Category Archives: Mercy

Why is Penance Needed?

Mercy, Sin

During the Year of Mercy, the Church has placed great emphasis on not only our great need for forgiveness, but God’s desire to always welcome us into His loving arms.  This necessarily leads to a discussion of repentance and penance.  While most people understand the need for repentance, penance remains somewhat mysterious.  Given that, a reflection upon penance and its necessity can lead to an increase in grace during this Jubilee Year.

In order to understand the logic of penance, we must first understand the nature of sin.  When Adam and Eve ate from the tree, it was an act of disobedience.  But that is not all.  They also found pleasure in eating the forbidden fruit (c.f. Gn 3:6—finding “that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eyes, and the tree was desirable for gaining wisdom”).  So that when we speak of sin we must always remember that there is a double element; the act of disobedience and the pleasure of the forbidden fruit.  In justice both must be restored through repentance and penance.  If we look to the natural order, we see why this makes sense.  If we do not follow a map and go the wrong way, then we must first turn-around (i.e. repent).   But turning around is not enough if we are to get back to the right path; we must also we must retrace those steps (penance).

This distinction is made especially clear when we look at King David’s act of adultery with Bathsheba and the consequent murder of her husband Uriah.  When David expresses his repentance, Nathan tells him that “For his part, the LORD has removed your sin…” (2 Samuel 12:14).  But this is only the forgiveness of the act of disobedience.  God imposes a penance as well “since you have utterly spurned the LORD by this deed, the child born to you will surely die” (2 Sam 12:15).

From God’s perspective the distinction leads to the two “punishments” for sin—eternal and temporal.  By keeping them connected it will help us to avoid the temptation to see these two “punishments” as vengeance inflicted upon us by God but instead as a natural consequence of sin (CCC 1472).  Christ’s act of atonement cleared the way for the forgiveness of the eternal punishment for sin, but not the temporal.  Instead He invites us to participate in our own redemption through penance.  Failing to realize this leads to great spiritual confusion because it fails to answer a fundamental question—if Christ came to remove all punishment for sin, then why do those who are justified suffer?

In other words, when I sin, it comes from me insisting on having my own way.  In suffering I receive something I don’t want and thus there is a cosmic balance of sorts that is restored.  But because the original act was one I freely chose, I must also freely accept the suffering as satisfaction for my sins.  This not only restores justice without but order is also restored within me.

Accepting temporal affliction imposed on us in loving patience is one of the ways that we make satisfaction for our sins according to the Council of Trent.  The Council Fathers call these “the greatest proof of love” (Council of Trent, 14th Session, Doctrina de sacramento paenitentiae).  Why are these the greatest proof of our love?  Because God’s will comes to us moment by moment and we can be sure that we are submitting to His will by submitting to the moment.  This habit of accepting difficulties with love and patience is what develops in us the virtue of penance.  This is exactly David’s response after the child he conceived with Bathsheba died–patient acceptance.  And the servants are all puzzled by his response (2 Sam 12:19-23).  Penance begins and ends with the attitude of mind that God sends all things our way for our good and that we must respond with generosity.

In this way we see they are also great proofs of God’s love for us.  Each affliction “is producing for us an eternal weight of glory,” (2 Cor 4:17) meaning that they have been hand-chosen by a loving Father for our sanctification.  To live with this conviction is where we find peace and joy in the midst of suffering; knowing that God has chosen the most gentle way for us to be sanctified through penance.  Even the suffering that God allows for us is an act of Divine Mercy.

This passive penance also does not always “feel” like we are doing penance and so it further conforms us to what all appearances was Christ’s great failure in the Crucifixion.  This is why we can examine the “success” of our penitential lives by looking for the fruits of humility and charity.  Penance then properly understood is a not an act of giving (or giving up) per se, but of receiving.  It would be fair to say that penance is the means by which we lay hold of the graces missed the first time round.

