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The
Sacrament of Penance
THE
holy Sacrament of Penance is that sacrament in which the duly authorized
priest, taking the place of God, remits to the sinner the sins he has
committed after Baptism, when he contritely and fully confesses them, and
has the firm determination to amend his life and do penance.
Christ ordained this sacrament on the
evening of the day on which He rose from the dead, as St. John relates:
"When it was late that same day, the first of the week, and the doors were
shut, where the disciples were gathered together for fear of the Jews,
Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them: Peace be to you. As
the Father hath sent Me, I also send you. When He had said this, He
breathed on them: and He said to them: Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose
sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them; and those sins you shall
retain, they are retained" (John xx. 19-24).
This power of binding and loosing sin
extends to all those who succeed the apostles in the priestly office; for
Christ has established His means of salvation for all ages, and for all
men who stand in need of them.
The outward signs in the Sacrament of
Penance are:
1.
The actions of the penitent; namely, the act of contrition, the
confession, and the satisfaction. 2. The words of absolution: "I
absolve thee."
With these outward signs
of the Sacrament of Penance are joined the inward workings of grace.
CONFESSION
THE
sinner is like a sick man, who, if he would be cured, must make known the
nature of his sickness and show his festering sores to a skillful and
experienced physician and surgeon. A simple manifestation of repentance
or a general avowal of sinfulness will not suffice. Our Lord chose men to
sit in judgment, to bind and to loose. If confession were not required,
then the words of Christ instituting confession would have no meaning.
The power of the priest is not absolute, but ministerial. He is the
ambassador of Christ and responsible to Him for the handling of His
power. He must know the condition of the soul; he has to dismiss the
sinner who comes without the proper dispositions. He who comes to
confession without sorrow and without a firm purpose of amendment cannot
be forgiven. Before forgiving or retaining, the priest must know the
condition of things. No honorable judge will condemn or dismiss a man
before hearing his case.
Christ, indeed, did not institute
confession by way of strict and inexorable justice, but by way of mercy
and indulgence. Wherefore the priest does not sit in the confessional to
condemn the poor sinner and deliver him into the hands of divine justice.
He listens to the case without a word of reproach or surprise; he simply
warns him about dangerous symptoms; he binds up the bleeding wounds and
sends the sinner away with the assurance of complete pardon. And in this
the will of the merciful Master is carried out; for He said: "I am not
come to call the just, but sinners" (Matt. ix. 13). "Come to Me, all ye
that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you" (Matt. xi. 28).
"There shall be joy before the angels of God upon one sinner doing
penance" (Luke xv. 10).
In confession the Lord has provided a
most suitable and effective remedy for our spiritual ailments. Why? The
beginning of all evil, the source of all sin, is pride, which is rebellion
against God and a willful renunciation of His sovereignty. Pride leads us
away from God. Humility brings us back to Him. Confession is that
painful and wholesome humiliation which brings about the justification of
the sinner.
God required confession from the
commencement of our race. He was the first confessor, and the first
penitents were Adam and Eve. They confessed, though somewhat imperfectly,
and they were forgiven. Cain refused to confess his great sin, and the
Lord God cursed him and marked him as impenitent. David confessed his
crimes to the prophet Nathan, and he was instantly forgiven.
Far from being an incentive to sin, as
is sometimes said by Protestants, confession is the best moral check upon
the human conscience, as it reminds man of his sacred obligations to his
Maker and gives him self-knowledge and a sense of humility. It has been
fitly called the safeguard of the Gospel Law. The impious Voltaire, who
regarded it merely as a human affair, said: "There is no more useful
institution than confession; if it did not exist it should be invented and
introduced immediately." Luther preached against the necessity of
confession, and his "doctrine" was unfortunately welcome to many in his
days; but he bitterly complained of the decay of morality and openly
regretted that he had abolished the confessional.
Confession is the fruit of Christ's
Passion and Death; it is one of the greatest blessings that God conferred
on sinful man; it is a never-failing source of light and strength, of
peace and happiness, to millions of souls.
