Penance as a Virtue

Penance as a sacrament is an outward signinstituted by Christ to take away sins and give grace. Penance as a virtue is a lasting disposition of soul (that is, a spiritual habit) to grieve for past sins, to make satisfaction for them, and to avoid committing them anew. An act of penance is any work or action, internal or external, by which the virtue of penance is exercised.{-The word penance is constantly used by Catholics in one of four meanings: penance means a sacrament; it means a virtue; it means the work of satisfaction for sins, imposed on the penitent by the confessor; it means any penitential prayer or work piously undertaken, i.e., an act of penance.-}

Habits are specified by their acts. If there is a special reason requiring an act which normally comes from habit,the special habit for it exists. Hence, penance is a special virtue, not merely a general virtue.

Penance as a special virtue is a species of justice. Justice seeks to restore and maintain balance and order. The virtue of penance seeks to restore balance and order by removing the disorder of sins and putting the soul right with God by grace.

The subject of a habit, and hence the subject of a virtue, is that power or faculty in which the habit resides or is properly said to be situated. Now, the virtue of penance is a habit which consists in the steady will to repent and make amends. Therefore, the will is the subject of the virtue of penance.

Penance as a supernatural virtue is infused into the soul by almighty God; the soul, by God’s grace, cooperates by acts which dispose it to receive this virtue. The soul is first stirred by a servile fear of punishment due to its sins;from this, the soul advances to a loving filial fear of God; thus it is rendered fit and ready to receive from God the supernatural virtue of penance.

Penance is not the first of virtues in the order of the nature of virtue. Faith, hope, and charity, come before it. But inthe order of time, penance may be regarded as the first virtue, inthe sense that sinful man must first turn to God, and he does thisby the virtue of penance.