Scourging at the Pillar

This is also why we must be careful in selecting our means of active penance.   These are activities that are voluntarily undertaken as penance like fasting, giving up something otherwise good, mortification, putting a rock in your shoe, etc.  These too are necessary, but they come with a strong temptation as well especially if we do not have a positive view of penance.

Penance is discouraging for most of us because we approach it from the angle of it being a disagreeable hardship rather than a turning wholly to God.  There is something inherent in self-imposed and exterior penances in that we tend to look at the disagreeable portion and then try for something that is not too bad.  This in turn only makes us feel that there are parts that are not willing to undergo suffering for God, when, what we might really be experiencing is just the natural recoil at suffering.

We will also always have a tendency to choose those penances which are in some way agreeable to us and thus end up doing nothing but feeding our self-love.  Again the key is to look for the fruits of charity and humility.  Even with these temptations, it would be a mistake to avoid all forms of active penance especially since the devil will often trick us into avoiding them out of fear or by appealing to a misconceived humility.

In his book, Spirit of Penance, Path to God, Dom Hubert Van Zeller offers an extended commentary on Jesus’ commandment regarding our appearance when we are fasting.  He says that  “we must show washed and shining faces when we fast, indicating to the world that penance is not such a terrible burden as it is made out to be, and that if only people went in for it more, they would find they need lose nothing of their happiness.”  Likewise our passive penances when borne with peace and joy show them for what they truly are.  During this Year of Mercy let us go forth and preach the Mercy of God through Penance.

On Being Judgmental

Mercy, Sin

“Do not judge, lest ye be called judgmental.”  In a world that has lost a sense of sin, there remains one unforgivable sin—being judgmental.  Many who are biblically illiterate can readily quote Jesus’ admonition “Stop judging, that you may not be judged” (Mt 7:1). According to the mainstream media, even Pope Francis is on board, citing his famous five word answer to a reporter’s question about gay priests—“Who am I to judge?”  Of course the Pope was deflecting a question that the reporter already knew the Church’s response to especially since he has repeatedly reaffirmed the perennial understanding of the Church that we are to “hate the sin, but love the sinner.”  Still the fear of being perceived as judgmental is real and causes many people to merely keep to themselves.  Is it possible to judge without being judgmental?

An important clarification is necessary at the outset.  When we examine the moral quality of any action, it must always be done from two perspectives.  First there is the object itself.  This is the objective act itself and it is what the action “looks like” from the outside. Then there is the subjective intention of the act or the end the person has in mind when choosing a particular action.

The object itself can and should always be judged according to reason, using the criteria of whether it can be ordered to the good or not.   The subjective intention on the other hand cannot always be judged.  And when it can’t, the judgment must left to God.  In other words we may objectively label an act as good or evil, but we cannot judge the subjective guilt of the person who performed the act.  But to be clear, while a good intention may lessen the moral gravity of an evil act, nevertheless a good motive cannot make the act itself good.  A bad motive however can make lessen the good of an otherwise good action.

An example might help us to see how this applies.  Suppose a young girl becomes pregnant and her parents “force” her to abort the child.  She decides that rather than being abandoned by her parents (with a baby) she will abide by their wishes.  The object, an abortion, is always a gravely evil action regardless of the circumstances.  There is never a good reason to justify getting an abortion.  However if we are to look at the subjective guilt it becomes obvious that judgment is difficult, if not impossible.  Certainly she was being coerced, but maybe she really wanted to abort the child anyway.  Or perhaps she didn’t want to but lacked the moral courage to stand up to her parents.  We can see that in both these scenarios there is some level of subjective culpability, but in truth there is no way to know by simply looking at the action.  She is guilty of something that is wrong, but she may not be fully guilty of the abortion.  And in truth, only God can really know the full extent of her guilt.  But again, even if somehow she were to have no culpability, the abortion would still be an objectively wrong act.

