If you are a “chalice is half-full” kind of person, you might be able to find a silver lining in the Sacramental suppression that the Church has to endure thanks to, what one Prelate has called, the “dictatorship of the sanitary”. With ready access to the Sacraments, there is always the danger of them becoming mere formalities. It is, after all, hard to do things well when we do them regularly. The optimist sees this as a way to overcome this temptation.
Regular Confession is a good example of this. There are many of us who go to Confession regularly, yet rarely see the kind of growth that we would expect from these regular encounters with Our Lord. When access becomes limited, we are forced to examine both our desire and our real motives. In the case of Confession that desire and motivation are one and the same thing—Contrition.
When the Confessionals were sealed, the faithful were instructed to make an act of perfect contrition and go to Confession when they could. Thanks to bad Sacramental Theology and poor catechesis over the past half century, hardly anyone knows what that means, let alone how to do it. That is why it behooves us to examine the topic of Contrition more closely in hopes that this great gift will grow in our hearts.
What is Contrition?
Contrition is the grief of soul brought about by the hatred of sins committed and marked by the resolution to avoid them in the future. This “grief” is primarily effective, that is, it is an act of the will to leave our sins behind and run into the embrace of the Father. It need not be affective to be true contrition, although often we will feel sorrow or even have tears. This internal grief may express itself in words through prayers like the Act of Contrition, but no mere lip service will do. Furthermore, true contrition is always a supernatural gift because it is based on a supernatural motive, namely a love of God. Because it is based on this motive, it must also be universal in that it covers not just a sin, but all our sins.
The supernatural motive of love of God occurs in degrees. We may love God for what He can give us or help us avoid. This mercenary love is still love, even if it is imperfect. Out of this love comes imperfect contrition or attrition. This is a sorrow for sin based on the loss of heaven or the fear of hell. What makes this imperfect is that it is still tinged with self-love. When our love is completely focused on God and we experience sorrow for our sin then it will always be based the fact that we have offended God, independent of any benefits He might bestow upon us. This is perfect contrition. Although we might not be aware of it, we make this distinction every time we pray the tradition Act of Contrition when we “detest our sins because of Your just punishments [attrition] but most of all because You are all Good and deserving of all my love [perfect contrition].”
We might be tempted to think that an act of Perfect Contrition is impossible. But God does not command the impossible. Instead He makes it possible through the gift of grace. Perfect contrition, while outside of our natural grasp, may be bestowed upon us if we ask. St. Charles Borromeo, no stranger to Sacramental crises brought on by pandemics, offered us what he called the “Three Visits” in order to prepare our souls for the gift of perfect contrition. The first two visits, one to Heaven and one to Hell, are meant to stir up imperfect contrition. We should meditate both on what we risk losing and what we are gaining so as to be sorry for our sins. The third visit is to the foot of the Cross to look upon the sufferings of Jesus all brought about by your sins. He says to stay there until you are sorry for the pain you have caused Our Lord. In so doing you have made an act of Perfect Contrition.
“Perfect” contrition then might be a somewhat of a misnomer in that it makes it seem like you have to love God perfectly, rather than loving the God Who is perfect. The Scholastics avoid the terms perfect and imperfect contrition and instead use contrition for the former and attrition for the latter. This distinction helps us to grasp that contrition may occur in degrees, degrees that are proportional to our charity. We need not be St. Mary Magdalene, whose sins were forgiven because “she loved much” and wiped Our Lord’s feet with her tears, but there can be no contrition without some degree of charity. We need not be anxious if we struggle to make such acts, but only ask God to bestow upon us that great gift.
Contrition and Confession
If an act of contrition then forgives sins, even mortal sins, then what is the connection with Confession? Contrition may have the same effect as Confession, but its effects are not independent of the Sacrament. Contrition may be sorrow expressed, but Confession is sorrow received. Even if we may an act of perfect contrition in response to mortal sin, we must still go to Confession before we can receive the Eucharist. Perfect contrition then is an extraordinary means of forgiveness provided that we avail ourselves of the ordinary means, Sacramental Confession.
The advice to “make an act of perfect contrition until you can get to Confession” that has been given during the pandemic is very dangerous without all of the proper qualifications. A person, no matter how hard they try, cannot make a perfect act of contrition without the necessary grace. To act as if God always grants it immediately when it is asked for is to be guilty of presumption. God may withhold such a gift for reasons only His loving Providence could explain. This is why Canon Law protects the Faithful from Prelates who would withhold the Sacrament. The Sacrament does not require that we have contrition; only attrition is needed to be valid. As Fr. Alfred Wilson reminds us in his classic book Pardon and Peace, when we go to Confession, Christ has already confessed those sins. He has sorrowed for them. Your task is to supplement His perfect confession and contrition the best you can.
This connection with Christ’s confession and sorrow brings us to the whole point of contrition. Perfect contrition comes from Christ Himself and thus is best understood as a participation in His sorrow. This understanding is important because it takes any of the focus off us and our faults. leaves us standing squarely on the solid ground of His Mercy. Genuine contrition is a habit then that grows out of this.
St. Therese on her death bed offers us the best example of this. The sisters had gathered around her and were singing her praises. She requested that they stop and instead to list her faults, not because she was worried about her humility, but because she wanted to have more reasons to praise God in His mercy. She was quite literally filled with Contrition because she loved God. Let us beg her intercession that during this time we might likewise receive and develop such a precious gift.