Penance
Penance is any act or a set of actions done out of contrition for sins committed, as well as an alternative name for the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox sacrament of Reconciliation or Confession.
The word penance derives from Old French and Latin paenitentia, both of which derive from the same root meaning repentance, a sincere change of heart and feeling of remorse. Penance and repentance, similar in their derivation and original sense, have come to represent conflicting views of the essence of repentance, arising from the controversy in the Protestant Reformation as to the respective merits of "faith" and "good works".
According to dictionary definitions, the primary meaning of penance is the deeds done out of penitence. Like the latter, repentance refers to the genuine interior sorrow for one's hurtful words or actions. Only repentance implies a purpose of amendment, the resolve to avoid such hurtful behavior in the future. The words "true" and "firm" might be added to all but penance, to specify the depth of change in one's hurtful attitude. Contrition is the state of feeling remorseful, and can describe both the show of deepest regret and the firmest sorrow for one's wrongdoings.
Christianity
Penance as a religious attitude
, upholding the doctrine of justification by faith alone, held that repentance consisted in a change of the whole moral attitude of the mind and soul, and that the divine forgiveness preceded true repentance and confession to God without any reparation of "works". In his Of Justification By Faith, Calvin says: "without forgiveness no man is pleasing to God." Nonetheless, in traditions formed by a Calvinist or Zwinglian sensibility, there has traditionally been a stress on reconciliation as a precondition to fellowship.File:Paris psaulter gr139 fol136v.jpg|thumb|left|The reproach of Nathan and the penance of King David.
Typically in the non-Protestant view, the attitude of penance or repentance can also be externalized in acts that a believer imposes on themselves, acts that are called penances. Penitential activity is particularly common during the season of Lent and Holy Week. Advent is another season during which, to a lesser extent, penances are performed. Acts of self-discipline are used as tokens of repentance. Easier acts of self-discipline include devoting time to prayer or reading of the Bible or other spiritual books. Examples of harder acts of self-discipline are fasting, sexual continence, abstaining from alcohol or tobacco, or other privations: self-flagellation and the wearing of a cilice are rarely encountered in modern times. Such acts have sometimes been called mortification of the flesh, a phrase inspired by : "If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live."
In some cultural traditions, Holy Week, which commemorates the Passion of Christ, may be marked by penances that include flagellantism or even voluntary pseudo-crucifixion which has been denounced by Filipino Catholics bishops as possible "spiritual vanity."
The New Testament does not codify a ritual for repentance and reconciliation: baptism was practised and confession of sins to one another for the sake of healing is mentioned in the Epistle of James. With the delay of the expected Second Coming, there was a recognized need for a means of accepting back into the Christian community those who had been expelled for serious sins: in early Christianity, bishops declared that God had forgiven sins when it was clear that there was repentance, and the penitent was readmitted to the community. Today the act of penance or satisfaction imposed in connection with the sacrament for the same therapeutic purpose can consist of set prayers or a certain number of prostrations or an act or omission intended to reinforce what is positive in the penitent's behaviour or to inhibit what is negative. The act imposed is itself called a penance or epitemia.
Penance as a sacrament or rite
Catholicism
The Catholic Church uses the term "penance" in a number of separate but related instances: as a moral virtue, as a sacrament, as acts of satisfaction, and as those specific acts of satisfaction assigned the penitent by the confessor in the context of the sacrament. These have as in common the concept that the person who sins must repent and as far as possible make reparation to divine justice.A moral virtue
Penance is a moral virtue whereby the sinner is disposed to hatred of their sin as an offence against God and to a firm purpose of amendment and satisfaction. The principal act in the exercise of this virtue is the detestation of one's own sins.Penance, while a duty, is considered to be a gift in Catholicism, as it is held that no person can do any penance worthy of God's consideration without God first giving the grace to do so. Penance proclaims mankind's unworthiness in the face of God's condescension, the indispensable disposition to God's grace, for though sanctifying grace alone forgives and purges sins from the soul, it is necessary that the individual consent to this action of grace by the work of the virtue of penance. Penance helps to conquer sinful habits and builds generosity, humility and patience.
The motive of this detestation is that sins offend God. Theologians, following Thomas Aquinas, regard penance as truly a virtue, though they have disagreed regarding its place among the virtues. Some have classed it with the virtue of charity, others with the virtue of religion, Bonaventure saw it as a part of the virtue of justice. Cajetan seems to have considered it as belonging to all three; however, most theologians agree with Aquinas that penance is a distinct virtue.