If we turn to St. Thomas’ Summa Theologiae (ST II-II, q.60) we can glean some practical principles to live by with respect to judging others.  He begins by defining judgment as nothing more than a determination of what is just .  In other words it is related to the virtue of justice.  One of the requisite conditions for a judgment to be truly just is that it must be pronounced according to the right ruling of prudence and not proceed rashly from a judgment on some doubtful or hidden matter.  Herein lies the problem with making a judgment regarding the subjective intention—it is hidden from us (unless we are somehow told) and therefore we are guilty of making a rash judgment.  St. Thomas says that it is precisely rash judgment that Jesus condemns in the oft-quoted text “Judge not…”

Soapbox

It is not just that the other’s intention remains hidden that causes us to judge rashly.  In explaining why Jesus says one should remove the plank in one’s own eye before pointing out the one in your neighbor’s, St. Thomas says that only those who have a virtuous habit can justly judge whether a given act is good or bad.  Only one who knows truly what chastity “looks and feels like” can detect it in someone else.  And because they know the struggle in obtaining chastity, they can offer both understanding and encouragement to those who struggle with it.  So too with all the other virtues meaning that only a truly virtuous person can render a just judgment on the virtue of others.

The point St. Thomas is trying to make is that we will always judge according to our own way of looking at things.  We fall prey to what Pope St. John Paul II called the “Hermeneutic of Suspicion.”  One who lies, will tend to distrust everyone else and always think they are lying.  One who is disloyal, will look upon every disappointment by someone else as a deliberate betrayal.  As Ecclesiastes says “Even when walking in the street the fool, lacking understanding, calls everyone a fool” (Eccl 10:3).  We also are more readily apt to judge someone rashly whom we don’t particularly care for.  We are simply looking for validation as to why we shouldn’t like them.  The point though is that whenever we judge someone rashly (even if in the end we turn out right), we do harm to them.

Of course as a spiritual practice we can learn a lot about our predominant fault by simply watching what we accuse others of.  With this in mind, St. Thomas also has another practical suggestion for us regarding the habit of thinking well of others.  Because we do harm to a person by judging him rashly, “we ought to deem him good by interpreting for the best whatever is doubtful in him.”  While this may mean that we are deceived more often, it is still better to err in the direction of thinking well of a wicked man than to err by having an evil opinion of a good man.  In other words the cost of a false negative is greater than a false positive—both of us are harmed when I judge a good man wicked, but only I am harmed when judging a wicked man good.  In one case I am the perpetrator of evil, in the other I am more like Our Lord and the victim.

It goes without saying that everything Our Lord was teaching in the Sermon on the Mount and St. Thomas’ explanation pertains to making rash judgment.  But despite the world’s obsession with judgmentalism, there is a hidden truth there.  If we are willing to examine ourselves carefully we really are prone to be judgmental.  This is not a call to abandon judgment, but to participate in the Church’s mission that the Holy Father so clearly articulates in The Name of God is Mercy:

“The Church condemns sin because it has to relay the truth: ‘This is a sin.’ But at the same time, it embraces the sinner who recognizes himself as such, it welcomes him, it speaks to him of the infinite mercy of God.”

God’s Healing Sacramental Hand

Mercy, Sacraments

Without a doubt, Holy Week is, liturgically speaking, the richest week in the Liturgical Calendar.  There is a hidden gem that many people are not aware of and that is the Chrism Mass.  These Masses feature the gathering of an entire diocese—bishop, priests, deacons and lay faithful alike—and are the occasion on which the bishop blesses each of the oils that are used in sacramental anointing.  Among these is the oil of the infirm that is administered in the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick.  It would seem then that it would be appropriate to offer some reflections on this great Sacrament, especially since very few Catholics seem to understand it.

One of the reasons why this Sacrament is so little understood is because we do not understand the purpose of it.  If we examine a familiar episode from Our Lord’s public ministry in Matthew’s Gospel it becomes clearer.

And there people brought to him a paralytic lying on a stretcher. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, ‘Courage, child, your sins are forgiven.’  At that, some of the scribes said to themselves, ‘This man is blaspheming.’  Jesus knew what they were thinking, and said, ‘Why do you harbor evil thoughts?  Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’?  But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’—he then said to the paralytic, ‘Rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home.’  He rose and went home.  When the crowds saw this they were struck with awe and glorified God who had given such authority to men (Mt 9:2-8).

