Ok so I have been Catholic for about 5 years. I consider myself devout and more or less traditionalist. This is a true story about two confessions and their penances and I would like anyone’s opinion. The first confession that I speak of was about a year ago. I made my confession and felt like there was one sin that was borderline mortal but not really. My penance (which I did) was to pray the Liturgy of the Hours for a month! Then this week I went to confession knowing I had at least one mortal sin and potentially two. The penance I was given was that the next time I receive Holy Communion to contemplate Pope Francis words that “the Eucharist is not a prize for the perfect, but a medecine for the sick.” A fine statement that I agree with, but that was the extent of the penance. I would like to hear the thoughts of those of you who have been Catholic longer than I have. Thanks and God bless.
Some priests are often stricter than others.
As I say, I once had a priest here in Mexico tell me to walk on my knees across the entrance of a church. A friend of mine got, I believe, 7 churches. I was bleeding at the end. That´s hands down the most difficult penance I´ve ever had. Actually, that penance wasn´t even for my gravest sins!
Next closest was to pray just one rosary.
I´ve had much worse sins, had lighter penances, ironically. My worst sins often carried the lightest penances, as I say. I think the priests in those cases wanted to encourage me to come to reconciliation and didn’t want to be hard on me. I think they realized that I could have just stayed away, chose to be lenient.
It’s hard to know. They may each have their own individual way of doing penances. In fact, they probably do. I have no idea how they decide that.
I’ve had priests say to pray for a person as my penance…to offer up a mass, certain prayers. One penance was just to tell my father I loved him!
Some priests have wondered if there should be some kind of guideline for penances, but it would be too hard to implement. There are too many variables which either make the sin more of our responsibility or less.
It´s complicated. Priests have a tough job. Someone has to give out penances, and I’m really glad it’s
NOT me!
I’ve even had some priests who don’t give any penance!
I had one priest who knew I was already, (at the time), going to daily mass, liturgy of the hours, etc. So, he gave as my penance to keep doing what I was doing. He didn´t actually tell me to do anything at all in addition, felt it was enough.
So, I’ve had a huge range, myself, but that’s just how it is.
A priest might be in one mood at the time, even. That’s life.