Sacrament of Penance
In Catholic teaching, confession of sins is made to God and absolution is received from God: the priest who is the minister of the sacrament acts not in his own name but on behalf of God. In this sacrament, the sinner places themselves before the merciful judgment of God; this anticipates in a certain way, the merciful judgment to which they will be subjected at the end of their earthly life.According to the Catholic Catechism, "the process of repentance and conversion was described by Jesus in the parable of prodigal son." In the Catholic Church, the sacrament of penance is one of the two sacraments of healing: Jesus Christ has willed that by this means the church should continue, in the power of the Holy Spirit, his work of healing and salvation. Reconciliation with God is both the purpose and effect of this sacrament.
Essential to the sacrament are acts both by the sinner and by the priest. among the penitent's acts contrition holds first place. Serious sins must be confessed within at most a year and always before receiving Holy Communion, while confession of venial sins also is recommended.
In locations or situations where priests are not available, people will make their own act of contrition direct to God in anticipation of the sacrament and deathbed confessions may if necessary be prayed with any suitable religious or layperson.
Assigned penance
The act of penance or satisfaction that the priest imposes helps the penitent to overcome selfishness, to desire more strongly to live a holy life, to be closer to Jesus, and to show others the love and compassion of Jesus. It is part of the healing that the sacrament brings: "Sin injures and weakens the sinner himself, as well as his relations with God and neighbour. Absolution takes away sin, but it does not remedy all the disorders sin has caused. Raised up from sin, the sinner must still recover his full spiritual health by doing something more to make amends for the sin: he must 'make satisfaction for' or 'expiate' his sins." This is done by prayer, charity, or an act of Christian asceticism. The rite of the sacrament requires that "the kind and extent of the satisfaction should be suited to the personal condition of each penitent so that each one may restore the order which he disturbed and through the corresponding remedy be cured of the sickness from which he suffered."Penance may consist of prayer, works of mercy, service of neighbor, voluntary self-denial, sacrifices, "and above all the patient acceptance of the cross we all must bear. Such penances help configure us to Christ, who alone expiated our sins once for all."
Penitential acts
In the 1966 apostolic constitution Paenitemini Pope Paul VI said, "Penance therefore—already in the Old Testament—is a religious, personal act which has as its aim love and surrender to God: fasting for the sake of God, not for one's own self... reaffirms the primacy of the religious and supernatural values of penitence." In Paenitemini it is affirmed that "y divine law all the faithful are required to do penance." "As from the fact of sin we Christians can claim no exception, so from the obligation to penance we can seek no exemption." Chapter 8 of the Didache enjoined Christians to fast every Wednesday and Friday.The conversion of heart can be expressed in many ways. "Scripture and the Fathers insist above all on three forms, fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, which express conversion in relation to oneself, to God, and to others." Also mentioned are efforts at reconciliation with one's neighbor, and the practice of charity "which covers a multitude of sins" as in 1 Peter 4:8. "Taking up one's cross each day and following Jesus is the surest way of penance."
In the Liturgical year, the seasons of Advent and Lent are particularly appropriate for penitential exercises such as voluntary self-denial and fraternal sharing. Under canon 1250 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, "The penitential days and times in the universal Church are every Friday of the whole year and the season of Lent." Canon 1253 states that "The conference of bishops can determine more precisely the observance of fast and abstinence as well as substitute other forms of penance, especially works of charity and exercises of piety, in whole or in part, for abstinence and fast."
In 2001 the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, in a document titled "Penitential Practices for Today's Catholics", reiterated their decision to allow U.S. Catholics to substitute another form of penance for abstinence from meat on the Fridays outside of Lent. While the document includes a list of suggested penitential practices, the selection of a Friday penance is left to the individual.
In 2011, Catholic bishops in England and Wales reversed their earlier decision to permit Catholics to practice a penance other than meat abstinence on Fridays. They said, in part: "The bishops wish to re-establish the practice of Friday penance in the lives of the faithful as a clear and distinctive mark of their own Catholic identity. It is important that all the faithful be united in a common celebration of Friday penance."
It is held that if fasting honestly causes one to be unable to fulfill their required tasks, it is uncharitable to fast, and the law of fasting would not apply.
Many acts of penance carry an indulgence, which may be applied in behalf of the souls departed. God alone knows what remains to be expiated. The Church, in granting an indulgence to the living, exercises its jurisdiction; over the dead it has no jurisdiction and therefore makes the indulgence available for them by way of suffrage, i.e. it petitions God to accept these works of satisfaction and in consideration thereof to mitigate or shorten the sufferings of the souls in Purgatory.