Thoughts About Penance
Tell me, my dear brethren, what are the penances that are given to you? Alas! A few rosaries, some litanies, some almsgivings, a few little mortifications. Do all of these things, I ask you, bear any proportion to our sins which deserve eternal punishment? There are some who carry out their penance walking along or sitting down; that is not doing it at all. Unless the priest tells you that you may do it while walking along or sitting down, you should do your penance on your knees. If you do perform your penance while walking along or sitting down, you should confess it and never do it again.
In the second
place, unless you are not able to do it as required, in which event you must
tell that to your confessor when you go to Confession the next time, I must tell
you that the penance should be done within the time indicated; otherwise you
commit a sin. For example, the priest might tell you to make a visit to the
Blessed Sacrament after the services because he knows that you go around in
company which will not bring you any nearer to God; he may order you to mortify
yourself in something which you eat because you are subject to gluttony; to
make an act of contrition if you have the misfortune to fall back into the sin
which you have just confessed. At other times you may wait until the moment
when you are ready to go to Confession to do your penance. You understand as
well as I do that in all of these instances you are fully at fault and that you
should not fail to confess that and that you should never do this again. In the
third place, I tell you that you should perform your penance devoutly, that is
to say, with reverence and with the sincere intention of giving up the sin. To
say your penance reverently, my dear brethren, is to say it with attention to
its spiritual importance and with devotion in your hearts. If you have said
your penance with wilful distractions, you will not have said it at all and you
are obliged to say it again. To perform it devoutly is to perform it with a
strong confidence that God will forgive you your sins through the merits of
Jesus Christ, Who made satisfaction for us by His sufferings and His death on
the Cross. We should perform our penance overwhelmed with joy at being able to
satisfy God, Whom we have offended, and at finding such an easy means of
effacing our sins which should have earned eternal sufferings for us. Something
which you should never forget is that all the time you are fulfilling your
penance, you should be saying to God: "My God, I unite this slight penance
to that which Jesus Christ my Saviour has offered to You for my sins."
This is what will make your penance meritorious and pleasing to God. I repeat
that we should always carry out our penance with the true desire to give up the
sin altogether, no matter what it may cost us, even if it involves death
itself. If we have not these dispositions, very far from satisfying the justice
of God, we will outrage it again, which would make us even more guilty.
I have said that
we should never content ourselves with the penance which our confessor imposes
upon us because it is nothing, or almost nothing, if we compare it with what
our sins really deserve. If our confessor is so very lenient with us, it is
only lest he might give us a distaste for the work of our salvation. If you
really have your salvation at heart, you should impose penances upon yourself.
Choose those which
suit your case best. If you have the misfortune to be someone who gives
scandal, you should make yourself so watchful of your behaviour that your
neighbour will not be able to see anything in your life which would give him
anything but good example; you should show by your conduct that your life is
truly Christian. If you are one of those unhappy people who sin against the
holy virtue of purity, you should mortify that sinful body with fasting, giving
it only what it needs to sustain life and to fulfill its functions, from time
to time making it sleep upon bare boards. If you are one of those who has to
have something to eat which will gratify your gluttony, you should refuse this
to your body and despise it as much as you previously loved it. When your body
wants to cost you your soul, you must punish it. Your heart, which must often
have thought of impure things, has carried your thoughts into Hell, which is
the place reserved for the unchaste.
If you are
attached to the things of this earth, you should give alms sufficient to enable
you to punish your avarice by depriving yourself of all that is not absolutely
necessary for life.
If we have been
negligent in the service of God, let us impose upon ourselves the penance of
assisting at all the exercises of piety which are going on in our parish. I
would advise Mass, Vespers, catechism, prayers, the Rosary, so that God, seeing
our eagerness, may be good enough to pardon us all our negligences. If we have
spare time between the services, let us do some spiritual reading, which will
nourish our souls -- above all, some reading of the lives of the saints wherein
we may see how they behaved in order to sanctify themselves. That will
encourage us. Let us make some short visit to the Blessed Sacrament during the
week to ask God to pardon the sins we have committed. If we feel ourselves
guilty of some fault, let us go and get rid of it so that our prayers and all
our good works may be pleasing to God and more advantageous to our souls. Have
we the habit of swearing or of flying into rages? Let us go down on our knees
to say again this holy prayer: "My God, may your holy name be blessed for
ever and ever! My God, purify my heart, purify my lips so that they may never
pronounce words which would outrage you and separate me from you!"
Any time that you
fall into this sin, you should immediately either make an act of contrition or
give away something to the poor. Have you been working on Sunday? Have you been
buying or selling without necessity in the course of this holy day?
Give to the poor
some alms which will exceed the profit you have made. Have you been eating or
drinking to excess? In all your meals you should deprive yourself of something.
Such, my dear
brethren, are the penances which will not only suffice to make satisfaction to
the justice of God, if joined to those of Jesus Christ, but which can even
preserve you from falling again into your sins. If you want to conduct
yourselves in this way, you will be sure, with the grace of God, of correcting
your faults.
By
Saint John Vianney
Photo
taken from Wikimedia Commons
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for your interest in our blog! Your comment will be viewed shortly to be added to our blog. :)