Formation
The School of Penance
Learning to deny oneself, repair for sin, and offer sacrifice for souls.
No, I say to you: but unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish.
Luke 13:3 (Douay-Rheims)
The call
Penance is the answer of a converted life.
Our Lord does not invite the Christian merely to admire the Cross. He commands the disciple to deny himself, take up his cross, and follow.1 This self-denial does not purchase the mercy of God, replace the Sacrifice of Calvary, or make suffering good in itself. Christ alone redeemed us. The baptized soul can pray, repair, intercede, and make satisfaction only in Him, moved and sustained by His grace.2
Sin disorders more than a single outward act. It trains appetite to demand, the will to excuse itself, and the soul to prefer immediate relief to obedience. Penance answers by turning the whole person back toward God. It joins contrition to a changed life, prayer to fasting, and renunciation to mercy.
Mortification is therefore larger than fasting. It places disordered appetite beneath reason enlightened by Faith and beneath the rule of grace. The body is not hated; it is disciplined as a member of Christ. Lawful comforts are not condemned; sometimes they are surrendered so that love may give, reparation may be offered, and the will may become prompt for God.
Hidden beneath the ordinary day
The Ordinary School
The imagination is easily attracted to severe austerities because they appear decisive. Providence usually begins closer to home. The cross already placed within one's vocation ordinarily has precedence over a cross chosen for its appearance. St. Francis de Sales repeatedly governs bodily discipline by health, vocation, duty, and charity; the Rule of St. Benedict subjects even additional Lenten offerings to humility and obedience.3
Prompt duty
Rise when duty calls. Begin the disliked task without bargaining. Complete necessary work faithfully when comfort asks to stop.
Custody of speech
Refuse complaint, boasting, needless contradiction, the clever reply, and the repetition of another's fault.
Custody of the senses
Turn the eyes from what feeds impurity, envy, curiosity, distraction, or dissatisfaction. Let silence recover recollection.
The common table
Eat with gratitude and temperance. Accept what is provided without making others carry the burden of a private discipline.
The neighbor
Give another the preference. Receive interruption without displaying annoyance. Bear an irritating manner for love of a soul.
Lawful comforts
Sometimes relinquish a treat, convenience, purchase, or entertainment so that the will remembers it is not ruled by appetite.
“But thou, when thou fastest anoint thy head, and wash thy face; that thou appear not to men to fast, but to thy Father who is in secret.”
Matthew 6:17–18 (Douay-Rheims)
The weekly remembrance of Calvary
Friday belongs beneath the Cross.
Friday abstinence is not an arbitrary restriction upon food. Our Lord Jesus Christ suffered and died for us on Friday. The Church therefore marks Friday as a day of penance and, in the received Latin discipline followed by this site, commands those bound by the law to abstain from flesh meat, apart from the exceptions and lawful dispensations the Church herself provides. The Catholic table thus remembers in the body what the soul professes in faith: the Son of God loved us and delivered Himself for us upon Calvary.5
Friday abstinence is consequently both obedience and devotion. By obeying the common law, the pilgrim submits private appetite to the discipline of the Church; by keeping the reason for that law before his mind, he turns a meatless meal into a quiet act of gratitude, reparation, and union with the Passion. The abstinence should be kept simply, without replacing meat with luxury and without judging another person's plate.
The common abstinence is a foundation, not the whole of Friday devotion. According to health, state of life, and prudent guidance, the pilgrim may also read the Passion, pray the Sorrowful Mysteries, make the Stations of the Cross, give alms, or accept an ordinary sacrifice without complaint. A person legitimately excused from the food discipline should still keep the day near Calvary by another suitable act of prayer or penance.
Stability before severity
A Rule of Growth
These are not levels of holiness. They are an order of prudence. Greater love may call forth greater generosity, but generosity must first prove itself in obedience, perseverance, and charity.
Beginning the Practice
Keep the fasts and abstinences commanded by the Church. Perform sacramental penances promptly. Accept ordinary inconveniences without complaint, and choose one small hidden mortification each day.
Growing in Generosity
Establish several modest practices suited to your state of life. Guard speech and the senses more deliberately, keep Friday beneath the Cross, and attach particular intentions to sacrifices.
