PENANCE, PRACTICES OF

Concrete expressions of the penitential spirit involving either ascetical deeds or the sacrifice of legitimate pleasure for a spiritual purpose have been characteristic of the Christian Church since its foundation. The source of the penitential ideal is the life of Jesus Christ. For example, He praised the ideal of virginity, which renounces the great good of marital love, the better to love God, and the bestowal of one's earthly goods on the poor, the more easily to seek heavenly goods (cf. Mt 19.12, 16–22). And He emphasized His teaching by embracing these penitential practices in His own life.

The teaching and practice of Jesus were continued by His disciples. St. Paul noted that freedom from marriage gives a virgin opportunity to think about the things of the Lord, that she might be holy in body and spirit (1 Cor 7.25–35). St. John spoke of a special closeness to Christ that is a prerogative of the virgins in the Kingdom of Heaven (Rev 14.1–5). The faithful at Jerusalem gave up the ownership of their goods for the support of the community (Acts 2.44; 4.32); St. Paul presented his self-inflicted chastisement as an example for all Christians (1 Cor 9.27); the four daughters of Philip the Deacon dedicated themselves to a life of virginity (Acts 21.9); it was recorded of St. James the Less by Hegesippus, who lived in mid-second century, that James denied himself meat and wine and the use of razor and bath.

The Fathers of the Church praised such works of penance and reflected its practice in their own times. It is clear that the motives behind the various penitential practices were uniform: principally, a desire to answer the Lord's invitation to imitate Him in carrying a cross (Lk 9.23); reparation for sin, personal or otherwise (see reparation); and the mastery of all their human inclinations (1 Cor 9.27).

During the first centuries the penitential ideal was expressed in the lives of the chosen few, the virgins and ascetics, but also in the program of fasting that came into use throughout the Church, with varying local observances. There are signs that, very early, Friday was kept as a day of fast, in memory of the Lord's suffering and death on that day. In pre-Nicaean times there was a period devoted to pre-Paschal fast, roughly parallel to presentday Lent, with local variances in length and rigor. In some places it lasted only a few days, with one meal taken late in the day; in other places it was longer but less rigorous. The sackcloth (see hair shirt) spoken of by Christ (Mt 11.21) was always the garb of the penitent. In both East and West there were grades among these penitents, depending on the severity of their penances: for example, the "weepers," who accompanied their pleas for prayers with tears, and the "prostrati," who begged prayers while lying on the ground. Kneeling during religious services began as a penitential practice and at one time was not permitted on feast days. Manual labor, once the badge of slavery, was given a penitential aspect by the monks of the desert and later was adopted by religious rules. The monasteries, in due course, became schools of penance each with its own penitential pattern.

The detail of penitential practice differs in intensity from one culture to another; in extreme times there were many extremes, but they were generally short-lived. The rigors of the Egyptian hermits and the Irish monks, for example, passed quickly, but the reality of penance remains. Every age, even the present one, witnesses the attraction of the Christian to follow the Master by taking up a cross of some kind.

Bibliography: m. viller and m. olphe-gaillard, Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascétique et mystique. Doctrine et histoire, ed. m. viller et al. (Paris 1932–) 1:959–977. j. de guibert, ibid. 1:977–990. s. solero, a. mercarti, and a. pelzer, Dizionario ecclesiastico, 3 v. (Turin 1954–58) 3:143. l. gougaud, Devotional and Ascetic Practices in the Middle Ages, tr. g. c. bateman (London 1927). h. thurston, Lent and Holy Week (London 1904).

[p. f. mulhern/eds.]