Through confession the all-wise God
satisfies the longings of human nature. He knows that we want to tell
somebody the anxieties of our heart, and our shortcomings and
transgressions, and at the same time we do not want to tell them. We wish
to tell them as if they were never told; "we wish to tell them to one who
is strong enough to bear them, and yet not too strong to despise us; to
one who can relieve us of our load, who can advise and sympathize with
us. Such a one we find in the confessional. How many a Protestant's
heart would leap with joy at the news of such a benefit" (Newman).
Many non-Catholics of the present day
are still under the impression that the priest receives a regular fee for
every confession he hears. The priest is not permitted to accept money
when hearing confessions, even if it were offered spontaneously; he is
obliged, by a special law, to refuse any offering in the confessional.
Human justice seems to require the
confession of guilt. When the criminal has confessed his crime, we feel a
certain relief, and a sort of sympathy for him. Through confession the
culprit is separated from his wicked deed. We feel that temporal
punishment has no expiatory effect, until the guilty one has confessed.
Sin is the poison of the soul. The poison must be rejected before a cure
can be effected.
In the book of Leviticus (chaps.
iv-vii) we learn that the sinner who wished to be reconciled to God had to
go to the priest who was to offer sacrifice for his sins in proportion to
their malice and greatness. The sinner was thus obliged to indicate the
number and different kinds of his sins. Such a confession was to be
sincere and free from false shame. "For thy soul be not ashamed to say
the truth; for there is a shame that bringeth sin, and there is a shame
that bringeth glory and grace" (Ecclus. iv. 25). It is a shame to commit
sin; it is an honor to own up to it and to confess it. Again the Scripure
says: "He that hideth his sins, shall not prosper; but he that shall
confess and forsake them, shall obtain mercy" (Prov. xxviii. 13). The
priest of the Old Dispensation, however, did not forgive sins. He could
not impart absolution. He merely determined and explained the conditions
under which God would forgive sin. Christ came to perfect the Law, and He
really gave judicial power to the priests of the New Law. For over 1900
years the Catholic Church has taught and believed with St. John, "if we
confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to
cleanse us from all iniquity."
INDULGENCES
AN
indulgence, in the Catholic sense of the word, is the remission, by
legitimate ecclesiastical authority, of the whole or part of the temporal
punishment which is still due on account of sin, after the sin itself has
been forgiven.
The eternal punishment which mortal
sin deserves is undoubtedly remitted when the sin is forgiven, but in the
Sacrament of Penance God requires the repentant sinner to make some
satisfaction for the outrage that has been committed against the order of
Divine Providence, and for the scandal and encouragement in evil habits
given to others by sin. Moreover, the temporal punishment by which this
satisfaction is made serves to deter the penitent from relapsing into
sinful ways, by reminding him that sin always brings suffering in its
train.
This suffering may come to us in the
shape of physical or mental troubles; it may be satisfied, at least in
part, by the patient endurance of the ordinary ills and crosses of this
life, as well as by our prayers and good works.
The Holy Bible records many instances
of the infliction of this punishment. A noteworthy case occurs in the
second book of Kings, ch. xii. 13, 14. "And David said to Nathan: I have
sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said to David: The Lord also hath
taken away thy sin: thou shalt not die. Nevertheless, because thou hast
given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, for this thing,
the child that is born thee shall surely die."
The sacred writings are replete with
expressions calling upon sinners to do penance in temporal good works.
Hence the prayers, fasts, and the sackcloth and ashes so often mentioned
in Holy Writ; hence the various penances voluntarily undergone by the
saints of the Old, and especially of the New Law; hence the penances
imposed by the priest before he pronounces the words of absolution; hence
the days of prayer, fast, and abstinence prescribed by the Church for her
children.
The discipline of the Church in these
penances was very much more severe in former times than it is now. In the
early centuries of her existence many years of penance and trial were
required as a public reparation for grievous sin, and the penances were
more or less severe in proportion to the guilt of the sinner.