A More Established Rule
After stability in prayer and duty, a soul may embrace greater simplicity and more deliberate voluntary fasting or abstinence. Unusual or demanding bodily austerities require prudence and competent spiritual direction.
If a voluntary practice makes a person proud, conspicuous, habitually irritable, negligent in duty, or careless of legitimate health needs, it has ceased to serve its proper end. Mortification should make charity freer.
Obedience protects generosity
Spiritual guidance is best.
When a prudent and doctrinally sound Catholic priest is available, it is best to place an established rule of prayer, penance, and mortification before one's confessor or spiritual director. Another fatherly judgment can expose the self-will that disguises itself as generosity, restrain severity born of pride or impatience, and help the soul persevere when feeling has passed. St. Francis de Sales therefore counsels the devout soul to seek a faithful guide rather than attempting the interior road alone.4
The nature of the obligation must nevertheless be understood clearly. A priest's recommendation ordinarily remains counsel; omission is not made sinful merely because the advice came from a priest. A person may follow such counsel in a true spirit of obedience without intending that every failure bind under pain of sin. By contrast, the penance imposed in Confession is a sacramental duty and should be performed faithfully. A command given by a lawful superior within the limits of his authority, or a valid vow made to God, can also bind the conscience according to its matter and intention.
Never guess about this distinction. If a practice is proposed “under obedience,” ask whether it is counsel, a nonbinding rule accepted for stability, or an actual obligation of conscience. No one should create an obligation under pain of sin merely to make retreat impossible during weakness. Such an obligation requires legitimate authority or another recognized source of obligation, a grave and proportionate reason, full freedom, and prudent direction. The humble soul seeks obedience, but does not manufacture sins that God has not imposed.
Love can give something up
The Pilgrim's Offering
Choose one legitimate comfort or preference and surrender it quietly for another soul. The suggestions below are aids to recollection, not a universal rule and not an obligation under pain of sin.
Possible intentions
- The conversion of sinners
- The Holy Souls in Purgatory
- A particular soul
- Reparation for sin
- Priests
- Perseverance in the Catholic Faith
- My family
Possible hidden sacrifices
- Accept unavoidable inconveniences without complaint.
- Perform promptly the unpleasant duty you are tempted to delay.
- Keep silence when tempted to defend or praise myself.
- Renounce lawful comforts according to a prudent rule.
- Guard my eyes and refuse unnecessary curiosity.
- Give another person the preference.
- Bear difficult manners patiently.
- Relinquish unnecessary entertainment and use the time for prayer.
Keep modest practices quietly according to duty, prudence, and capacity, and offer them to God for worthy intentions. Do not announce them. Do not admire yourself for having made them. Let the sacrifices pass through the hands of Our Lady and be united to the Cross of her Divine Son.
A suggested prayer
O my Jesus, I offer Thee this small sacrifice in union with Thy perfect Sacrifice upon the Cross. Receive it through the hands of Our Blessed Mother, in sorrow for my sins and for the intention I now commend to Thee. Without Thy grace I can do nothing. Keep me humble, hidden, and faithful, and let this act increase charity rather than self-regard. Amen.
Continue formation
Study the complete Catholic order of penance.
This school gives the pilgrim an entrance and a practice. The complete chapter explains interior conversion, satisfaction, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, ecclesiastical discipline, health and vocation, Friday penance, hiddenness, failure, and the proper fruits of mortification.
Sources
- Matthew 16:24; Luke 9:23 (Douay-Rheims).
- Council of Trent, Session XIV, Doctrine on the Sacrament of Penance, chapters 4 and 8–9; Roman Catechism, Part II, treatment of Penance and satisfaction; Colossians 1:24.
- St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, Part III, chapters 23–24; Rule of St. Benedict, chapter 49.
- St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, Part I, chapter 4; St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, questions 88 and 104; 1917 Code of Canon Law, canons 1307–1315.
- Matthew 27; Mark 15; Luke 23; John 19 (Douay-Rheims); 1917 Code of Canon Law, canons 1250 and 1252; St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, question 147, article 5.