FRANCIS AND PENANCE
Unlike
Christ who was without sin, we who are sinners must undergo continual
conversion, what Francis called a "life of penance." In the beginning
of his conversion, he realized his need to overcome his repugnance to lepers in
order to follow Christ completely, without reserve. He attributed the grace to
love lepers, to help them even to bathe them, to the Lord "who led him
among them". And what seemed so bitter before, now that he was
"free", was turned into sweetness of soul and body.
Here we
have a good example of how each one of us must approach penance, with our own
particular needs, weaknesses, and sinfulness. Penance, the cross, is for all,
but the manner of penance, the form which the cross takes, is not the same for
all. It is very much individual. We are each called to move along a particular
way of penance. Our identification is with Christ, not with this or that act of
penance, or mortification, or self-denial, or particular discipline.
So we need
not "force" ourselves to practise a particular type of mortification,
unless it is imposed on us by the Church or obedience or necessity. The Church
has mitigated the severity of external mortifications in our days, to leave
scope for individual needs and attractions of grace. We may admire the
austerity of St. Francis who drank hardly enough water to quench his thirst,
but we may not be called to imitate him in this particular act of penance. In
all humility, we must adopt another form of discipline to help overcome our
sensuality.
Our
mortifications must give expression to our inner turning to God in love. The
pruning of the vine is only a means to produce greater fruit: penance is a help
to true fulfilment. The emphasis is always on turning completely to the Father,
total self-surrender to the Father's love and will for us. We may have little
understanding of what "total self-surrender to God" means for us in
all the details of our life, but we are approaching penance from the proper
perspective. By concentrating on the outward manifestation of penance, we are
in danger of forgetting what penance is all about. The goal of penance is God,
not mortifications. The approach has to be by way of love; it must have its
roots in charity, not austerity. Austerity may be a by-product but it is not
the essential fruit. The infallible signs of penance are humility and charity.
A
"false" saint can give a good account of himself in the matter of
austerity, but no false saint can keep up humility and charity for long. Total
surrender to God means that we do not tell him what kind of
"penances" he should like to have from us: rather that we do and
accept the style of penance that he indicates to us in prayer, in obedience,
through circumstances and through others. We must listen to the Lord, rather
than tell him what he wants or should want from us.
Prayer and
penance are aspects of the same thing: prayer informs penance, and penance
expresses prayer. It is like inhaling and exhaling. Neither is complete without
the other. So in our life of penance there is the mystical receiving from God
and the ascetical giving. To keep alive spiritually, we need both. In prayer we
have the light to know what to do and how to do it. We realize more and more
that the only approach to true penance is that of complete surrender to the
will of God.
Francis
expressed it simply when he said: "We should wish for nothing else and
have no other desire: we should find no pleasure or delight in anything except
in our Creator, Redeemer, and Saviour...Nothing must keep us back, nothing
separate us from him, nothing come between us and him". And the way to
this goal is penance, renouncing selfishness and self seeking and surrendering
totally to God.
The more
deeply we experience the love of God in Christ, and the more completely we let
the saving grace of God flood our soul and work within us, the less we impede
that action of God by our selfishness, our pride, our sensuality. God alone
becomes the centre of our lives and our one desire is to please Him. As Francis
says: "Now that we have left the world, we should have nothing else to do,
save to be solicitous to follow the will of the Lord and to please Him."
The more
closely we reflect the life of Jesus and the mind of Jesus, the more true our
penance. If I train myself to "walk in Christ", I am living a life of
penance. In all that I do, I must keep Christ before me as a practical living
model. The words and actions of Francis will help me in doing this. He says:
"In the love which is God , I entrust all my (followers) to put away every
attachment, all care and solicitude, and serve, love, honour, and adore our
Lord and God with a pure heart and mind; this is what he seeks above all
else". This is our "life of penance".
National
Spiritual Assistant SFO – Oceania