Next comes the Sacrament of Penance, which, as regards him who receives the Sacrament of Penance, consists chiefly in three things: contrition of heart, confession of mouth, and satisfaction of works. For those who duly perform these three things without doubt obtain the pardon of their sins. But we must see, and most attentively consider, whether the contrition be true, whether the confession be entire, whether the satisfaction be full.
Let us begin with contrition. The Prophet Joel cries out: Rend your hearts, and not your garments (Joel 2). The Hebrews, when they wished to show a sign of sorrow, rent their garments; but the holy Prophet warns us that, if we wish to demonstrate before God a true and inward sorrow for the sin committed, we should rend our hearts. And the Prophet David adds that we must not only rend them, but also crush them, and reduce them as it were to dust: A contrite and humbled heart, he says, O God, Thou wilt not despise. (Ps. 50.) These similitudes plainly show that to appease God by penance it is not enough to say in words: I repent that I have sinned; but there is need of an intimate and heavy sorrow of heart, which can hardly be found without sobs and tears and sighs. The holy Fathers also — it is marvelous how earnestly they speak of true contrition. St. Cyprian, in his Sermon on the Lapsed: "How greatly we must mourn: for a deep wound, let diligent and long treatment not be wanting; let not the penance be less than the crime. We must pray more earnestly and make supplication, pass the day in mourning, spend the nights in vigils and tears, occupy all our time in tears and lamentations, lie stretched upon the ground, and roll in sackcloth and ashes." Clement of Alexandria (bk. 1, ch. 11, otherwise 24), as quoted in Eusebius's History, calls penance "a baptism of tears." St. Gregory Nazianzen, in his second oration on Baptism: "I receive penitents," he says, "if I see them bathed in tears." Theodoret, in the Epitome of the Divine Decrees, in the chapter on penance, writes that the wounds incurred after Baptism are healed — but not, as at first, by the easy remedy of the laver of regeneration, but by many tears and laborious works.
These and similar things all the holy Fathers have left in writing concerning the truth of contrition. Nowadays very many approach confession who show little or no contrition. But those who wish to be truly reconciled with God, and to live rightly so that afterward they may die without fear, ought to enter into their own heart and, having shut the door to other business, ponder most attentively within themselves these or similar things: "Woe is me! What have I done, wretched man that I am, in committing such and such a shameful deed? First, I have offended that most sweet Father, the author of every good, who loves me most tenderly, who surrounded me on every side with His benefits, and of whose charity I see as many signs as I see good things in myself or in others. But what shall I say of my Christ, who loved me when I was His enemy and unworthy, and delivered Himself up for me, an oblation and a sacrifice to God for an odor of sweetness (Eph. 5) — and I, ungrateful and wretched, do not cease to offend Him? How great is my cruelty! My Lord was scourged with whips, crowned with thorns, and fastened with nails to the cross, that He might make a medicine for my old sins and crimes, and I do not cease always to add new ones; He, naked on the cross, cries out that He thirsts for my salvation, and I continue always to offer Him vinegar and most bitter gall to drink. Who, moreover, will explain to me from how great a glory I fell when I committed this or that mortal sin? I was an heir of the kingdom of heaven, of a most happy eternal life; from this so great felicity, truly so glorious and in every way the greatest, I wretchedly fell, for that most fleeting pleasure, and for those words, or for blasphemy against God, which brought me no good. And from that so great felicity to what lot did I come? To the captivity of the Devil, my most cruel enemy; and as soon as this crumbling wall of my body shall be broken down, which at every moment threatens ruin, so soon shall I also descend without any remedy into the eternal fire. Ah, wretched me! Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps this very night, I shall begin to dwell in those everlasting flames. But above all these things my heart is tortured and lacerated by my ingratitude — the ingratitude of the worst of sons and servants toward a most loving and most good Father and Lord; for the more He heaped me with benefits, the more I offended Him by my sins."
