By DON FIER
In His great mercy, Christ instituted the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation as a remedy for those who, having received the new life of grace (friendship with God) through the saving waters of Baptism, become estranged from their Creator through sin.
The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church summarizes the underlying reason for the crucial need of this post-baptismal sacrament of healing in man’s struggle for conversion, holiness, and attainment of everlasting life: “The new life of grace received in Baptism does not abolish the weakness of human nature nor the inclination to sin” (n. 297). Our propensity to surrender to the unrelenting tug of concupiscence is such that even “a righteous man falls seven times” (Prov. 24:16).
In his 1962 encyclical Paenitentiam Agere, Pope St. John XXIII recalled the teaching of the Council of Trent to masterfully describe the difference between gaining the life of grace through the Sacrament of Baptism versus Penance:
“When we put on Christ in baptism (Gal. 3.27), we become in Him an entirely new creature and obtain the full and complete remission of every sin. It is only with great effort and with great compunction on our part that we can obtain the same newness and sinlessness in the sacrament of penance, for such is the stipulation of divine justice. That is why the holy Fathers called penance ‘a laborious kind of baptism’” (n. 16).
The Gospel call to penance and conversion, as we saw last week, aims at conversion of heart — without interior conversion, outward works are meaningless. Jesus made this foundational principle of the spiritual life clear after pronouncing the Beatitudes during the Sermon on the Mount. After entreating His followers that they must strive to “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48), our Lord immediately warned them: “Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 6:1).
Just a few verses later, after emphasizing that they should pray and fast in secret, Jesus assures them that “your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matt. 6:18).
“Interior repentance,” teaches the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), “is a radical reorientation of our whole life, a return, a conversion to God with all our heart, an end of sin, a turning away from evil, with repugnance toward the evil actions we have committed” (n. 1431). Moreover, “it entails the desire and resolution to change one’s life, with hope in God’s mercy and trust in the help of his grace” (ibid.).
Similarly, the Council of Trent’s Roman Catechism (RC) explains that “inward penance consists in turning ourselves unto God from the heart, and in detesting and holding in hatred our past transgressions; with a deliberate and firm resolution of correcting our evil course of life and corrupt morals, not without the hope of obtaining pardon through the mercy of God” (II, 5, 4).
The Catechism goes on to emphasize that a determined effort is required on our part, for there will be animi cruciatus (affliction of spirit) and compunctio cordis (repentance of heart) in the person experiencing interior conversion.
In his work entitled The Human Person According to John Paul II (HP-JPII), J. Brian Bransfield explains how this pain and sadness manifests itself in the Parable of the Prodigal Son (see Luke 15:11-32). For the prodigal son, the animi cruciatus is “the crucifixion of spirit that sets in when the grace of the Holy Spirit makes us realize that we are far from God in sin” and the compunctio cordis is “the sorrow of heart that follows upon sin…[which] flows from the Holy Spirit’s action in the sinner’s heart” (HP-JPII, p. 180).
An important aspect of God’s merciful love is alluded to here: “Conversion is first of all a work of the grace of God who makes our hearts return to him” (CCC, n. 1432). God’s grace, in other words, begins to move the sinner’s heart even while he is still alienated by sin. And how necessary this is because of our hardness of heart!
The Old Testament Prophet Ezekiel gives us our Lord’s remedy: “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezek. 36:26).
As expressed in The Didache Bible (TDB), “The Holy Spirit transforms the hardened heart and creates a new one, infused with grace and charity. By responding to these graces, a person grows in holiness, reflecting the love of Christ” (p. 1074). Thus, as the Catechism subsequently states, “The first work of the grace of the Holy Spirit is conversion” (CCC, n. 1989).
How is interior conversion of heart expressed in the life of a Christian? Sacred Scripture and Tradition “insist above all on three forms, fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, which express conversion in relation to oneself, to God, and to others” (CCC, n. 1434). The Old Testament Book of Tobit states, “Prayer is good when accompanied by fasting, almsgiving, and righteousness” (Tobit 12:8).
