Lenten Reflections 1

Penance and Reparation: A Lenten Meditation
Introduction
It is lent. Lent is a period of penance and reparation, made visible in deeper prayer, more sacrifices, and a sense of responsibility shown in alms giving. Lent is also a period of many other forms of mortifications which are our own way of getting into terms with the fact of our faith.
In order to better understand the meaning of penance and reparation, let us have a look at what happens whenever we sin. Several things happen but I will focus on two:
• First: we bring upon ourselves guilt before God for the self-will that caused us to sin. We become more or less at odds or estranged from God, depending on the magnitude of our sin.
• Second: We deserve punishment for the disorder we cause by our sinful conduct. We become liable to suffering pain, again more or less pain, depending on how seriously we have done wrong.
What is the meaning of Penance? What do we mean by the term reparation?
• Penance is the atonement we must make to remove the guilt, or to reinstate ourselves in God's friendship.
• Reparation is the pain, the sorrow we must endure to make up for the harm we brought about by our self-indulgence when we sinned.
Penance and reparation have this in common, that they are absolutely necessary if the justice of God is to be satisfied after we have offended the divine Majesty. They also have something else in common, that God now has a right to demand more of us than He would have required had we not committed sin. The word more is basic to any correct understanding of penance and reparation.
But if penance and reparation have this in common, how do they differ? They differ, as we have seen, in the two different ways that we do wrong whenever we sin. Because we have failed in loving God, we now owe Him more love than He would have required had we not offended Him.
We did wrong by our willful love of self. So now we have to make up by our selfless love of God. This is Penance. And because we have brought disorder into the world by our sins, we must undergo pain to undo this harm we have caused. This is reparation.
Is Penance and Reparation necessary?
If we ask, why penance and reparation, the first answer is: Because God wants it.
But if we add the question: Why does God want it? Then we must say, because in His mysterious wisdom, His justice requires it. We may legitimately say, without really understanding it, that He has no choice. Having given us a free will, if we abuse liberty, we must use our freedom to repay to God the love we have stolen from Him (which is penance) and repair the damage we have done (which is reparation).
Notice, all along I have been using the first person plural, "we", because penance and reparation are owed to God not only because I have individually sinned, but because we human beings have sinned and are sinning, in our day, on a scale never before conceived in the annals of history.
We know better than Cain after he killed his brother, Abel. We are our brother's keepers. We are mysteriously co-responsible for what other people do wrong. There is a profound sense in which all of us are somehow to do penance and make reparation, not only for our sinful misdeeds, but for the sins of our country and, indeed, for the sins of the whole human race.
We return to our question: Why penance and reparation? Because, in Christ's words, "Unless you do penance, you shall all likewise perish".
Is it any wonder that on Pentecost Sunday, after Peter preached his sermon, and rebuked the people for their sins, and they asked him, "what must we do," his first word to the multitude was the imperative verb, "Repent!"
Is it any wonder that Our Lady of Fatima's message to a sinful world in our day, may be summarized in the same imperative, "Do penance."
Indeed, the calamities that we have so far seen in this present century: two world wars with more casualties than in all the previous wars of history, and the threat of a nuclear holocaust that hangs over us like a tornado cloud. All of this is God's warning to do penance and reparation. Why? Because God is not mocked.
You do not offend God with impunity. You do not sin without retribution. You do not ignore the will of the Almighty and expect the Almighty to ignore what you do.
What bears emphasis, however, is that this retribution is either to be paid willingly, with our penance and reparation, or will be paid unwillingly within the divine punishment.
The divine logic is simple, awfully simple, and all we have to do is learn what God is telling us. Either we do penance and reparation because we want to, or we shall suffer (against our will) the consequences of our sins in this life, and in the life to come.
But remember, this penance and reparation is to be done not only for what we have personally done wrong. It is for all the pride and lust, for all the cruelty and greed, for all the envy and laziness and gluttony of a sin-laden human family.
God is merciful and in fact as our Holy Father has told us, Jesus Christ is the Incarnation of divine mercy. But God's mercy is conditional. It is conditional on our practice of penance and reparation.
Conclusion
Having seen what penance and reparation is, we have proceeded to reflect on their differences.
Our reflection ends here for today. We shall then look at how to practice penance and reparation.