CHAPTER I

The Church -- which during the council examined with greater attention its relations not only with the separated brethren but also with non-Christian religions -- has noted with joy that almost everywhere and at all times penitence has held a place of great importance, since it is closely linked with the intimate sense of religion which pervades the life of most ancient peoples as well as with the more advanced expressions of the great religions connected with the progress of culture.¹⁰

In the Old Testament the religious sense of penitence is revealed with even greater richness. Even though man generally has recourse to it in the aftermath of sin to placate the wrath of God,¹¹ or on the occasion of grave calamities,¹² or when special dangers are imminent,¹³ or in any case to obtain benefits from the Lord,¹⁴ we can nevertheless establish that external penitential practices are accompanied by an inner attitude of "conversion," that is to say of condemnation of and detachment from sin and of striving toward God.¹⁵ One goes without food or gives away his property (fasting is generally accompanied not only by prayer but also by alms¹⁶) even after sins have been forgiven and independently of a request for graces. One fasts or applies physical discipline to "chastise one's own soul,"¹⁷ to "humble oneself in the sight of his own God,"¹⁸ to "turn one's face toward Jehovah,"¹⁹ to "dispose oneself to prayer,"²⁰ to "understand" more intimately the things which are divine²¹ or to prepare oneself for the encounter with God.²²

Penance therefore -- already in the Old Testament -- is a religious, personal act which has as its aim love and surrender to God: fasting for the sake of God, not for one's own self.²³ Such it must remain also in the various penitential rites sanctioned by law. When this is not verified, the Lord is displeased with His people: "Today you have not fasted in a way which will make your office heard on high.... Rend your heart and not your garments, and return to the Lord your God."²⁴

The social aspect of penitence is not lacking in the Old Testament. In fact, the penitential liturgies of the Old Covenant are not only a collective awareness of sin but constitute in reality a condition for belonging to the people of God.²⁵

We can further establish that penitence was represented even before Christ as a means and a sign of perfection and sanctity. Judith,²⁶ Daniel,²⁷ the prophetess Anna and many other elect souls served God day and night with fasting and prayers,²⁸ and with joy and cheerfulness.²⁹

Finally, we find among the just ones of the Old Testament those who offered themselves to satisfy with their own personal penitence for the sins of the community. This is what Moses did I the 40 days when he fasted to placate the Lord for the guilt of his unfaithful people.³⁰ This above all is how the character of the Servant Jehovah is presented, "who took on our infirmities" and in whom "the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all."³¹

All this, however, was but a foreshadowing of things to come.³² Penitence -- required by the inner life, confirmed by the religious experience of mankind and the object of a particular precept of divine revelation -- assumes "in Christ and the Church" new dimensions infinitely broader and more profound.

Christ, who always practiced in His life what He preached, before beginning His ministry spent 40 days and 40 nights in prayer and fasting, and began His public mission with the joyful message: "The kingdom of God is at hand." To this He added the command: "Repent and believe in the Gospel."³³ These words constitute, in a way, a compendium of the whole Christian life.

The kingdom of God announced by Christ can be entered only by a "change of heart" ("metanoia"), that is to say through that intimate and total change and renewal of the entire man -- of all his opinions, judgments and decisions -- which takes place in him in the light of the sanctity and charity of God, the sanctity and charity which was manifested to us in the Son and communicated fully.³⁴

The invitation of the Son to "metanoia" becomes all the more inescapable inasmuch as He not only preaches it but Himself offers an example. Christ, in fact, is the supreme model for those doing penance. He willed to suffer punishment for sins which were not His but those of others.³⁵

In the presence of Christ man is illumined with a new light and consequently recognizes the holiness of God and the gravity of sin.³⁶ Through the word of Christ a message is transmitted to him which invites him to conversion and grants forgiveness of sins. These gifts he fully attains in baptism. This sacrament, in fact, configures him to the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord,³⁷ and places the whole future of the life of the baptized under the seal of this mystery.

Therefore, following the Master, every Christian must renounce himself, take up his own cross and participate in the sufferings of Christ. Thus transformed into the image of Christ's death, he is made capable of meditating on the glory of the resurrection.³⁸ Furthermore, following the Master, he can no longer live for himself,³⁹ but must live for Him who loves him and gave Himself for him.⁴⁰ He will also have to live for his brethren, completing "in his flesh that which is lacking in the sufferings of Christ . . . for the benefit of his body, which is the church."⁴¹

In addition, since the Church is closely linked to Christ, the penitence of the individual Christian also has an intimate relationship of its own with the whole ecclesial community. In fact, not only does he receive in the bosom of the Church through baptism the fundamental gift of "metanoia," but this gift is restored and reinvigorated, through the sacrament of penance, in those members of the Body of Christ who have fallen into sin. "Those who approach the sacrament of penance receive from the mercy of God forgiveness for offenses committed against Him and at the same time become reconciled with the Church on which they have inflicted a wound by sinning, and the Church cooperates in their conversion with charity, example and prayer."⁴² And in the Church, finally, the little acts of penitence imposed each time in the sacrament become a form of participation in a special way in the infinite expiation of Christ to join to the sacramental satisfaction itself every other action he performs, his every suffering and sorrow.⁴³

Thus the task of "bearing in his body and soul the death of the Lord"⁴⁴ affects the whole life of the baptized person at every instant and in every aspect.

