Transcript

For those baptized, the life of habitual grace in this mortal life can be likened to a fire which is luminous and warm, yet vulnerable to diminishment and even becoming extinguished.

A person gifted with grace and free will may choose to live for God or reject Him through sinful acts.

The consequence of which can diminish charity or even remove habitual grace altogether.

What then is one to do?

In this video, we will learn about the sacrament that reconciles sinners with God, and the virtue that goes by the same name.

This sacrament and virtue is what Aquinas calls penance .

The catechism of the Catholic Church offers several names for the sacrament that heals the Christian from grave sins committed after baptism.

Some of these names are familiar, such as reconciliation and confession.

In the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas refers to this sacrament under the name of penance, a term he also uses for a particular virtue.

Looking at this virtue gives us some idea about why it's a fitting name for the sacrament, for by exercising the virtue of penance, the sinner repents of past offenses against God and resolves to make amends.

Saint Augustine suggests that such a sinner takes vengeance by ever punishing in himself what he is sorry for having done.

Mind you, this vengeance is not a self-destructive hatred for one's shortcomings, but is rather the firm commitment to give glory to God and reorder what one's personal sin has marred.

Consider the following scenario.

A man is attending a friend's dinner party, and his friend invites him to uncork a special bottle of wine.

Unfortunately, his hand slips, the bottle shatters, and he's created an expensive stain on the rug.

In this scenario, the virtue of penance demands more than indifference or crying over spilled wine.

Rather, this virtue would move him to act, to apologize, to clean the carpet, and to replace the wine with something comparable.

While that example describes an accident, our sins are no accent.

They are free choices that offend God and disorder our souls.

What is more, they can even extinguish the fire of divine love in our souls.

When sin is mortal, our weak virtue is not enough to bring about forgiveness and make amends.

Thankfully, our Savior Jesus Christ has given us the sacrament of penance by which He applies His mercy and merit to restore us to new life and reorder that damage done.Much like the sacraments discussed earlier, the sacrament of penance also has a tripartite structure of Sacramentum tantum, Res et sacramentum, and the Res tantum.

The Sacramentum tantum consists of the exterior sensible acts of the priest and penitent, which takes shape in a ritual of words and actions.

The Res et sacramentum is that intermediate step by which the soul of the penitent is made ready for the last step, the Res tantum, which is the infusion of divine charity in the soul.

The Sacramentum tantum in the current ritual of penance consists of the penitent asking for forgiveness for specific sins since his last valid confession.

The priest listening, and after ensuring the confession is valid, will assign a penance that the penitent accepts.

After the penitent promises to make satisfaction, he makes an act of contrition expressing sorrow for having offended God.

At this point, the priest prays the sacramental formula of absolution.

The essential part of which is this.

I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

The priest's words make up the form of the sacrament, but we may ask, What is the matter of the sacrament?

Could something unholy like sin be a material cause for something holy like grace?

We need not attribute this to sin, because as Aquinas notes, there is a distinction between remote matter, that is the sins of the penitent, and proximate matter, that is the penitence, contrition, confession, and satisfaction.

These last three are, in fact, the parts of penance, which we will cover in detail in a later episode.

We can call the sins remote because they lack the capacity to receive the form of forgiveness.

Nevertheless, the sins become the occasion for a penitent's contrition, confession, and satisfaction.

The sins are relevant, but only in so far as they are rejected or repented of by the penitent.

In the dinner party example, the spilled wine is the remote matter.The man's proximate matter is his contrition or sorrow for ruining the wine and carpet.

His confession is his voiced apology for the mishap.

And the satisfaction is the man's cleaning of the carpet and replacing the wine.

The Res et sacramentum, or the second step of the sacrament, is quite remarkable.

In order to be made ready to receive the mercy of God and His divine grace, we need a heart that perfectly repents from sin.

So often, the sinner has only a weak or imperfect contrition for the sins committed, which is sometimes called attrition, the fear of eternal damnation.

In the second stage of the sacrament, Jesus perfects the penitent's contrition to such an extent that he can be forgiven of any sin confessed, and even sins forgotten or unknown.

This presupposes, of course, that the penitent has not willfully withheld anything in the confession.

This is truly a remarkable gift of the sacrament that we may have imperfect contrition, namely just the fear of being sent to Hell, but nevertheless, have Christ perfect our contrition so that we might be forgiven and made capable of receiving divine grace, the Res tantum.

To review, the Sacramentum tantum of penance consists of the ritual act of confessing one's sin and receiving absolution from a priest.

This brings one toward the second step, the Res et sacramentum, which is an inward perfection of one's own contrition.

These two steps together lead to the last step, the Res tantum, which restores one to the life of grace, burning inwardly once more with the fire of Divine Love.

Having received new life through the sacrament, the Christian restored to the life of Divine Grace is also strengthened in the virtue of penance.

Renewed and strengthened, the Christian labors in love to destroy past sin by making amends.

For readings, podcasts, and more videos like this, go to Aquinas101.com.

While you're there, be sure to sign up for one of our free video courses on Aquinas.

And don't forget to subscribe, like, and share with your friends, because it matters what you think .