Does penance have any place in Protestantism?

[HomeschoolDad]

Would a Protestant ever feel any need to do penance for their sins?

If I am understanding the classical Protestant position, Jesus took care of all sin, and all punishment for sin, past, present, and future, by His passion and death on the cross. Absolutely nothing is required from the sinner other than to accept Jesus as his Lord and personal Saviour, which immediately wipes out all punishment and all guilt, both eternal and temporal, for the remainder of the sinner’s life. The sinner need do no penance, no works of mortification, nothing — in fact, it would be useless, because nothing the sinner could ever do, would make any difference, and the only thing that, for instance, fasting or other mortification can do, is possibly make you a stronger and better Christian.

Am I understanding their position correctly? And if so, what then of Colossians 1:24, “who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for his body, which is the church” (DRV)? How can anything be “wanting of the sufferings of Christ” if He indeed “did it all”?

On a more homely note, I have observed in my past working life, how Protestants were able to eat abundantly on Good Friday, and joyfully to partake of meat with great gusto, without the slightest pang of “this isn’t quite right”. To them, it seems to be just another “TGIF”.

 

[Alligator]

I mean, I’m currently struggling with this at the moment. I am converting to Catholicism and I am in RCIA. I was baptized Baptist but I never went to church or did anything for the church and I didn’t do anything religious other than pray before eating and sometimes a quick prayer before bed. It was some pretty lousy praying at that. At the same time, I thought that there was nothing for me to do or that I could do. So it didn’t matter.

I’ll be honest, I am still not 100% on the whole penance and mortification thing. I don’t know any practicing Catholics. I didn’t grow up with any penance or contrition. So even though I went to confession, I am a ball of anxiety (did I intentionally withhold sins?!). I don’t know what rag I can use to clean away my sins and make reparation. Having any eternal responsibility on my plate has caused me to turn back to alcohol (and sin some more) and just be in utter despair. I’m such a ball of nerves in confession that I go blank and can hardly remember the experience. I went this morning at 5:45, blanked, got chastised, and ducked out in shame. So at least from my Protestantism, I didn’t know of any penance. It’s really rocking my world.

 

[ltwin]

Would a Protestant ever feel any need to do penance for their sins?

They would feel the need to repent of sin. “Penance” would have connotations of doing something to get something. Forgiveness is a free gift, and there is no penance necessary to be forgiven.

If I am understanding the classical Protestant position, Jesus took care of all sin, and all punishment for sin, past, present, and future, by His passion and death on the cross. Absolutely nothing is required from the sinner other than to accept Jesus as his Lord and personal Saviour, which immediately wipes out all punishment and all guilt, both eternal and temporal, for the remainder of the sinner’s life. The sinner need do no penance, no works of mortification, nothing — in fact, it would be useless, because nothing the sinner could ever do, would make any difference, and the only thing that, for instance, fasting or other mortification can do, is possibly make you a stronger and better Christian.

That is the “Once Saved, Always Saved” position. It’s not the “classical Protestant” position. The classical Protestant position is that when we sin, we should confess our sin to God and repent (turn away) from it. If we continually live in sin, then that indicates a lack of faith and obedience.

Whether someone can lose their salvation depends on whether the Protestant in question is a Calvinist or an Arminian. Calvinists say you can’t lose your salvation; however, a classical Calvinist would still say you need to be concerned about sin because Sanctification (becoming holy) is part of being a Christian. If there is no growth toward greater and greater holiness of life, then that indicates that perhaps the individual is not truly regenerated.

Arminians would say you can forfeit your salvation through lack of faith and progressive disobedience.

Anyway you look at it, the classical Protestant position is that one should be concerned about sin and use all the means of grace and spiritual disciplines to resist it.

On a more homely note, I have observed in my past working life, how Protestants were able to eat abundantly on Good Friday, and joyfully to partake of meat with great gusto, without the slightest pang of “this isn’t quite right”. To them, it seems to be just another “TGIF”.

There is no commandment about how to act on Good Friday, which is man-made tradition. People outside of that tradition have never been made to feel guilty about eating meat, so they don’t feel guilty.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I’m such a ball of nerves in confession that I go blank and can hardly remember the experience. I went this morning at 5:45, blanked, got chastised, and ducked out in shame.

Do you explain this to the priest? Do you tell him you are a former Protestant who is still getting used to confession? You need to let him know these things so he can help you and not chastise you.

