The spirit of penance

This week I'll do my confession before Easter. I'm definitely glad to have a parish where there are options practically every day for the next two weeks. That timing made this reflection hit home.

After its reconciliation with God, there are still left in the soul the remains of sin; a weakness of the will to abide in good. There will remain also a certain facility for making wrong judgements: a certain disorder in the sensual appetite ... They are the weakened scars of actual sin and the disordered tendencies left in man by original sin, which are brought to a head by our personal sins. It is not enough to remove the arrow from the body, says St. John Chrysostom; We also have to heal the wound caused by the arrow. It is the same with the soul; after we have received forgiveness for our sins, we have to heal the wound that remains through penance.

Even after absolution, John Paul II teaches, there remains in the Christian a dark area, due to the wound of sin, to the imperfection of love in repentance, to the weakening of the spiritual faculties. It is an area in which there still operates an infectious source of sin which must always be fought with mortification and penance. This is the meaning of the humble but sincere act of satisfaction [penance].

For all of these reasons we must put a lot of love into fulfilling the penance the priest gives us before granting absolution. It is usually easy to perform and, if we really love God, we will be aware of the great disparity there is between our sins and the penance we have been given. It is yet another reason for increasing our spirit of penance during this Lent, when the Church calls us to it in a special way.

Francis Fernandez, In Conversation with God,
Lent and Eastertide, Fifth Monday of Lent

"The weakened scar of actual sin" isn't something I ever think of, but it does make sense that a spiritual wound leaves a spiritual scar. Not only do my disordered tendencies lead me to repeat my favorite sins (as much as I hate to call them that), but now I am a bit weakened. I certainly never thought of this application to my Lenten penance. 

It's heartening to read this for my home stretch of these last two weeks when, frankly, both the spirit and body begin to lag.