Penitence

“ It is love, therefore, my brethren, which makes true penitence: for penitence is only a changing of the heart; and the heart does not change but in changing its love: penitence is only the re-establishment of order in man; and man is only in order when he loves the Lord, for whom he is made: penitence is only a reconciliation with God; and your reconciliation is fictitious, if you do not restore to him your heart: in a word, penitence obtains the remission of sins, and sins are remitted only in proportion to our love. ”

“ We are all sinners, O my God! and Thou knowest our hearts! What we know of our errors is, perhaps, in Thy sight, the most pardonable; and we all allow that by innocence we have no claim to salvation. There remains, therefore, only one resource, which is penitence. After our shipwreck, say the saints, it is the timely plank which alone can conduct us into port; there is no other means of salvation for us. Be ye whom ye may, prince or subject, high or low, penitence alone can save you. Now permit me to ask where are the penitent? ”

“ For true penitence is health of the soul and restorer of virtue; as St. Bernard testifies, saying: O Penitence, health of the soul, restorer of virtue, scatterer of ems, overthrower of hell, gate of heaven, way of the righteous and satis faction of the blessed. [5] Oh, right blessed is he that loves the penitence of the saintly life and keeps it unto the end of his days! Stand in the way of God, dear brothers, ever moving forward in the holy life. Cease not to do well: for when the time shall come, you will live in heaven for ever. ”

“ Wherefore in order to satisfy as briefly and shortly as possible, your desire and question, the full and perfect description of penitence is, never again to yield to those sins for which we do penance, or for which our conscience is pricked. ”

“ Now, if slight rigours, which would at present be sufficient amends, appear so insupportable, and disgust you at the idea of a change, shall penitence be more alluring, when more toils, and steps a thousand times more bitter, present themselves in its train? My God! upon the affair of salvation alone it is that men are capable of such wilful mistakes. ”

“ The sins of a whole people become your's; you defame through the mouths of all your fellowcitizens; you are likewise answerable for the guilt of all who listen to you. What penitence can expiate evils to which it can no longer afford relief? ”

“ Now, if a man should say: 'But, my friends, this means real penitence;' they would reply, 'Oh, but we mean real penitence.' 'Well, if you do, you must know that that is not always possible.' 'Not possible!' Then make them understand that; they will roar with wrath, and protest against it as no privilege at all. ”

“ And the very ministers of penitence, who should have been the judges of our hatred, frequently become its apologists, adopt a party with the public, enter into all the animosity and prejudices of their penitents, proclaim the justice of their quarrel, and are the cause that the only remedy destined to strike at the root of the evil, answers no other purpose than that of decorating it with the appearance of godliness, and of rendering it more incurable. ”

“ The species of penitence are three: solemn, when a man is openly expelled from Holy Church in Lent, or is compelled by Holy Church to do open penance for an open sin openly talked of in the country; common penance, enjoined by priests in certain cases, as to go on pilgrimage naked or barefoot; and privy penance, which men do daily for private sins, of which they confess privately and receive private penance. To very perfect penitence are behoveful and necessary three things: contrition of heart, confession of mouth, and satisfaction ”

“ Would not love see returning penitence afar off, and fall on its neck and kiss it? ”

“ We would not hesitate to say, that in no other book of fiction, where the lives of such characters are described, is guilt and delinquency made less seductive, or the suffering made more closely to follow the commission, or the penitence more earnest or more bleeding, or the intervening flashes of religious visitation, upon the rude and uninstructed soul, more meltingly and fearfully painted. ”

“ Now have I told you of very [true] confession, that is the second part of penitence: The third part of penitence is satisfaction, and that standeth generally in almsdeed and bodily pain. Now be there three manner of almsdeed: contrition of heart, where a man offereth himself to God; the second is, to have pity of the default of his neighbour; the third is, in giving of good counsel and comfort, ghostly and bodily, where men have need, and namely [specially] sustenance of man’s food. And take keep [heed] that a man hath need of these things generally ”

“ Those, on the other hand, who displayed weakness, were despised and detested, and when they gave way to repentance, they were compelled to undergo a rigorous penitence, which lasted as long as they lived. ”

“ Of which men should gladly hearken and inquire with all their hearts, to wit what is penitence, and whence it is called penitence, and in what manner, and in how many manners, be the actions or workings of penitence, and how many species there be of penitences, and what things appertain and behove to penitence, and what things disturb penitence. ”

“ If you would retribute what you seem to lament, and unite restitution to penitence, leave this country for a short time, and abandon with the haunts of your former blameable pursuits, those associates who were at once the cause and punishment of your errors. ”

“ And when it is said "I will repay the double of their guilt and of their trespass," we are to understand that the Divine justice is not satisfied with half measures; the punishment of sin is proportioned to the offence, and the cup of self-entailed misery has to be drained to the dregs. Even penitence does not abolish the physical and temporal consequences of sin; in ourselves and in others whom we have influenced they continue—a terrible and ineffaceable record of the past. ”

“ The object of the punishment which the law pronounces is not vindictive chastisement of the culprit. The object of punishment is purely reformatory. Only it must not be forgotten that there can be no reformation without penitence, and no penitence without self-abasement. And this consists in confessing one's self guilty, admitting that the guilt has become a part of one's being, and humbling one's pride to the ground. ”

“ And, so long as they do not repent with their whole heart and are unwilling to let go what has been acquired or retained through shedding of blood, their penitence before God will remain without the worthy fruit of penitence. ”

