The Virtue of Penance
excerpts on such acts
Men,
The virtue of penance is above all a habitual attitude of the soul: an abiding regret for having offended God and a desire to make reparation for our faults.
By these acts of penance, man rises up against himself to avenge God’s rights which he has trampled under foot.
By his sins, he rose up against God, he opposed his will to the all-holy will of God.
By his acts of penance, he unites himself to God in His hatred of sin and to His justice that demands the expiation of it.
Moved with sorrow, the soul says to God: “O my God, I detest my sin, I long to avenge Thy rights by penance, I would rather die than offend thee again.”
That is the spirit of penance that urges and inclines the soul to make acts of expiation.
When the motive is feat of hell it is good, says the Council of Trent; God accepts it. But when the motive is love, it is excellent and perfect; the more the love of God increases within us, the more we feel the need of offering to God the sacrifice of “a contrite and humbled heart.”
The virtue of penance is one of the purest forms of love. One loves God so much, regrets so profoundly having offended Him, that one longs to repair and expiate: this is the source of a life of generosity and self-forgetfulness.
Since Adam’s sin, the harmonious order that God intended has disappeared, the inferior appetite has become rebellious, and the flesh strives against the spirit.
Concupiscence is the prompting of the inferior appetite that inclines us to disorder and urges us to sin. In order that the life of grace may be maintained and developed in us it is needful to mortify, that is “put to death” not our human nature itself, but that which is in our nature that is the source of disorder and sin.
The primary reason and necessity for penance is to reestablish order in us and to subject our reason to God, so as to allow our will to yield entirely to God.
Never forget this: Christianity demands mortification first of all so as to immolate in us that which is opposed to life. The Christian labors, by self renunciation, to root out from the soul all element of spiritual death, so the Divine life may increase in it with more liberty, ease and fullness.
Our Lord expects of us that we should take the trouble to see our vices, and that we should labor generously by constant watchfulness over ourselves, by the careful examination of our daily actions, and by mortification as well as self-denial to expiate them. He expects us to take no respite until the root of these vices are so weakened that they can no longer spring up and bear fruit. For the more these roots decrease, the more the Divine life can grow strong within us, because it has greater liberty to unfold.
We must accept as true disciples of Christ the trials that under God’s providence, come to us in the course of life. Trials such as sickness and suffering, the loss of those dear to us, adversities, the oppositions and contradictions to our plans, the failures of our undertaking, moments of weariness, hours of sadness, the burden of the day that weighs so heavily. All those miseries detach us from ourselves and creatures by modifying our nature and making it die in us little by little.
I die daily
Saint Paul
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam
Nick | Catholic Manhood
In the spirit of this article I would like to submit a little practice of mine which has borne much fruit. I fast for three or four days or more as an offering to God. And I ask His grace for the strength to fast.
After about 60 or 65 hours I begin to feel very close to the Father and feel very filled with the Holy Spirit. Prayers begin to spontaneously flow from me to Jesus almost effortlessly. The link between prayer and fasting is very strong. Each one strengthens the other.
Many prayers of repentance are a natural part of the process. But even more are the prayers of love and praise and worship. I think the fasting enhances my prayer life immensely. It may work for others.