Hardcore Penances And The Saints

[CatherineM]

I only have one observation that I would like to make about penance. My former pastor in Florida used to give me incredible penances. He once had me pick up all the cigarette butts on the grounds of the parish, and we were a downtown church next to a vacant lot that had many homeless inhabitants. I was stunned by how many there were. At my last talk with him before moving to Canada, I asked him why he gave me such hard penances, and he said because I was one of those who was too hard on themselves. He found with people like that, that giving them physical penances allowed them to really feel like they had done a penance so that we can forgive ourselves. I think it was a valid point, because at the end of doing the penance, I wasn't mad at myself anymore, I was mad at him.

[Saint Therese]

[quote name='MC IMaGiNaZUN' date='18 January 2010 - 04:04 PM' timestamp='1263848698' post='2039787']
Sometimes I think penances are better suited to the richer or fatter or more comfortable persons who are attached to trivialities.
[/quote]

I think that would apply to most of us. I know it does to me.

[Rising_Suns]

[quote name='CatherineM' date='26 January 2010 - 01:09 PM' timestamp='1264525779' post='2044932']
I only have one observation that I would like to make about penance. My former pastor in Florida used to give me incredible penances. He once had me pick up all the cigarette butts on the grounds of the parish, and we were a downtown church next to a vacant lot that had many homeless inhabitants. I was stunned by how many there were. At my last talk with him before moving to Canada, I asked him why he gave me such hard penances, and he said because I was one of those who was too hard on themselves. He found with people like that, that giving them physical penances allowed them to really feel like they had done a penance so that we can forgive ourselves. I think it was a valid point, because at the end of doing the penance, I wasn't mad at myself anymore, I was mad at him.
[/quote]

Dear CatherineM,
May the peace of Christ be with you.

I think your obedience in fulfilling such penances merited more graces than you may realize. And to your merit, you kept going back to the same priest despite the difficult penances. Whether the priest was prudent in assigning such penances (the difficulty of the penance should depend principally on the gravity of the sins confessed), is of less consequence than the obedience and love with which the penance was performed. This is the secret of the Saints. Rather than seeing it as a burden to carry out a difficult penance, or to deny oneself for that which is less comfortable, they were able to recognize the great gift of that was afforded them in these opportunities, especially in confession, where the priest represents God.

It is interesting to note that during the times of the early Church and the first 1500 years of Christianity, the Church would often assign difficult penances (it was in fact meant to be a penance; an act of reparation for the injury done to God). A mortal sin such as adultery might have required a penitent to fast for two years while reciting a Rosary every day during that time, or to have to live as a hermit for a number of years. It used to be that if a person committed a mortal sin, he was [i]de facto[/i] ineligible for the priesthood. It would seem, people back then at least had a better understading of the gravity of sin and its effects on the soul, while today, penance has largely been reduced to the recitation of a few prayers. If I recall correctly, even as late as the early 1900's, penances were often more involved, such as saying the Stations of the Cross, fasting, and alms giving. How quickly we have lost the sense of sin!

.

Edited January 26, 2010 by Rising_Suns

[laetitia crucis]

I thought this article was both beautiful and appropriate to the topic at hand:

[url="http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1000347.htm"]Pope John Paul practiced self-mortification, postulator confirms[/url]

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope John Paul II always took penitence seriously, spending entire nights lying with his arms outstretched on the bare floor, fasting before ordaining priests or bishops and flagellating himself, said the promoter of his sainthood cause.

Msgr. Slawomir Oder, postulator of the late pope's cause, said Pope John Paul used self-mortification "both to affirm the primacy of God and as an instrument for perfecting himself."

The monsignor spoke to reporters Jan. 26 at the launch of his book, "Why He's a Saint: The Real John Paul II According to the Postulator of His Beatification Cause."

Earlier in the day, two Italian news Web sites reported that an October date had been set for Pope John Paul's beatification, but Msgr. Oder said nothing could be confirmed until physicians, theologians and cardinals at the Congregation for Saints' Causes accept a miracle credited to the late pope's intercession and Pope Benedict formally signs a decree recognizing it.

Msgr. Oder's book, published only in Italian, is based largely on what he said he learned from the documents collected for the beatification process and, particularly, from the sworn testimony of the 114 people who personally knew Pope John Paul and testified before the Rome diocesan tribunal investigating his fame of holiness.

Because of the reticence surrounding the process, the witnesses who served as the source for particular affirmations in the book are not named, although some are described loosely as members of the papal entourage or the papal household.

"When it wasn't some infirmity that made him experience pain, he himself would inflict discomfort and mortification on his body," Msgr. Oder wrote.

He said the penitential practices were common both when then-Karol Wojtyla was archbishop of Krakow, Poland, as well as after he became pope.

"Not infrequently he passed the night lying on the bare floor," the monsignor wrote, and people in the Krakow archbishop's residence knew it, even if the archbishop would mess up the covers on his bed so it wouldn't be obvious that he hadn't slept there.