As stated earlier, however, to be genuine and efficacious, these acts must not be for external show: “When you give alms, sound no trumpet before you . . . that they may be praised by men” (Matt. 6:2); “When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret” (Matt. 6:6); and “When you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by men” (Matt. 6:17-18).
“In prayer we express our desire and commitment to conversion to God, by fasting we experience conversion through the discipline of our physical bodies, and in almsgiving we bear evidence of our conversion to others” (TDB, p. 538).
These acts of piety and penance are to be practiced by faithful Christians throughout the year, but are especially recommended by Holy Mother Church during the penitential seasons of Lent and Advent as well as on all Fridays (cf. CCC, n. 1438). Other means of repentance enumerated by the Catechism include: “efforts at reconciliation with one’s neighbor, tears of repentance, concern for the salvation of one’s neighbor, the intercession of the saints, and the practice of charity ‘which covers a multitude of sins’ ” (CCC, n. 1434).
The Catechism lists other practical means which each of us can implement in our daily lives to enkindle ongoing conversion: gestures of reconciliation to others, concern for the poor, the defense of justice and right, admission of faults to one’s brethren, kindhearted but firm fraternal correction, daily examination of conscience, spiritual direction, acceptance of suffering, and patient endurance of persecution for the sake of righteousness (cf. CCC, n. 1435).
The evangelist St. Luke gives us the surest means of conversion, that of following the example of our Lord: “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). It is through joyful acceptance and performance of the duties of our state in life, self-denial, and suffering that “we grow in union with Christ and consequently become capable of drawing others to Christ” (TDB, p. 1372). With God’s grace, it is within our power to make every thought, word, and deed a sacrifice to our heavenly Father.
Closely connected to the Sacrament of Penance is the Eucharist: “Daily conversion and penance find their source and nourishment in the Eucharist, for in it is made present the sacrifice of Christ which has reconciled us with God” (CCC, n. 1436). As was discussed earlier when the fruits of worthy reception of Holy Communion was treated (see volume 149, n. 30; July 28, 2016), the Eucharist is “an antidote, whereby we may be freed from daily faults and be preserved from mortal sins” (Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum, n. 1638).
Likewise, “reading Sacred Scripture, praying the Liturgy of the Hours and the Our Father — every sincere act of worship or devotion revives the spirit of conversion and repentance within us and contributes to the forgiveness of our sins” (CCC, n. 1437).
The Prodigal Son
The Catechism concludes its treatment of the forms of penance in Christian life with a rich paragraph on a parable touched upon earlier, that of the prodigal son. As Pope St. John Paul II sagely observes in his general audience of September 8, 1999, this sublime parable might more fittingly be called “the parable of the merciful father.” It is a parable that the recently elevated saint of the Church treats with great profundity in his 1984 post-synodal apostolic exhortation Reconciliatio et Paenitentia.
In the account of the prodigal son, the process of sinful man becoming estranged from God, penance, and conversion, and merciful forgiveness by the Father are beautifully summarized by the Catechism:
“The fascination of illusory freedom, the abandonment of the father’s house; the extreme misery in which the son finds himself after squandering his fortune; his deep humiliation at finding himself obliged to feed swine, and still worse, at wanting to feed on the husks the pigs ate; his reflection on all he has lost; his repentance and decision to declare himself guilty before his father; the journey back; the father’s generous welcome; the father’s joy — all these are characteristic of the process of conversion” (CCC, n. 1439).
How apt is the Gospel verse: “There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15:7).
+ + +
(Don Fier serves on the board of directors for The Catholic Servant, a Minneapolis-based monthly publication. He and his wife are the parents of seven children. Fier is a 2009 graduate of Ave Maria University’s Institute for Pastoral Theology. He is doing research for writing a definitive biography of Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ.)
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress