Penance. This word, too often, makes us shudder. If we find it normal to hear it at the time of Lent, it generally disturbs us the rest of the year. However penance opens the way to our salvation. No one reaches Heaven without having atoned for their sins. If we are reluctant to do penance, it is probably because we think that it is addressed to elite souls who, enjoying exceptional graces, have endured many sacrifices and torments.
However, penance is within the reach of everyone without exception. Depriving ourselves of the excess of food in a meal, mortifying our curiosity, our senses, especially the tongue, do not kill the body but discipline it. We can also give up some superficial items or objects that, in the end, clutter us up and that would be much more useful to others who cannot acquire them. These small practices repeated regularly, when they are carried out in a true spirit of penance, bear many fruits.
If we get into the habit, when the cross comes into our life (whether we want it or not, it always happens) we will be able to bear it in a Christian way. Without this, we will not be able to do it and we will rebel against it. But the cross can either save us or lose us. Like the thieves surrounding Jesus on Calvary, one is saved by accepting his torture, the other is lost by rejecting it.
Doing penance is justice because we are all sinners, all guilty of iniquities before God. It is therefore normal to offer some sacrifices for our salvation. “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone at this woman,” our Lord once said. Conversely, could we not say: “Let he who is without sin dispense with doing penance?” This is well worth our reflection and examination of conscience!
(Extracts from the advice of Sr. Marie du Sacré Cœur Bernaud in the book “Month of the Sacred Heart of 1891” published by the Visitation of Bourg en Bresse.)