The Church, of course, has never
claimed to know the condition of a soul in the eyes of almighty God, nor
the exact amount of punishment which God requires of him who has been
forgiven his sins. The public or canonical penances, as they were called,
of the early days were prescribed according as human judgment deemed them
suitable to the crimes committed, with the knowledge that God would
receive them in proportion to their merits, as part, at least, of the
punishment due to forgiven sin.
But the Church has not merely the
right to exact these penances. It is also divinely empowered to undo
these bonds of sorrow and tribulation. "Amen I say to you," said the
Master, "whatsoever you shall bind upon earth shall be bound also in
heaven: and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in
heaven" (Matt. xviii. 18). The Church always reserved the right to
release the penitent from all or part of the canonical penance enjoined
for sin, on account of the great earnestness and zeal shown by the
penitent, or by substituting some other pious exercise for the unfulfilled
penance.
Eusebius, in his Church History (book
32), mentions a case in which the whole penance was remitted: St. Cyprian
(57th Epistle) tells us that this remission of penance was very
common when persecutions broke out against the Christians. It must be
clearly understood that this remission was not merely a release from the
performance of the public penance, but, through the power given in St.
Matthew's Gospel (xviii. 18), the pardon pronounced on earth was ratified
in heaven. In other words, God, who is ever faithful to His promises,
freed the soul from the punishment from which He would have released it if
the penitent had actually fulfilled the penance from which the Church
released him. This remission is precisely what we mean by as indulgence,
and it is accomplished by the application of the superabundant merits of
Christ, His Blessed Mother, and the saints, in behalf of the repentant
sinner.
The merits of Jesus Christ, of course,
are of infinite value. The Blessed Virgin, although she had no faults of
her own to expiate, possessed much merit in the eyes of her heavenly
Father for the purity and self-sacrifice that characterized her life. The
saints likewise labored in much watchfulness and prayer to attain their
salvation, and their merits, at least in many instances, were far in
excess of their faults. Now, through the principle of the communion of
saints, these inexhaustible merits of Jesus Christ, and the excess of
merit won by the Blessed Virgin and the saints, constitute the spiritual
treasury of the Church, on which she can draw at will in behalf o her
children. The result of an indulgence is thus the same as if those to
whom the merit originally belonged directly applied it to the benefit of
the person who gains it through the indulgence.
It is needless, therefore, to say an
indulgence is not a pardon of sin. The sin must be forgiven; the eternal
punishment due mortal sin must be forgiven before it is possible to gain
an indulgence.
Nor is it a permission to commit sin,
for such a thing is impossible. Nor can an indulgence be bought. The
mere fact of desiring or attempting to exchange worldly goods for an
indulgence would in itself be a mortal sin, and would thus render the
sinner incapable of gaining an indulgence.
It may be well also to mention that an
indulgence must not be looked on as the value of a prayer or good work.
Every good action we perform with the proper intention of honoring God by
it has a value in the eyes of almighty God, and He rewards us for that
action by His grace. The indulgence does not affect this reward one way
or another, but is an additional reward given by the Church to encourage
us still more in the practice of virtuous actions.
If an indulgence remits all the
temporal punishment due to forgiven sin it is called a plenary
indulgence. A partial indulgence on the other hand, releases the penitent
only from a portion of the punishment which would be inflicted in the
ordinary course of Divine Providence. Thus, also, through an indulgence
of from forty to one hundred days, or from one to two or even ten years,
as much of the temporal punishment is remitted as would be satisfied and
remitted if we had done penance during an equivalent period of time under
the ancient canonical discipline. How long the period thus escaped from
purgatory the Church has never pretended to teach.
To the dead, who are no longer under
her guidance, the Church can grant the benefit of indulgences only in the
form of intercession, by offering to God the satisfying merits of her
treasury of graces in aid of her departed members, and beseeching Him
earnestly that He would be pleased to accept them for the remission of
their sufferings, and call them to the enjoyment of heavenly happiness.