Have you considered making an appointment to confess to a priest who doesn’t seem chastise-y so you can have a longer discussion than the sort of thing that usually takes place at 5:45 am when people are half awake (possibly including the priest) and rushing to get to work? (I have done the super early morning confession thing, I know what goes on at that hour.)

As someone who had extreme anxiety about going to confession for decades and sometimes still has a little breakdown in there if I go when I’m too tired or upset, it’s important that you work through this and don’t let it become a big block in your road.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

On a more homely note, I have observed in my past working life, how Protestants were able to eat abundantly on Good Friday, and joyfully to partake of meat with great gusto, without the slightest pang of “this isn’t quite right”. To them, it seems to be just another “TGIF”.

This is a huge overgeneralization. There are probably some Protestants who do what you say, and other Protestants who spend half their Good Friday at church singing “Were You There?” and similar sad worship songs, and re-enacting Christ’s Passion.

Also, a goodly number of Protestants fast, following the Biblical tradition of fasting. They might not be doing it on Good Friday and they don’t have a tradition of abstaining from meat on Friday (which in the West is a Catholic tradition), but when they do fast they do a much more extreme one than Catholics usually do. They’re more likely to be doing it as a personal holiness quest or to get more in touch with what God is saying to them, than for penance.

 

[Alligator]

So my regular priest (first two confessions) and all of the other priests around have been gone on retreat for the week. During the time they were gone, I slipped up. I found the earliest possible confession I could which was in town and very early in the morning. I got there and waited in line. There was a little booth, like a phone booth (never seen that, I just do it face to face in a room). At first, I went into the booth and started, but the priest said he was with someone else that was apparently in another side of the booth (I had no idea how the booth worked, there were two sides so I figured there were two priests, I didn’t know).

Anyway, I went back out of the curtain to wait and a helper knocked on the door and told the priest it was time for Mass. He finished up the confession he was hearing and stepped out. He saw me and asked if I was waiting for confession and I said yes. He told me to scurry on in there and that Mass could wait a minute. I did the sign of the cross, etc. I had made a list, but low and behold I couldn’t find it. I just had it but it had disappeared into thin air. I rattled off the things that were really bothering me and I was just blank on the rest. He asked me “Did you examine your conscience?” and I said “yes!” (I had thought about it all day and try to keep track of it) and then I couldn’t think of a thing. He asked me if I had received communion. I told him I have never received communion, which just confused him even more. So he absolved me and I scurried out. As soon as I got to my truck, I started remembering things I meant to say (I would think they are venial, but I like to cover my bases).

Long story short, I believe that next time I will wait to see my regular confessor. I really thought that giving a first confession would create a bulwark around me to go and sin no more. Turns out, I still have work to do! If I had waited, and also not been ashamed to admit to sinning again to my regular confessor, I probably could have avoided this. I just didn’t want to wait, I wanted to run to a confessor.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Hmmm, this doesn’t sound like a bad confession to me. You “rattled off the things that were really bothering you” before you went blank. He absolved you. That’s a good confession.

He probably figured from you saying you never received communion that you were a catechumen or trying to be one. My guess is that if he hadn’t been in a rush to say Mass, he would have asked you a few more questions.

You are not required to mention all your venial sins in confession. Many if not most of us forget a couple venial sins and remember them later. For Catholics, venial sins are forgiven and wiped away in a variety of ways such as by receiving Holy Communion at Mass or crossing ourselves with holy water, so odds are those venial sins are already forgiven before we even get into the confessional.

Also, you may be being a bit unrealistic if you think that just going to a first confession is going to make you “sin no more”. We all have sinful tendencies, and if one confession kept us free from falling back into sin then we wouldn’t have to keep going regularly. Indeed, when you confess it makes the Devil angry and he may just step up the temptation and try twice as hard to knock you off the good track you’re on. When I returned to the Church, I know it took me several months of regular confessions before I was reliably able to avoid mortal sins that I’d been committing on a regular basis for decades.

Just keep plugging away at it. I agree that seeing a regular confessor is probably best for you at this stage, but for being in an unfamliar environment at a way early hour, you didn’t do badly.
Also, those booths in the old churches are confusing sometimes even for Catholics because they have often been retrofitted to allow for either confession in the booth or confession face-to-face and they often don’t work the way they were originally designed (booths usually predate the option of face-to-face confession). So when you encounter a booth confessional, it’s best to watch other people using the booths and then do what they do, because the priest may be sitting in some odd place, or the light that shows the booth is occupied might not be working right, etc.

