, finally, resigned endurance of infirmities and sickness . . . . Those 'mortification that are not served up with the sauce of our own desire,' as Saint Francis de Sales says so prettily, 'are the best and most excellent, and also those that are met with in the streets--or in the gardens or cloisters--without our thinking about them or looking for them; and such as we meet with daily, however trifling'.

In the course of the Retreat of 1874 given at Saint-Gildard by Father Condalon, S.J., Sister Marie-Bernard accumulated notes on mortification:

Serious attention to all our duties necessarily involves the exercise of incessant mortification. . . .

The mortification God asks of us is the exact observance of our Rule, of the practices, customs and instructions given by superiors. A Sister who is faithful in all this is practicing a high degree of mortification and with no risk of vanity. In my opinion [here the preacher is speaking] she would be able to enter Heaven without passing through the flames of Purgatory.

There are many daily mortifications which a recollected and attentive souls does not let slip: that of rising during winter at the fixed hour and with no delay, without turning over and over in bed, is most pleasing to God. . . . Again, if anyone comes in, don't look or ask who it is. As for the sense of taste there is an infinity of mortifications one can do, without anyone noticing them. A nun should never make known her likes or dislikes for this or that food. . . . 

Before the close of the Retreat of the 1875 Sister Sister Marie-Bernard went again to Father Douce, who had already heard her confession. She desired his advice about a life of greater penance. 'Your mortification,' said the Marist, 'should be that of the sense of taste. Never complain about food. . . ."

The sick are inclined to give way to little self-indulgences: Sister Marie-Bernard, on the contrary, used illness to mortify herself. 'If she was offered anything unpleasant to the taste,' reported Sister Viguerie, 'she would take it willingly and seize the opportunity of making a sacrifice.' How many mornings she woke up--supposing that she had managed to sleep--with a disgust for any short of food! 'When I brought her breakfast,' relates Sister Marcillac, then second infirmarian, 'she would say with a smile: "That's my penance you're bringing me!" But she used to take it all the same.'

From from advertising her ailments, she tried rather to conceal them out of virtue. Her practice of mortification consisted in hidden sacrifices incessantly renewed. This perseverance was in itself heroism, nor did God ask more of her. (Abbe Francois Trochu, Saint Bernadette Soubirous: 1844-1879, first published in 1954 by the Librairie Catholique Emmanuel Vitte in Paris, France; published in English in 1957 by Longmans, Green and Company, Ltd., of London, England; reprinted by TAN Books and Publishers, 1985, pp. 334-336.)

Valuable quotes from Saints

“The more the wicked abound, so much the more must we suffer with them in patience; for on the threshing floor few are the grains carried into the barns, but high are the piles of chaff burned with fire.” -Pope Saint Gregory the Great

“Nothing afflicts the heart of Jesus so much as to see all His sufferings of no avail to so many.” -Saint John Mary Vianney

"If God gives you an abundant harvest of trials, it is a sign of great holiness which He desires you to attain. Do you want to become a great saint? Ask God to send you many sufferings. The flame of Divine Love never rises higher than when fed with the wood of the Cross, which the infinite charity of the Savior used to finish His sacrifice. All the pleasures of the world are nothing compared with the sweetness found in the gall and vinegar offered to Jesus Christ. That is, hard and painful things endured for Jesus Christ and with Jesus Christ." -Saint Ignatius of Loyola

"The road is narrow. He who wishes to travel it more easily must cast off all things and use the cross as his cane. In other words, he must be truly resolved to suffer willingly for the love of God in all things." -St. John of the Cross

"If you seek patience, you will find no better example than the cross. Great patience occurs in two ways: either when one patiently suffers much, or when one suffers things which one is able to avoid and yet does not avoid. Christ endured much on the cross, and did so patiently, because when he suffered he did not threaten; he was led like a sheep to the slaughter and he did not open his mouth." -St. Thomas Aquinas

Conclusion:

Jesus says, "He that is not with me, is against me: and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth." (St. Matthew 12:30). We know that in order to be with Jesus we must suffer like Jesus. This is what scatters the Protestants who are really not with Jesus. They pray, which is good, but do not know what to do with the merits of suffering in union with Jesus by taking up their cross. Nor do they believe it is even necessary since, as they say, "Christ suffered the full penalty so that way we wouldn't have to." 

The Church wisely gives us time during the calendar year to practice penance, such as with fasting and abstinence during Advent and Lent and recommends the practice of alms-giving or giving up something. It sharpens our will and mind to be more conformed with that of Christ and prepares us for those two important feasts of the coming of Our Lord in the Nativity and Resurrection of Our Lord on Easter. In our times, we certainly have plenty of opportunities to prepare ourselves with penance. Let's not make it go to waste for Jesus says, "No, I say to you: but unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish." (St. Luke 13:3).