“THEN began he to upbraid the cities wherein were done the most of his miracles, for they had not done penance. ‘Woe to thee, Corozain, woe to thee, Bethsaida: for if in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the miracles that have been wrought in you, they had long ago done penance in sackcloth and ashes.’” (Mt 11,20-21)
Thus lamented Christ over the people he had been giving a lot of favors. It’s a lament that continues to take place up to now, since we cannot deny that despite all the good things we have been having over the years, we still continue to be impenitent over our weaknesses, mistakes and sins.
While it’s a given that we cannot avoid sin, considering our wounded condition, it should also be given that we need to also have an abiding need for penance. Nowadays, it would look like while our sinfulness has become worse, our duty to do penance is practically neglected.
The sense of sin is being aggressively undermined. And that’s simply because we are not anymore referring things to God. We are simply referring them to our own ideas. The clear distinction between good and evil is practically erased.
Our sense of penance is in crisis because our idea of what is good and evil is now reduced to our personal preferences, or at best to what can be termed as our social, political, cultural or even ideological consensus. Our legal system is often regarded as explicitly atheistic or agnostic, to free it from the so-called religious bias.
We need to make an effort, even a worldwide campaign, to boost our spirit of penance, explaining our dire necessity for it and the ineffable benefits we can derive from it.
The spirit of penance is not actually something that is dark, negative, painful, etc. It’s not something we should run away from. In fact, it’s not something that we should just bear and tolerate since we cannot avoid it.
We need to embrace it, to love it, and thus, we have to develop that spirit as best that we can. It is actually something beautiful, since it is purifying and liberating. It recovers us from our wounded condition and reinforces our dignity as persons and children of God.
We need to develop and live this spirit of penance because it is clear that sin continues to dominate us in this life. In fact, it is quite clear that things are getting worse. There are now powerful and well-established structures of sin in our midst before which we are simply an easy prey.
The networks of corruption, pornography, godless and worldly ideologies, etc. are proliferating, taking advantage of the powerful technologies and the relative vulnerability of many people, especially the young ones, who are not yet prepared to properly handle these networks.
The virtue of penance should include the desire and practice of regular and frequent recourse to the sacrament of penance, where through the ministry of priests, Christ comes to us as father, friend, judge and doctor. This sacrament not only reconciles us with God, but also repairs whatever damage our sin would cause on others and the Church in general.
This virtue of penance also includes the desire and practice of continuing atonement and reparation. This can be done in many ways—exerting greater effort to pray, being more generous with our sacrifices and daily self-denials, especially in food, drink, and comfort. It can be done also by doing many corporal and spiritual works of mercy, etc.