Finally, an indulgence is either
local, real, or personal. It may be attached to a place, as to a church
or oratory or altar, so that a person desiring to gain it must visit the
locality and there comply with the required conditions. It is real when
attached to an article, such as a rosary or medal or crucifix. It is
personal when granted to individuals, as, for example, members of a
Confraternity.
CONDITIONS FOR
GAINING AN
INDULGENCE
TO
the gaining of every indulgence it is required:
1.
That we be in a state of grace. If the conscience be burdened with
even one mortal sin, the smallest indulgence cannot be acquired.
2.
That we perform the prescribed works really and fully, at the time
appointed, in the prescribed place, and with a spirit of piety and
penance.
3.
That at the time of performing the prescribed works we have the
intention of gaining the indulgence.
Here it is to be
observed:
a. At the granting of a
plenary indulgence it is usually prescribed that we pray according to the
intention of the Church or the Pope, without stating any definite prayer.
In such cases it is sufficient to say with devotion five Our Fathers and
five Hail Marys, or the Litany of Jesus or of the Blessed Virgin.
b.
Receiving communion is required for the gaining of a plenary
indulgence, except the indulgence at the hour of death, in case of
inability to receive, and the indulgence of the Stations.
THE
JUBILEE INDULGENCE
AMONG the many
indulgences granted by the Church to the faithful the jubilee indulgence
is the most remarkable, being the most comprehensive.
The Christian jubilee was
plainly prefigured in the Old Law, as the shadow to the light, as the
figure to the thing itself. Among the Jews every fiftieth year was called
the year of jubilee, because it was announced by the priests with the aid
of trumpets. During this year all debts were forgiven to such as were
unable to pay, and all property bought under the pressure of law was
returned. The fields and vineyards were left uncultivated, and people
lived on what they had stored, or plucked whatever grew spontaneously.
Now the Christian jubilee
year resembles the Jewish inasmuch as it is a year of release, not,
indeed, of worldly debts, but of the debts due to God. In the Jewish
jubilee slaves were set free; in the Christian jubilee we are freed from
the slavery of Satan.
The jubilee indulgence is
the fullest of all releases from temporal punishments due to sin, even
though we be unable to comply strictly with all the conditions. The Pope,
in this case, wishes to use all his power and authority to remove all
sin-penalties in the most effective manner. All can gain this indulgence,
even those who are unable to perform the works; for the confessors have
authority to change the exercises for the sick, blind, lame, cloistered
religious, prisoners, soldiers, travelers, sailors, and others.
The origin of the jubilee
year is thus described. In the year 1299, about Christmas-time, there
came to Rome an immense throng of pilgrims, eager to gain the centenary
indulgence granted in that city every hundred years. Among these was a
Savoyard 109 years old, who told Pope Boniface VIII that his father, who
had enjoined him, if he would live to see the year 1300, to go to Rome to
gain the great indulgence. Two aged Frenchmen and one Italian
corroborated the story.
Pope Boniface had all the
old records searched, but found no trace of the jubilee mentioned. In
order to gratify the piety of the people, and to honor St. Peter and St.
Paul, Pope Boniface issued a bull, in which he granted a plenary
indulgence to all such inhabitants of Rome as would make thirty visits on
separate days to the churches dedicated to those apostles. Strangers from
other parts could gain the same indulgence by making the visits in fifteen
days. This indulgence could be gained only once in a hundred years.
In the year 1300 two
hundred thousand strangers visited Rome to gain this indulgence.
In the year 1342 Pope
Clement VI, at the request of the Romans, reduced the period from one
hundred to fifty years, as many persons were born, lived long, and died
without an opportunity to gain the indulgence. In the year 1389 Urban VI
ordered the jubilee every thirty-three years, in honor of the years passed
by Christ on earth. Finally Pope Paul II fixed the time at twenty five
years, so as to place the indulgence within the span of an ordinary
lifetime.
