Paths to Penance
What is the Purpose of Penance?
I hope you are having a very blessed Ash Wednesday! Every Lent, I think about this book: Spirit of Penance, Path to God: How Acts of Penance Will Make Your Life Holier and Your Days Happier. This reprint from 1958 opened my eyes to the deeper meaning and beauty of penance.
Growing up Catholic, I dreaded Lent. It meant lack of fun and lack of desserts, and even lack of sugar on my cereal! On the other hand, I was drawn to the beauty of the Way of the Cross by St. Alphonsus de Ligouri which we prayed aloud together in church on Friday evenings. Some of the words of those prayers still ring in my head, like “Nail my heart to Thy Feet, Lord, that it may every remain there, to love Thee and never quit Thee again.”
That’s exactly what this book explains…that the point of penance is conversion to God, connection with Him, “a stretching out toward the love that casts out fear.” The purpose of penance is not to lose weight by fasting or giving up sweets. “True penance is the surrender of the whole self to God.”
So the bigger the penance we do, the holier we are, right? Not necessarily. St. Paul tells us, “And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.” (1 Cor. 13:3) So the goal here is not the bigger penance, but the bigger love. Are we fasting for love of God, or so we can lose 10 pounds by Easter?
“The approach to penance has to be by way of love, not by way of steeling the will to toughness.” At a recent Confraternity of Christian Mothers talk, our priest told us that perfection is not personal flawlessness, but rather removing the obstacles between us and His Love.
This applies to penance too - it doesn’t matter if we give up caffeine, chocolate, Facebook and TV if we have not charity. This book on penance also reminds us to focus on humility: humility and charity.
So we have St. Paul’s words reminding us to put charity first, and we also have Our Lord’s words telling us to be humble in our penance:
“And when you fast, be not as the hypocrites, sad. For they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward. 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: and thy Father who seeth in secret, will repay thee.” (Matt 6:16-18)
Oops! Does that mean we shouldn’t brag on social media about what we’re doing for Lent? If the purpose is boastfulness, then yes, we shouldn’t. Some people are honestly posting their Lenten practices to help and encourage others — I don’t judge anyone for sharing. We often cull great ideas that way for our Lenten fasts: from our phones, from gossiping, from yelling at our kids, from binge-watching Netflix, or from being lazy about our laundry.
From
, I got the idea of having spiritual books in key locations around the house, so there is always one handy during Lent. From Sarah Mackenzie on Read-Aloud Revival, I got a screen saver for my phone that says, “Read Instead”. What a great idea! From , I got the idea of giving up control (for the Cholerics) or giving up negative thoughts (for people like me who have some Melancholic!). The ideas are swirling around us, so how do we choose?This Lent, let us remove obstacles to the flow of love from Him to us, and back again. Compulsive scrolling on social media? That’s an obstruction to hearing His Voice. Not getting out of bed when the alarm goes off to pray, so that when we do rise, we have to rush off to work or school? That blocks our prayer time and therefore is an obstacle to our communication with Him. Allowing negative thoughts to swamp our thinking? That’s a lack of trust in His Plan and Loving Providence, and therefore an obstacle to His love pouring into our hearts.
Spiritual reading is a beautiful substitute for time-eaters like social media scrolling, especially during Lent. We can use the extra time that we gain from the things we “give up” to spend some more time in spiritual reading. St. Isidore of Seville is quoted thus: “When we pray, we talk to God; when we read, God talks to us.” Again, we are opening our hearts to Him.
Hopefully, you are reading our quarterly book club selection along with us: Piety and Personality: The Temperaments of the Saints. Pre-orders are shipping to you this week!!!!, followed by new orders immediately afterward, so if you haven’t ordered yet, please do! It’s also available instantly as an e-book or audible book.
In Piety and Personality, we see examples of many different saints and how they sanctified themselves. The tip boxes in each chapter give us specific things we can work on, in imitation of the saints who were most like us. Just now, I said a prayer and opened up the book to find you an example. Here’s what I saw:
“Tip for Cholerics and Sanguines: Admit when you need guidance or instruction, even if it is humbling to do so.”
I flipped further, and this one popped up:
“Tip for All Temperaments: Find comfort in the Sacrament of Penance. If it is a source of fear or dread for you, then ask to meet with the priest outside the confessional to discuss your concerns. This sacrament was instituted to be a solace — as it was to Mary Magdalene.”
So you see, our spiritual reading can not only be a way to hear God’s Voice, but it can help us see specific things to do this Lent, so as to remove obstacles between us and His Heart.
I was going to ask you to leave a comment telling me what you are doing for Lent, but maybe we should “fast in secret” instead. :) How about if you tell me what thoughts have struck you? What helps to motivate you to remove the obstacles to His Love?