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CONFESSION AND PENANCE
to remove them. Certain penances are devised to help him
in this. Their aim is purely instructional and their nature is
governed by this aim.
Consider, for example, the rule to visit the sick. Evidently
this cannot be considered a punishment, but it may be the
means of valuable spiritual training for a person who is
selfcentred, complacent or egotistical. Meditation is among the
penances Belton! includes in those designed to help the penitent
to obtain wholesome self-knowledge and deeper spiritual
insight. By an individually designed course of training in
meditation on Biblical themes one can sometimes help a
penitent to see and recognise the roots of some of his
wrongdoings, and to correct faulty attitudes towards his fellow men
and his circumstances.
Penance and Release
Penance can be practised incorrectly so that, as someone has
said, it removes the pain without attacking its cause. A person
receives assurance of forgiveness, but very soon again falls
victim to the same sin. What has happened? The impulse to
sin has been removed from the penitent’s consciousness and he
thinks it has been erased. But when the temptation is renewed, |
the sin is still active within him. His essential disposition has |
not been changed.
True contrition does not necessarily mean that a definite sin
has been conquered. The confession implies that the sin is
acknowledged and that a decision to conquer it has been made.
The blessing that follows the correct usage of the confessional
does not consist in the ability to begin writing on a new page
on which there are no blots to irritate one. The blots remain.
Nevertheless the act of true confession should bring power to
conquer the destructive impulse that has wrought evil in the
life of the penitent. It should have the effect of enabling him to
meet temptation in a new way because the energy that was
being used destructively has been converted to constructive
uses. It has been made an integral part of the personality of the
penitent. ‘The person whose duty is to hear confessions should
be vigilantly aware of the risk of substituting a release of feelings
1 Op. cit.
87
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