Like the Jewish jubilee,
the Christian jubilee is proclaimed amid the sound of trumpet from the
principal churches of Rome, on the doors of which the Pope's brief
authorizing it is attached. This is done first on the Ascension Day of
the preceding year, and on the fourth Sunday of Advent the announcement is
again made. The jubilee proper begins on Christmas Eve. After first
vespers the Pope intones the hymn "Come, Holy Ghost," and then proceeds in
state to St. Peter's Church, through the holy door, which is kept
constantly walled up except on the occasion of the jubilee. While the
Pope is officiating in St. Peter's three cardinal legates are similarly
engaged in the three other principal churches of Rome—St. John Lateran,
St. Mary Major, and St. Paul. Thus is opened the year of jubilee, which
lasts till the vespers of Christmas in the succeeding year, when the Pope
leaves St. Peter's through the holy door, which is then walled up again.
Besides this there are held at
different times other extraordinary jubilees; for instance, at the
election of a Pope, in time of war or some other great event.
We have, then, two kinds of jubilee:
1.
The ordinary jubilee or the sacred year, which occurs every
twenty-fifth year; and, 2. The extraordinary jubilee, held on occasion of
some special event.
1.
The jubilee of the holy year is celebrated only in Rome, and during
the time all the other indulgences are suspended, leaving in force only
the following:
a.
Indulgence at the hour of death.
b.
Indulgences attached to privileged altars.
c.
Indulgences granted exclusively to the faithful departed.
d.
Indulgence of the Angelus.
e.
Indulgence for attending the communion to the sick.
f.
Indulgence of seven years and seven times forty days at the
devotion of the Forty Hours' Adoration.
g.
Finally, Pope Benedict XIII granted what Benedict XIV confirmed,
that all the indulgences suspended for the living might be gained for the
departed souls.
h.
The indulgences granted on special occasions during the year by the
Pope's authorized representatives.
For the benefit of those
who cannot visit Rome, the Pope grants this indulgence to all Catholics
throughout the world, under certain conditions, in order that they may not
be deprived of the graces offered. Although the time of jubilee is twelve
months, yet the time for gaining the indulgence is often shorter, possibly
with a view to promoting ardor and fervor in the piety of the faithful.
It is necessary for the gaining of the indulgence that the jubilee be
proclaimed by the local bishop of the diocese. Without this no one could
gain the indulgence in such diocese, although it might be known to all
that the publication had been made in Rome.
2.
The extraordinary jubilee is of short duration, usually fifteen
days. It is to be remembered that during this life after their deadly
sins have been remitted as to force.
The conditions for
gaining the jubilee indulgence, with other directions, are mentioned in
the papal letters. In general we can say that all confessors have
permission to absolve from cases reserved to the bishops and even to the
Pope, as well as from Church penalties. They also have, among other
privileges, that of commuting the works prescribed, in cases where persons
are unable to perform them.
PURGATORY
PURGATORY
is a state of suffering after this life, in which those souls are for a
time detained who depart this life after their deadly sins have been
remitted as to the stain and guilt, and as to the everlasting pain that
was due to them; but who have on account of those sins still some debt of
temporal punishment to pay; as also those souls which leave this world
guilty only of venial sins. In purgatory these souls are purified and
rendered fit to enter into heaven, where nothing defiled enters.
Catholics believe that a Christian who
died after the guilt and everlasting punishment of mortal sin have been
forgiven him, but who, either from want of opportunity or through his
negligence, has not discharged the debt to the justice of God, is in
purgatory.
They believe also that those
Christians who die with the guilt of venial sin only upon their souls do
not immediately enter heaven, where "nothing defiled" can enter, but go
first to purgatory for an allotted time, and after being purified there
from the stain of these venial or lesser faults, are admitted into
heaven. As to the place, manner, or nature of these sufferings, nothing
has been defined by the Church.