Because, as the Son of Man, He has authority to forgive sins, Jesus also heals the man.  Most who read his account do not go any further than that.  However Matthew says something very important at the end.  Notice that not only does Jesus have the authority to do this, but the people glorify God because He has given the power to forgive sins and to heal “to men.”  In other words, what the crowds are struck with awe about is the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.

Pope Francis blessing Oil

One might say that Jesus did not actually anoint the man.  But it is clear that once the Sacrament is implemented by the Apostles anointing becomes the matter of the Sacrament.  In his letter, St. James asks:

“Is anyone among you sick?  He should summon the presbyters of the church, and they should pray over him and anoint [him] with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed any sins, he will be forgiven” (James 5:14-15).

Within these verses we find all the elements of a true Sacrament present.  There is the outward sign which consists of anointing with oil (matter) and the prayer of the priest over the sick person (form).  There is the inner operation of grace which is expressed through the forgiveness of sins, the saving of the soul from eternal destruction and the raising up from despondency and despair.  Finally we see that it has been instituted by Christ, namely it is to be administered “in the Name of the Lord.”

Herein lays the confusion for most Catholics.  Most treat it as simply a sacramentalized version of a charismatic healing.  But this Sacrament is ordered firstly to the forgiveness of sins and healing of the soul.  As the Catechism says, “The special grace of the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick has as its effect…the forgiveness of sins, if the sick person was not able to obtain it through the sacrament of Penance” (CCC 1532).

Some mistakenly think this is like a get out of hell free card and thus do not take the Sacrament seriously.  But in order to truly forgive the sins of the recipient and the punishment attached to sin, the person must not only be baptized but have at least an imperfect sorrow for sin (based on a fear of punishment).  Certainly if there is any chance of this a priest will administer the Sacrament, but the personal disposition (at least at their last moment of consciousness) matters as to the effect of the Sacrament.

The Sacrament is sometimes abused because it is looked at only as a Sacrament of bodily healing.  It assumes that the recipient is capable of sin and therefore has obtained the use of reason.  Young children are often mistakenly given the Sacrament.  If there is a doubt as to whether the child has obtained the use of reason then certainly it should be given, but in general they should not be given the Sacrament (Canon 1004).  There is often a superstition attached to the Sacrament in that people will treat it as a good luck charm before surgery.  But the Sacrament should only be given to someone who is in danger of death (Canon 1004).  Furthermore, Canon Law states that the “Sacrament is to be conferred upon sick persons who requested it at least implicitly when they were in control of their faculties” (Canon 1006) and not to those “who obstinately persist in manifest serious sin” (Canon 1007).

The second effect of the Sacrament is the “the strengthening, peace, and courage to endure in a Christian manner the sufferings of illness or old age and the preparation for passing over to eternal life” (CCC 1532).  This effect is both for the good of the person and for the good of the whole Church.  The person is given the right to actual graces to bear their sufferings.  But it also offers them protection against the onslaught of the demons during the moments leading up to death.  The temptation to despair is never so great as during those last few moments and we are extremely dependent upon grace to persevere.  The Council of Trent, in defending the use of the Sacrament of Anointing against the Protestant reformers who would do away with it said that the Sacrament enables us to “resist more easily the temptations of the devil who lies in wait for his heel” (Council of Trent, Canon 14).

While the Church, through the treasury of merits of Jesus, grants these graces in the Sacrament, there is a reciprocity of sorts in that the person who bears their sufferings well also acts upon other members of the Church in a co-redemptive manner.  The Catechism describes this ecclesial grace: “the sick who receive this sacrament, ‘by freely uniting themselves to the passion and death of Christ,’ ‘contribute to the good of the People of God.’  By celebrating this sacrament the Church, in the communion of saints, intercedes for the benefit of the sick person, and he, for his part, though the grace of this sacrament, contributes to the sanctification of the Church and to the good of all men for whom the Church suffers and offers herself through Christ to God the Father” (CCC 1522).

