Salesian Literature

Chapter 18:  Love in penance: the various kinds of penance

​

Penance, broadly speaking, is a repentance by which we resolve to break away from our sinful habits, detest the sins we have committed, and make good (as far as we can) the offence and damage to God and to his law.  In include in penance the idea of resolving to make good the offence, for repentance would be insufficient if it wilfully allowed the chief effects of sin (the offence and the damage) to remain.  It lets them remain if, when it is able to put them right, it does not do so.

 

I am not concerned here with the penance of those pagans to whom Tertullian points; it was so empty, so useless, they even did penance at times for their good actions.  I am dealing only with penance as a virtue; it is of different kinds, depending on the motives which prompt it.

 

Most assuredly, one sort of penance is merely moral and natural.  This was what Alexander the Great knew: he decided to starve himself to death, after killing his beloved Clitus, so violent (according to Cicero) was his penance.

 

Most assuredly, Seneca, Plutarch, and the Pythagoreans, who were much in favour of examination of conscience – especially Seneca, who speaks so feelingly of the agony of a remorseful conscience – must have known about repentance.  As for that wise man Epictetus, so well does he describe the practice of self-correction, his words could scarcely be bettered.

 

That is not the only moral penance.  There is yet another kind, which results from a man’s natural knowledge that his sins offend God.  it is even religious in character, almost divine; many philosophers, in fact, knew that God was pleased by virtue and, consequently, offended by sin.

 

Epictetus, the good man, expressed the wish to die a Christian (as he most likely did).  He said, among other things, that he would die happy, if he could say on his deathbead with hands uplifted to God: “I have never done anything to bring you dishonour.”  Obviously, then, this philosopher, while still a pagan, knew that sin offended God, just as virtue honoured him.  Consequently, he felt that sin should be repented, and he even laid down an evening examination of conscience – commending it, like Pythagoras, with this admonition:

 

Scold yourself sharply for days misspent;

Godly your day, go to bed content.

 

Now repentance of that kind, associated with the knowledge and love of God provided by nature, was a moral virtue.  Natural reason, however, gave these philosophers more knowledge than love, since they did not honour God with their hearts in proportion to their awareness of him in their minds (cf. Rom. 1:21).  In the same way, nature provides more light for the mind to see how sin offends God than warmth for the heart to prompt the repentance needed to make up for the offence.

 

We can truthfully claim, therefore, that penance is a completely Christian virtue. On the one hand, it was so little recognized among the pagans; on the other, it is so well-known to all true Christians that it underlies much of our evangelical philosophy.  For a man to deny that he is a sinner is absurd (cf. 1 Jn. 1:8,10); and the man who expects to be cured of his sinfulness without penance is mad.  Repent – that was the burden of all our Lord’s preaching (cf. Mt. 3:2; 4:17).  So let me run briefly through the stages of this virtue.

 

Sometimes we reflect on the fact that God, who is offended by sin, has prepared the severe punishment of hell for sinners, and will deprive them of heaven awaiting the saints.

 

At other times we reflect on the fact that sin is deforming and spiteful, as faith teaches.  For instance, it besmears and disfigures the likeness to God which we wear; it is a disgrace to the soul’s dignity; it reduces us to the level of brute beasts.

 

Again, at times, we are prompted to penance by the beauty of virtue, for virtue is as rich in blessings as sin is in misfortunes.  Moreover, we are often spurred on by the example of the saints.

​

​

Back to Top

​