CHAPTER II

The preeminently interior and religious character of penitence and the new wondrous aspects which it assumes "in Christ and in the Church" neither excludes nor lessens in any way the external practice of this virtue, but on the contrary reaffirms its necessity with particular urgency⁴⁵ and prompts the Church -- always attentive to the signs of the times -- to seek, beyond fast and abstinence, new expressions more suitable for the realization, according to the character of various epochs, of the precise goal of penitence.

True penitence, however, cannot ever prescind from physical ascetism as well. Our whole being, in fact, body and soul, (indeed the whole of nature, even animals without reason, as Holy Scripture often points out)⁴⁶ must participate actively in this religious act whereby the creature recognizes divine holiness and majesty. The necessity of the mortification of the flesh also stands clearly revealed if we consider the fragility of our nature, in which, since Adam's sin, flesh and spirit have contrasting desires.⁴⁷. This exercise of bodily mortification -- far removed from any form of stoicism -- does not imply a condemnation of the flesh which sons of God deign to assume.⁴⁸ On the contrary mortification aims at the "liberation"⁴⁹ of man, who often finds himself, because of concupiscence, almost chained⁵⁰ by his own senses. Through "corporal fasting"⁵¹ man regains strength and the "wound inflicted on the dignity of our nature by intemperance is cured by the medicine of a salutary abstinence.⁵²

Nevertheless, in the New Testament and in the history of the Church -- although the duty of doing penance is motivated above all by participation in the sufferings of Christ -- the necessity of an asceticism which chastises the body and brings it into subjection is affirmed with special insistence by the example of Christ Himself.⁵³

Against the real and ever recurring danger of formalism and pharisaism the Divine Master in the New Covenant openly condemned -- and so have the Apostles, Fathers and supreme pontiffs -- any form of penitence which is purely external. The intimate relationship which exists in penitence between the- external act, inner conversion, prayer and works of charity is affirmed and widely developed in the liturgical texts and authors of every era.⁵⁴

CHAPTER III

Therefore the Church -- while it reaffirms the primacy of the religious and supernatural values of penitence (values extremely suitable for restoring to the world today a sense of the presence of God and of His sovereignty ova man and a sense of Christ and His salvation)⁵⁵ -- invites everyone to accompany the inner conversion of the spirit with the voluntary exercise of external acts of penitence:

A -- It insists first of all that the virtue of penitence be exercised in persevering faithfulness to the duties of one's state in life, in the acceptance of the difficulties arising from one's work and from human coexistence, in a patient bearing of the trials of earthly life and of the utter insecurity which pervades it.⁵⁶

B -- Those members of the Church who are stricken by infirmities, illnesses, poverty or misfortunes, or who are persecuted for the love of justice, are invited to unite their sorrows to the suffering of Christ in such a way that they not only satisfy more thoroughly the precept of penitence but also obtain for the brethren a life of grace and for themselves that beatitude which is promised in the Gospel to those who suffer.⁵⁷

C -- The precept of penitence must be satisfied in a more perfect way by priests, who are more closely linked to Christ through sacred character, as well as by those who in order to follow more closely the abnegation of the Lord and to find an easier and more efficacious path to the perfection of charity practice the evangelical counsels.⁵⁸

The Church, however, invites all Christians without distinction to respond to the divine precept of penitence by some voluntary act, apart from the renunciation imposed by the burdens of everyday life.⁵⁹

To recall and urge all the faithful to the observance of the divine precept of penitence, the Apostolic See intends to reorganize penitential discipline with practices more suited to our times. It is up to the bishops -- gathered in their episcopal conferences -- to establish the norms which, in their pastoral solicitude and prudence, and with the direct knowledge they have of local conditions, they consider the most opportune and efficacious. The following, however, is established:

In the first place, Holy Mother Church, although it has always observed in a special way abstinence from meat and fasting, nevertheless wants to indicate in the traditional triad of "prayerfasting -- charity" the fundamental means of complying with the divine precepts of penitence. These means were the same throughout the centuries, but in our time there are special reasons whereby, according to the demands of various localities, it is necessary to inculcate some special form of penitence in preference to others.⁶⁰ Therefore, where economic well-being is greater, so much more will the witness of asceticism have to be given in order that the sons of the Church may not be involved in the spirit of the "world,"⁶¹ and at the same time the witness of charity will have to be given to the brethren who suffer poverty and hunger beyond any barrier of nation or continent.⁶² on the other hand, in countries where the standard of living is lower, it will be more pleasing to God the Father and more useful to the members of the Body of Christ if Christians -- while they seek in every way to promote better social justice -- offer their suffering in prayer to the Lord in close union with the Cross of Christ.