Because the Sacraments are truly performed by Christ, they produce their effects infallibly.  This is why the the third effect of the Sacrament, namely “the restoration of (bodily)health, if it is conducive to the salvation of his soul” (CCC 1532) can be confusing.  It seems as if this effect is conditional.  But in truth it is not.  The Sacrament will always act as a direct means to the restoration of bodily health, although this particular effect may not be felt until the resurrection of the body.  It is only when the restoration to bodily health in this life can be a means to reaching that point will it also be granted now.  It is only because we are standing on our heads now that we do not readily see that God’s “grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9).  It is by grace we are saved and for those who receive the bodily healing at the resurrection, they will know that it was the grace of the Sacrament that helped to save them.

When Jesus forgives the sins and heals the paralytic, the crowd was struck with awe.  Perhaps with a greater understanding, we too might be seized with wonder at the awe-some (in the truest sense of the word) power of this Sacrament of mercy.

 

Mercy as the Last Word

Mercy, Pope Francis, Year of Mercy

In his book-length interview with Italian Journalist Andrea Tornielli entitled The Name of God is Mercy, Pope Francis offers what, is in essence, an extended commentary on his Bull of Indiction for the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy.  Like his three Papal predecessors he is convinced that we are living in an important time of mercy.  Because of this, one gets a sense of urgency in his words as he tries to move us from mercy as an abstract idea to a concrete reality—a reality that in many ways is the Church’s only reason of existence.  “Wherever the Church is present, the mercy of the Father must be evident” (Misericordiae Vultus, 12).  He speaks of his experience as a confessor where he looks for the slightest opening in which God’s mercy might enter.  The Holy Father ardently believes that “when you feel His [Jesus] merciful embrace, when you let yourself be embraced, when you are moved—that’s  when life can change.”   He even draws parallels between the Church’s approach and that of the fictional priest, Fr. Gaston, in Bruce Marshall’s novel To Every Man a Penny.  A young, dying soldier comes to the priest for confession.  The problem is that although he confesses to numerous amorous affairs, he is unrepentant and admittedly would do it all over again.  Distressed that he will be unable to offer him absolution, Fr. Gaston asks the soldier if he is sorry that he is not sorry.  The priest absolves him based on that sorrow.  The Holy Father comments that it is simply proof “His mercy is infinitely greater than our sins.”

This Year of Mercy is not just about indulgences and confession, but as the Pontiff says, the  main purpose for calling this Jubilee is for the Church “to gaze even more attentively on mercy so that we may become a more effective sign of the Father’s action in our lives” (MV, 3).  His point is that while the Sacraments of the Church are efficacious signs of God’s mercy, the entire Church needs to contemplate this same divine attribute so that we all become sacraments of His mercy.  “[W]herever there are Christians, everyone should find an oasis of mercy” (MV, 12).

It is in this spirit of reflection and witness that the Holy Father expresses his “burning desire that, during this Jubilee, the Christian people may reflect on the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. It will be a way to reawaken our conscience, too often grown dull in the face of poverty. And let us enter more deeply into the heart of the Gospel where the poor have a special experience of God’s mercy” (MV, 15).

The Holy Father is inviting all the Faithful to participate in this great Jubilee of Mercy by actively practicing the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy.  These particular acts of love, because they touch those in most need, act as chisels on the hard hearted so that God’s mercy may enter.  The Works of Mercy have fallen into disuse in recent decades and so Francis reminds us all during his interview that the works of mercy are “still valid, still current.  Perhaps some aspects could be better ‘translated’ but they remain the basis for self-examination.”  If what Our Lord told St. Faustina is true, namely that, “I demand from you deeds of mercy, which are to arise out of love for Me. You are to show mercy to your neighbors always and everywhere. You must not shrink from this or try to excuse or absolve yourself from it” (Diary 742) then this is a grace filled time for us to re-introduce these practices to our spiritual lives.