“ Man, too fondly or too vainly, hopes, by penitence at the close of life, to redeem the faults of the commencement, and punishment deferred loses more than half its terrors, and nearly all its certainty. ”

“ He said, "It is very rarely successful; it retards the course of your penitence. It is an indulgence, and it may bring harm and not good but if the meaning is generous and just, permission will be given, and you may go." ”

“ But for those small offences in which, as it is written, “the righteous falls seven times and will rise again” [1] penitence will never cease. For either through ignorance, or forgetfulness, or thought, or word, or surprise, or necessity, or weakness of the flesh, or defilement in a dream, we often fall every day either against our will or voluntarily ”

“ Equally may the same confessors absolve the above-named penitents from all the sins and excesses, however serious and enormous they may be, as has been said, reserved to the said ordinaries and to us, or to the Apostolic See, enjoined to them as a salutary penitence, and other things to be enjoined by right ”

“ If the guilty person should show sincere proofs of penitence, or by liberal giving of alms made satisfactory recompense for wrongs done, his penance might be eased, or the term of his excommunication shortened, and his Church privileges partly or wholly restored. ”

“ There are only three, and penitence is combined with each. When one has transgressed a positive commandment, and done penance, he is atoned for before he goes away from his place. As it is written [Jerem. iii. 14] : "Return, O backsliding children." If he has transgressed a negative commandment, penitence suspends (the sentence) , and the Day of Atonement atones. ”

“ Therof seith Seint Augustyn that penitence of goode and humble folk is the penitence of every day.
§4 The speces of penitence been three. That oon of hem is solempne, another is commune, and the thridde is privee. Thilke penance that is solempne is in two maneres; as to be put out of hooly chirche in-lente, for slaughtre of children and swich maner thyng. Another is, whan a man hath synned openly, of which synne the fame is openly spoken in the contree, and thanne hooly chirche by juggement destreyneth hym for to do open penaunce. ”

“ Moreover, these processions are attended by men of Liberal as well as Conservative opinions. That the particular image plays an important part is shown by the fact that the act of penitence is never [54] performed save in connection with its appearance in the streets. The penitent walks barefoot before or after the platform on which is carried the Virgin of his adoration, and although it may be one among fifty representations of the Virgin in his city, it is understood that no other would have the same efficacy in cleansing his particular sin. ”

“ Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before
I swore—but was I sober when I swore?
And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand
My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore. ”

“ Prisoner at the bar, you have been convicted of the crime of murder, and one of the most heinous ever committed, but it is no part of my office to dwell on the enormity of your guilt. It is my only duty to pass upon the sentence of the law, and that sentence is—That you be taken to the prison from whence you came, and then to the place of execution, and there be hanged by the neck until you are dead. May the Lord have mercy on your miserable soul! ”

“ Anon they pass by the groups of penitents, whose distorted limbs and painful postures denote their self-imposed penance—these linger round the outer limits of the holy of holies like the thieves round a wonted prison, or as it seemed to them, like the wicked at the gates of Paradise. ”

“ If in the wisdom of the members of the legislature the crime calls for imprisonment in the penitentiary, then the ordinary sentences run one, two, five, ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty years, and life, according to the hazard of the legislature, the whim of the court, the gamble of the jury, or the feeling and means of expression of the unthinking and pitiless crowd who awe courts and juries with their cries for vengeance.
Neither does punishment affect any two alike; the sensitive and proud may suffer more from a day in jail or even from conviction than another would suffer from a year. ”

“ A. Works of penance are any kind of punishment which the sinner willingly undergoes, in order to satisfy for sin; and as the nature of punishment requires that it be painful and afflicting to self-love, so anything whatsoever that is naturally painful and afflicting to us, and which we willingly undergo with the view of satisfying for our sins, is a penitential work. ”

“ Such a confession was very bold, if she had rightly understood the judge when he said that by flight from prison she would incur the punishment of a heretic. To escape from an ecclesiastical prison was to commit a crime against the Church, but it was folly as well as crime; for the prisons of the Church are penitentiaries, and the prisoner who refuses salutary penance is as foolish as he is guilty; for he is like a sick man who refuses to be cured. ”

“ The word ‘penalty’ is not technically exact. Strictly speaking, the Inquisition was concerned not with crimes and punishments, but with spiritual errors and penances.416 Thus, when the tribunal consigned some one to prison, its formula ran that the man in question shall betake himself to prison and there penance himself on a diet of bread and water. No confessor will regard the mere expression of contrition as sufficient in itself; nor will the genuine penitent be satisfied. Penance is the outward and visible sign of sincere repentance, and an earnest of future amendment of life. ”

“ Instruct us, how we should live after penance. I tell you—abstain from all crimes. And I add: not only, after having done penance, should a man keep himself from crimes; but likewise before, whilst he is in health ; because he knows not, when death approaches, that he shall be admitted to penance, and be able to confess his sins to God and the Priest. Therefore I said, that you should live well before penance, and better after it.-Would you then remove all doubt, and escape all uncertainty? Do penance while you enjoy health. ”

“ What should a penitent do who knows he cannot perform the penance given? A. A penitent who knows he cannot perform the penance given should ask the priest for one that he can perform. When we forget the penance given we must ask for it again, for we cannot fulfill our duty by giving ourselves a penance. The penance must be performed at the time and in the manner the confessor directs.
Q. 749. {192} What is the examination of conscience? A. The examination of conscience is an earnest effort to recall to mind all the sins we have committed since our last worthy confession. ”