Temporal Punishments

[Lil Red]

[quote=Jaime]The Church teaches that habitual grave sin requires confession and temporal punishment. Temporal punishment would be things like fasting on a regular basis. Temporal punishments help to train us not to succumb to habitual sins and repeat them. Temporal punishments are not so much punitive as they are about gaining discipline in your life. They help us to become more holy and overcome the sins that we constantly bring back to confession. [/quote]

Are temporal punishments supposed to 'match up' to the habitual sin you're confessing?

[CatherineM]

I'm not sure how they could, in all instances. I mean if your sin is gluttony, it would be easy to say fasting would match up. If you gamble too much, just not gambling wouldn't be the same kind of "punishment." I agree that temporal punishments that we undertake ourselves are more about developing discipline. As an example, in boot camp, soldiers have to make their beds and keep their uniforms really neat, but neither of those skills make a soldier a better marksman or more able to handle the stress of battle. What they do is train their brains to follow orders and have attention to detail. Those skills can keep them alive in battle. They have done MRIs and PET scans on marines before and after bootcamp, and their brain function is different. Forcing ourselves to do things that aren't natural to us, can also change how our minds work. Getting up early for morning mass every day, can change our entire outlook on life.

If the punishment is designed to remind us every day to change an old pattern we have repeatedly fallen into, they are okay. The problem comes when we use the punishment to avoid forgiveness. I had a confessor in Florida who used to give me very difficult, physically hard penances. He told me later that he did so in order to get me to forgive myself. That was what I found hardest to do. He also figured that getting mad at him might make me be less mad at myself.

I think we sometimes fall back into repeated sin because we can't forgive ourselves. If we can't give ourselves a clean slate, then it's like always having our play clothes on. We used to have to change out of our school clothes when we came home from school so we wouldn't get them dirty. We wanted to keep them clean. If they were already dirty, then why bother? Same with sin. If we never really feel clean, then why bother worrying about getting dirty?