What do Catholics believe about penance?
Loren, a reader, asked some honest questions about Catholic beliefs. The fourth question is on penance.
Q: I can’t find anything in the Bible about penance. The Bible does say that God’s forgiveness is a free gift we receive by turning away from our wrong ways and accepting it through believing in Jesus as our Lord (Galatians 2:16, Romans 1:17). According to the Bible good works do not make a person a Christian, but good works should be the sign of a person who is a Christian.
A: You may not find the word ‘penance’ in the Bible, but you will find many instances of penance being carried out. One good example is found in the book of Jonah. When Jonah preached to the Ninevites, the entire kingdom put on sackcloth, fasted, and sat in ashes. This is penance, which is a sign of their repentance. And when God saw their efforts to renounce their evil behaviour, he relented and did not inflict on them the disaster which he threatened. (Jonah 3:9-10).
Forgiveness is indeed a free gift, but we receive it only when we make effort to turn away from our wrong ways. It is not enough to admit that we have sinned, but we must make efforts to change our ways. This desire to change our ways is called repentance. Repentance can seen through what we do, which is penance.
Penance has often been associated with extra work, taking on extra suffering, saying extra prayers, almsgiving, fasting and abstinence, etc. But penance also takes other forms.
For example, if I have committed a sin by betraying a friend’s trust and breaking the relationship, a good form of penance would be by doing my best to try to repair that relationship. It could be praying for our relationship. It could be going the extra mile to gain my friend’s trust again. It could be going to him and admitting my mistake and ask him for forgiveness. All these are different forms of penance that shows that I have truly repented.
In cases where it is not possible to make amends, for example if the person I have offended has already passed away, I can show my repentance by making other forms of penance, such as praying for this person’s soul, making a donation to charity, etc.
In a nutshell, penance is the works that are a sign of our inner repentance.
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Filed under: Apologetics, FAQs, Reconciliation, Sacraments | Tagged: abstinence, almsgiving, confession, fasting, penance, Prayer, repentance