As works of penance have no value in
themselves except through the merits of Jesus Christ, so the pains of
purgatory have no power in themselves to purify the soul from sin, but
only in virtue of Christ's Redemption; or, to speak more exactly, the
souls in purgatory are able to discharge the debt of temporal punishment
demanded by God's justice, and to have their venial sins remitted only
through the merits of Jesus Christ, "yet so as by fire."
The Catholic belief in purgatory rests
on the authority of the Church and her apostolic traditions recorded in
ancient liturgies and in the writings of the ancient Fathers, Tertullian,
St. Cyprian, Origen, Eusebius of Caesarea, Arnobius, St. Basil, St. Ephrem
of Edessa, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Ambrose, St.
Epiphanius, St. John Chrysostom, St. Jerome, St. Augstine. It rests also
on the Fourth Council of Carthage, and on many other authorities of
antiquity.
We read in several places of Holy
Scripture that God will render to every one according to each deserves
(Matt. xvi. 27). As we cannot think, however, that God will punish
everlastingly a person who dies burdened with the guilt of venial sin
only, it is reasonable to infer that the punishment rendered to that
person in the next world will only be temporary.
The Catholic belief in purgatory is
not in opposition to those texts of Scripture in which it is said that a
man when he is justified is translated from death to life; that he is no
longer judged; that there is no condemnation in him. For these passages
do not refer to souls taken to heaven when natural death occurs, but to
persons in this world, who from the death of sin pass to the life of
grace. Nor does it follow that dying in that state of grace, that is, in
a state of spiritual life, they must go at once to heaven. A soul may be
justified, entirely exempt from eternal condemnation, and yet have
something to suffer for a time; thus also in this world many are justified
and yet are not exempt from suffering. Christ's Redemption is abundant,
"plentiful," as HolY Scripture says (Psalm cxxix. 7), and Catholics do not
believe that those Christians who die guilty only of venial sins
unrepented of, and unforgiven, are condemned to the everlasting pains of
hell, as Protestants must believe, if consistent with their principles.
Catholics believe that the souls in
purgatory continue to be members of the Church of Christ, and that they
are relieved by the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, by prayer and pious works,
and almsdeeds; these and other helps are called suffrages because they are
applied to them by the faithful here on earth, with the intention of
helping them. Indulgences may also be applied to them.
The living can pray for each other
efficaciously. St. James the Apostle says: "Pray for one another, that
you may be saved" (v. 16). Why then should we not be able to pray also
with efficacy for the departed, especially since the souls in purgatory
quitted this life in the state of grace and love which, according to St.
Paul, "never falleth away"? (1 Cor. xiii. 8). If death does not break
their ties of love toward us, the same should not sever our bonds of love
toward them, nor prevent us from doing what we can in their behalf. The
Jews retain in their liturgy to this day the pious practice of praying for
the departed.
This Catholic belief is comprised in
those words of the Apostles' Creed, "I believe in the communion of
saints." The natural meaning of this declaration being that we are in
communion of prayers with the saints, whether in heaven, in purgatory or
on earth. It has always been the practice of the Catholic Church to offer
prayers and other pious works in suffrage for the dead, as is amply
testified by the Latin Fathers; for instance, Tertullian, St. Cyprian, St.
Augustine, St. Gregory; and among the Greek Fathers, by St. Ephrem of
Edessa, St. Basil, and St. John Chrysostom.
St. Chrysostom says: "It was not
without good reason ordained by the apostles that mention should be made
of the dead in the tremendous mysteries, because they knew well that these
would receive great benefit from it." By the expression "tremendous
mysteries" is meant the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
St. Augustine says: "It is not to be
doubted that the dead are aided by the prayers of holy Church and by the
salutary sacrifice, and by the alms which are offered to their spirits;
that the Lord may deal with them more mercifully than their sins have
deserved. For this, which has been handed down by the Fathers, universal
Church observes.
The same pious custom is proved also
from the ancient liturgies of the Greek and other Eastern Churches, both
Catholic and schismatic, in which the priest is directed to pray for the
repose of the dead during the celebration of the holy mysteries.
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