Year of Mercy

It is helpful for us to reflect on two reasons why these practices may have slipped the minds of many in the Church.  The first is that we often fail to see God’s mercy as something personal and real for us.  Most of us don’t have great conversion stories or a real awareness of grave sin in our lives.  Sure we see places where we have drifted from God and He has led us back, but it is often so subtle that we do not even know it at the time.  That in and of itself is mercy.  To see into my own heart and no I am capable of just about anything at times and yet to never have fallen—that is mercy.  In fact to receive the mercy of preservation is one of the most beautiful gifts that God gives us.  He spares us so much pain.  This is why a favorite spiritual practice of St. Augustine when he did his Examen and could not find any sin that day was to thank God in His mercy for all the things that he kept the Saint from falling into.

The point is that we can never spread God’s mercy until we see how He has touched us personally with it.  The word mercy literally means “a heart moved by misery.”  If you do not know what misery “feels” like, it is very difficult to be moved by it in another.  This is why mercy and empathy go hand in hand.  Empathy, according to John Paul II, is “experiencing another person within ourselves as the other person experiences himself.”  It is a path to love and mercy because by seeing the other from the inside, we see them as a subject and not just an object.

A second reason why the Works of Mercy have fallen into disuse is because we set our goals to high.  We assume we must go somewhere to practice them.  We may not have time amidst our family life to volunteer at the Soup Kitchen.  But that misses the point.  How many of the Works of Mercy does a parent perform daily with their children?  Add the supernatural intention of showing them the love of God and all of family life becomes sanctifying.  Children grow up with an innate sense of the Merciful love of the Father.

Jesus addressed a similar obstacle to St. Faustina when he said,

“write this for the many souls who are often worried because they do not have the material means with which to carry out an act of mercy. Yet spiritual mercy, which requires neither permissions nor storehouses, is much more meritorious and is within the grasp of every soul. If a soul does not exercise mercy somehow or other, it will not obtain My mercy on the day of judgment. Oh, if only souls knew how to gather eternal treasure for themselves, they would not be judged, for they would forestall My judgment with their mercy.”

Pope Francis further attempted to simplify things by grouping the first four spiritual works of mercy (counsel the doubtful, teach the ignorant, forgive offenses, be patient with difficult people) are all part of the “apostolate of the ear.”  As proof that these are most needed at this time, look at all the money spent of therapists just because they listen to their patients!

There is one Spiritual Work of Mercy that ought to be of particular focus during this Year of Mercy and that is admonishing the sinner.  If there is one unforgivable sin today even among the most secular it is “being judgmental.”  While obviously this is an abuse of Jesus’ words to “judge not,” there is a truth to it.  Perhaps the greatest tragedy of a culture that is dominated by relativism is that it keeps so many from seeking God’s mercy (no absolute moral law, no sin, no need for mercy).  So it is extremely important that we all realize that to admonish the sinner without pointing them towards the mercy of God is no act of mercy.  It is simply a condemnation.  This is not because sin is inconsequential or because there is no such thing as mortal sin, but because sin can never have the last word.  God’s mercy is more powerful.  The Holy Father is quick to say that “The Church condemns sin because it has to relay the truth: ‘This is a sin.’ But at the same time, it embraces the sinner who recognizes himself as such, it welcomes him, it speaks to him of the infinite mercy of God.”

How different our approach to admonishing sinners is if we do so only with mercy in mind.  For those who have been truly touched by God’s mercy, they want nothing more than for that sinner to experience it too.  A good way to examine ourselves on how we are doing with this is to see our response when we encounter someone who is doing something gravely sinful.  Is my first response, almost visceral in that I despair that the person could be lost?  Or am I concerned only with the fact that they are breaking some rule?  Neither of the two downplays sin, but only the former allows mercy to have the final word.  In truth it might be that for those people who cannot point to specific instances of God’s mercy in their own lives, the greater Work of Mercy is not to admonish the sinner at all.  Blessed are the merciful, for mercy has been theirs!