Many churches nowadays just have a room, like what you’re used to, so you probably won’t see too many booths unless you make a habit of going to old historic churches and cathedrals. Often, even at those places they’ve repurposed the booths. One old church made the booth into a restroom. Another one I saw using the booth as the storage closet for the usher’s collection baskets.

 

[JM3]

“How can anything be ‘wanting of the sufferings of Christ’ if He indeed ‘did it all’?”

A common mistake made by many people, reading Christ and thinking Jesus. If Paul had meant Jesus, he would have said so.
A priest does penance and suffers for his congregation to make up for what they may lack. Just so, we do penance and suffer not for ourselves, that what be prideful, but for what others may lack; and so ‘fill up those things that are wanting’. Not in the head, but in the body.

 

[Lucy_1]

If you’re currently in RCIA should you be going to confession before you’ve come into the Church? That is not my understanding. I think you have a wrong idea about penance. We’re not trying to get forgiveness or clean our sin through penance Jesus did that on the cross already. Also if you’re not sure if you intentionally withheld sins, then you didn’t. Be at peace friend, God loves you and is not lying in wait to punish you on a technicality.

 

[adf417]

They would feel the need to repent of sin. “Penance” would have connotations of doing something to get something. Forgiveness is a free gift, and there is no penance necessary to be forgiven.

Itwin i have always felt you are one of the more informed people on this forum but this statement does nothing for your reputation.

Think about it, forgiveness, in Catholic theology, comes before and therefore not reliant upon penance. However, forgiveness does not wipe away the necessity to show remorse.

Peace!!!

 

[Alligator]

The Priest told me I could go to confession at any time.

Also perhaps we’re talking about two different things. I’ve noticed some people use the word penance to mean showing remorse. I’m talking more about the sacrament of penance (reconciliation/confession).

 

[Tis_Bearself]

You’re best off calling the sacrament “Confession” or “Reconciliation”. No one nowadays calls it the “sacrament of penance” (that’s a very old fashioned wording) and also “penance” usually refers to penitential practices, like fasting, praying, wearing a hair shirt etc, which are not necessarily done in connection with going to Confession.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

On a more homely note, I have observed in my past working life, how Protestants were able to eat abundantly on Good Friday, and joyfully to partake of meat with great gusto, without the slightest pang of “this isn’t quite right”. To them, it seems to be just another “TGIF”.

No doubt. I worked with some extremely obtuse people, not terribly cultured or well-educated in the main, kind of gross and materialistic. I would hate to think they represent a cross-section of Protestantism.

Also, a goodly number of Protestants fast, following the Biblical tradition of fasting. They might not be doing it on Good Friday and they don’t have a tradition of abstaining from meat on Friday (which in the West is a Catholic tradition), but when they do fast they do a much more extreme one than Catholics usually do. They’re more likely to be doing it as a personal holiness quest or to get more in touch with what God is saying to them, than for penance.

I have heard of this — when they fast, they fast. They regard our “fasting” as dieting, not fasting (which it really is, when you think about it). But I have to doubt that they regard it as penitential, because from everything I’ve ever gathered, Protestants and other evangelicals don’t do penance.

You’re best off calling the sacrament “Confession” or “Reconciliation”. No one nowadays calls it the “sacrament of penance” (that’s a very old fashioned wording) and also “penance” usually refers to penitential practices, like fasting, praying, wearing a hair shirt etc, which are not necessarily done in connection with going to Confession.

I still call it “the sacrament of penance”, or simply “confession”, but then again I wear the badge of “old-fashioned” with pride (the good kind) and honor. I dislike the term “reconciliation” — unless I am in mortal sin, I am not outside of the grace of God, and there is also the modern concept of being “reconciled with the community”, which, I just have to say it, sounds vaguely socialistic. There is a kernel of truth to the latter, though — when I sin, I damage the community and its witness value, and so does anyone else when they sin. The sexual abuse scandals of the clergy make it very, very difficult for me to persuade anyone why they should embrace the Catholic Faith and submit themselves to her magisterium. Many people are unable (or unwilling) to separate religious truth from bad adherents of that truth.

In eternity, there will have been no such thing as a “private sin that’s none of anybody else’s business”. That said, there may be nobody on this planet more in need of the traditional penances than me.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

“How can anything be ‘wanting of the sufferings of Christ’ if He indeed ‘did it all’?”