If you will attentively ponder these and similar things, shut up in the chamber of your heart — whoever you are who deign to read this little book — I hope with confidence that you will obtain the gift of contrition from our good Lord. The penitent David once entered into the solitude of his heart after the adultery he had committed, and having soon obtained contrition, began to water his couch with tears (Ps. 6). The penitent Peter entered into his heart after his denial of Christ, and going out, "wept bitterly"; and that penitent woman, a sinner, entered into her heart, and at once began to wash the feet of Jesus with her tears and to wipe them with her hair (Luke 7). These, then, are the fruits of holy contrition, which are born only in the solitude of the heart.
Now let us say a few words about confession. I see many men approach this most wholesome Sacrament without any fruit, or certainly with very little, and for no other reason than that they do not enter into their heart when they prepare themselves to make their confession. There are some who approach this work so negligently that they can say only in a general and confused sort of way that they have violated all the commandments, or have committed all mortal sins; to such persons no other than a general and confused absolution would be fitting — indeed, they are not even worthy of such an absolution, for they confess what perhaps they did not do, and what they truly did they do not confess. There are others who have indeed learned to recount their sins one by one and in order, but who take no account of the quality of the person, of the place, of the time, of the number, and of the other things that are usually called circumstances — which is a notable and dangerous negligence. For it is one thing to strike a cleric, another to strike a layman, since excommunication is annexed to the former offense but not to the latter. It is likewise one thing to commit a shameful deed with a virgin, another with a woman consecrated to God, another with a married woman, another with a harlot; and one thing to have fallen into the same sin once, another ten times — for the sin is the same, yet it is manifold. Finally, there are not lacking those — which is more to be wondered at — who judge that internal sins, such as desires of fornication, adultery, murder, or theft, are not sins unless they are carried out in deed; nay, they do not even count immodest looks or lascivious words among sins. And yet the Lord Himself speaks in express words when He says: "Whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matt. 5). It is necessary, therefore, that whoever wishes to take due care of his conscience and to make a profitable and salutary confession should first find some little book on the art of confessing sins rightly, or at least consult a pious and learned confessor; then let him enter into his heart, and not cursorily and briefly, but accurately and seriously examine his conscience, and diligently review his thoughts, desires, words, and deeds, as well as his omissions; and let him lay open his conscience to the pious and skilled physician of souls, and humbly receiving absolution from him, be ready to perform the penance which that confessor shall judge ought to be enjoined.
There remains satisfaction, of which our forefathers, most wise men, took far greater account than many of us seem to do. For since they seriously considered that satisfaction can be made to God much more easily here on earth than in the places of purgatory, they indeed imposed penances which, as regards their duration, lasted seven, or fifteen, or thirty years, and sometimes even a whole life. And as regards their quality, they enjoined most frequent fasts, prayers still more frequent, and besides, that penitents should not use baths, nor horses, nor carriages, nor costly garments; that they should abstain from games, spectacles, and theaters; in fine, almost their whole life was spent in the mourning and sorrow that befits penitents. I will give one example.
In the tenth Council of Toledo we read that the Bishop of Braga, Potamius by name, who had once been defiled by the touch of a woman (for so the Council speaks), of his own accord, with no one compelling him, shut himself up in a certain prison and did penance for nine months; and that afterward, by his own letter, he signified to the council of bishops both this sin of his and the penance he had voluntarily undertaken; and that the council decreed that he should persevere in doing penance for the whole remainder of his life — although the Council nonetheless declared that it had dealt with him more leniently and mercifully than the rules and severity of the ancients allowed. Such was the severity of the ancients. But now we are so weak and delicate that a fast on bread and water for a few days, together with the seven Psalms and litanies to be recited for as many days, and an alms of a few coins to be distributed to the poor, seems severe enough, even when imposed for the expiation of many shameful deeds and crimes. But whatever we spare ourselves here, we shall pay for grievously in the places of purgatory, the justice of God so requiring; unless the power of true contrition, proceeding from ardent charity, be so great that it can obtain from the mercy of God the remission of all our guilt. A truly contrite and humbled heart wondrously moves the compassion of God our Father; for such is the sweetness and goodness of the Father that He cannot but run (Luke 15) to meet the prodigal yet truly repentant son, embrace him, kiss him, give him the ring of peace, wipe away the tears of his sorrow, and fill him with tears of joy sweeter than any honeycomb.