"As some members of his closest entourage were able to hear with their own ears, Karol Wojtyla flagellated himself both in Poland and in the Vatican," Msgr. Oder wrote. "In his closet, among the cassocks, there was a hook holding a particular belt for slacks, which he used as a whip and which he also always brought to Castel Gandolfo," the papal summer residence south of Rome.

In the book, Msgr. Oder said Pope John Paul firmly believed that he was doing what St. Paul professed to do in the Letter to the Colossians: "In my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ."

He also said the pope, who had a notorious sweet tooth, was extremely serious about maintaining the Lenten fast and would lose several pounds before Easter each year, but he also fasted before ordaining priests and bishops and for other special intentions.

Msgr. Oder's book also marked the publication for the first time of letters Pope John Paul prepared in 1989 and in 1994 offering the College of Cardinals his resignation in case of an incurable disease or other condition that would prevent him from fulfilling his ministry.

For years there were rumors that Pope John Paul had prepared a letter instructing cardinals to consider him resigned in case of incapacity.

But even a month before his death in April 2005, canon law experts in Rome and elsewhere were saying the problem with such a letter is that someone else would have to decide when to pull it out of the drawer and apply it.

Church law states that a pope can resign, but it stipulates that papal resignation must be "made freely and properly manifested" -- conditions that would be difficult to ascertain if a pope were already incapacitated.

Msgr. Oder wrote that in Pope John Paul's 1994 letter the stressed syllables in spoken Italian are underlined, making it appear that the pope had read it or was preparing to read it to the College of Cardinals.

The 1989 letter was brief and to the point; it says that in the case of an incurable illness that prevents him from "sufficiently carrying out the functions of my apostolic ministry" or because of some other serious and prolonged impediment, "I renounce my sacred and canonical office, both as bishop of Rome as well as head of the holy Catholic Church."

In his 1994 letter the pope said he had spent years wondering whether a pope should resign at age 75, the normal retirement age for bishops. He also said that, two years earlier, when he thought he might have a malignant colon tumor, he thought God had already decided for him.

Then, he said, he decided to follow the example of Pope Paul VI who, in 1965, concluded that a pope "could not resign the apostolic mandate except in the presence of an incurable illness or an impediment that would prevent the exercise of the functions of the successor of Peter."

"Outside of these hypotheses, I feel a serious obligation of conscience to continue to fulfill the task to which Christ the Lord has called me as long as, in the mysterious plan of his providence, he desires," the letter said.

END

[Rising_Suns]

Dear Laetitia Crucis,
Thank you for posting this article. How beautiful indeed.

[laetitia crucis]

[quote name='Rising_Suns' date='26 January 2010 - 09:55 PM' timestamp='1264557325' post='2045361']
Dear Laetitia Crucis,
Thank you for posting this article. How beautiful indeed.
[/quote]

You're quite welcome, my friend.

A little after I read that article I heard about on ABC World News. I was surprised they even mentioned it, but here's hoping it will spark a seed of interest into the True Church.

[Luigi]

I just read an AOL news story that says Pope John Paul II practiced mortification of the flesh by:
Sleeping on the floor;
Foregoing food;
Self flagellation with a belt.
This news summarizes a book on John Paul's life by the postulator of his cause for sainthood. The book will bbe published soon, in Italian, with no plans to translate it (I'm sure that will change).

[laetitia crucis]

It's nice to see this is getting so much coverage on the news. I'm really surprised about it... hopefully people won't sensationalize it though.

[Saint Therese]

I can't understand why this is so shocking. To me, such penance isn't really extrordinary . To me extra ordinary penance would be something like what St. Teresa described.. going to the refectory on one's knees wearing a saddle on her back.

[laetitia crucis]

[quote name='Saint Therese' date='27 January 2010 - 01:25 PM' timestamp='1264613119' post='2045867']
I can't understand why this is so shocking. To me, such penance isn't really extrordinary . To me extra ordinary penance would be something like what St. Teresa described.. going to the refectory on one's knees wearing a saddle on her back.
[/quote]

I guess it seems shocking because in the "Protestant world" (in my past experience) one never really hears about penances or mortification. I mean, before I became Catholic and began reading various Lives of the Saints, I'd never heard about this or even knew what it was or that the practice of regular penances and temporal mortifications existed in our times.

Growing up Protestant was pretty much the view of warm-and-fuzzy-best-friend Jesus. There was no suffering, just happy feelings of "being saved". To think that one would take on penances for oneself was just... well... strange, weird, and just... almost wrong even. I always wondered why Catholics "gave stuff up" during "Lent" (which I had no idea what that even meant... I just saw it on the calendar from the bank.)

To be honest, I think if I were still a Protestant and I had heard that this old Pope regularly beat himself with a belt... I'd be shocked and horrified. I'd think "Well then... if he's the leader of the Catholic Church, wow... they must ALL be crazy to do that! That's just UNNATURAL!"

Anyhoo -- blessed be God for that Catholic Church! Blessed be God for the grace to be Catholic!

[Saint Therese]

Hmm, yes. Also I can't think of anything that goes more against the modern "culture" than self denial and mortification. I've read so often that we must be "empty" in order for Jesus to fill us with Himself. It seems to me that mortification is a necessary part of being "emptied"...