Spirit of penance enhances objectivity

That famous Chapter 15 of the gospel of St. Luke that talks to us about the three parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the prodigal son, obviously highlights the wonderful mercy of God who takes the initiative to look after us when we, for one reason or another, get lost.

It's very heartwarming to savor those words with which the parables conclude. They speak of exquisite joy. "There shall be joy before the angels of God upon one sinner doing penance." And, "It was fit that we should make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead and is come to life again; he was lost, and is found."

With these words, we have a clear idea of what would make God happy. And that is when we come back to him after straying from him. That is when we say sorry. In short, it's when we develop a true spirit of penance that reconciles us with our Father, God.

This spirit of penance is essentially that abiding awareness that while we try to avoid sin or anything that can offend God and others, we also know that one way or another, sooner or later, we cannot help but fall into some sin, if not big ones, then some small ones.

This is our constant predicament while we are still here on earth. Our human condition is such that we would always be haunted by our own personal weaknesses, and by the many temptations around, not to mention the wiles of evil spirits that roam around the world.

The spirit of penance sharpens our awareness of this fact of life which we tend to take for granted, especially because, already wallowing in the dirty waters of the world, we can reach the point when we can hardly distinguish between what is good and evil. Worse, we can consider what is actually evil as good.

That's why even during these times of tremendous progress in knowledge, science, technology and in practically every field of life, there is also such dramatic and massive darkening of conscience as to approve, legalize and even sanction such inherently sinful things like abortion. To its proponents, abortion is now a human right.

What the true spirit of penance does to correct this dangerous tendency of ours is to relate our knowledge of what is good and evil to God, and not simply to our own experiences, our own feelings, our own estimations and consensus, no matter how backed up by powerful philosophies, ideologies and other technicalities.

It is God, the Creator and our Father, who is the ultimate arbiter to know which is right and wrong, which is good and evil. It's not us. We are not the creator of the universe nor of our own selves.

We can only respect, reflect and follow what God the Creator has designed.

And since God is God, infinitely supernatural and mysterious to us, we have to realize very deeply that this spirit of penance can only take place if it is developed in the context of faith, a gift of his that would enable us to see a more complete picture of reality.

This spirit of penance just cannot be a mere product of our own making, based only on our estimations. It's only when it is developed on the ground of faith that it enables us to see things more objectively, more deeply, more extensively.

To this gift of faith which God gives us in abundance, we have to correspond with humility, that attitude of dependence on God, in sharp contrast to that of self-centeredness and self-absorption.

That's why some saints have described humility not only as our path towards truth, but rather as truth itself, since it would only be with that frame of mind that we can be in the truth. So the spirit of penance can only prosper in us if we have this indispensable humility in our system.

If our spirit of penance develops in this way, we can be truly objective and realistic, knowing the downside and upside of our life. We feel assured that there is always hope.

We also would have a keen awareness of what we need to do with respect to our wounded human condition. We can strengthen our defenses against our weaknesses, temptations and sin. We can have the sensitivity to promptly ask for forgiveness if we sin. We can always feel the need to purify ourselves, to atone and to make up for our sin and the sins of the others, etc. [email protected]