A common mistake made by many people, reading Christ and thinking Jesus. If Paul had meant Jesus, he would have said so.
A priest does penance and suffers for his congregation to make up for what they may lack. Just so, we do penance and suffer not for ourselves, that what be prideful, but for what others may lack; and so ‘fill up those things that are wanting’. Not in the head, but in the body.

Why are you bifurcating Jesus and Christ? Was not Paul referring to Jesus? There is no such thing as a “Christ” who is something other than, and different from, Jesus.

Just as a priest does penance and suffers for what is lacking in others, so Our Lord suffered for us, and took our punishment upon Himself. Yet the way I am reading Paul, he is saying “Christ’s sufferings, while sufficient for our salvation, are not all the suffering that is needed — I need to suffer as well”. In other words, I have to do my part too. I have to cooperate with God’s grace, not just receive it.

I have always thought of the difference between Catholicism and Protestantism something like this:

In Protestantism, you are drowning 100 feet off the coast, and God throws you a life preserver attached to a 110-foot-long rope, to pull you back in. You have everything you need to be saved, in fact, more than enough, and you need not swim at all.

In Catholicism, you are drowning 100 feet off the coast, and God throws you a life preserver, but the rope is only 80 feet long — you have to swim the first 20 feet, and then let God pull you back to safety.

 

[JM3]

“Was not Paul referring to Jesus?”

Then, Paul is saying that the sufferings of Jesus are wanting? Is Paul contradicting himself or he saying something that you’re not seeing?

“the difference between Catholicism and Protestantism”

Wow. My lazy self wants to be protestant.

 

[ltwin]

Itwin i have always felt you are one of the more informed people on this forum but this statement does nothing for your reputation.

I understand that Catholics don’t see it this way. However, this is what Protestants see as the practical outcome of Catholic practice. But you are right, I’m not Catholic, so I am uninformed in the ways that Catholics understand their practices and beliefs. It can be terribly hard to see things from the point of view of other churches and traditions.

Think about it, forgiveness, in Catholic theology, comes before and therefore not reliant upon penance.

So, if you don’t make penance/satisfaction (not quite sure about the terminology here), is the absolution invalidated? Would it be a sin to not try to make penance/satisfaction? Is penance just a suggestion from the priest that you are free to ignore?

However, forgiveness does not wipe away the necessity to show remorse.

OK, but why does a priest need to tell me how to show remorse?

 

[John_Martin]

So, if you don’t make penance/satisfaction (not quite sure about the terminology here), is the absolution invalidated? Would it be a sin to not try to make penance/satisfaction? Is penance just a suggestion from the priest that you are free to ignore?

No, the absolution for the confessed sins is not invalidated, yet you now are refusing to be obedient to your appointed superiors in the faith, which is a mortal sin because it is defiance, or indifference to a call from Jesus, via the Priest, to repair the inequality of justice that your sin enacted. So, turn about and go back to the confessional to confess your stubborn protest.

St. Jerome was not joking, nor the magisterium, when “Repent” was translated “Do Penance” in the Scriptures - Penance is the new life we live as Catholics, and the prescribed Penance by the Priest is a set of defined actions to get us back in the swing of doing Penance in Love rather than doing Sin in self-seeking to satisfy lusts.

They asked John the Baptist, “What shall we do? How shall we live our lives to be suited to this Kingdom established by God?”

John replied, “Whoever has two tunics should share with him who has none, and whoever has food should do the same.”
Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do? [How shall we live our lives from now on?]”
“Collect no more than you are authorized,” he answered.
Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do? [How shall we live our lives from now on?]”
“Do not take money by force or false accusation,” he said. “Be content with your wages.”

Do Penance all day long, starting with the specifics called for by your superior, so that you can become like your teacher.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

So, if you don’t make penance/satisfaction (not quite sure about the terminology here), is the absolution invalidated?

No.

Would it be a sin to not try to make penance/satisfaction?

Depends on why you didn’t do it. If you had some good reason, like you genuinely forgot, or the penance was something you absolutely couldn’t do for some reason, or would be very very difficult for you, then maybe not a sin, but you would be expected to take some reasonable action, like discuss with your confessor, or discuss with a different priest, or if you forgot what penance you were given then just substitute some reasonable other prayer.
If on the other hand you willfully refused to do your penance, then it may be a sin of pride or disobedience.

Is penance just a suggestion from the priest that you are free to ignore?

No, you’re not free to just willfully or recklessly ignore the need to do penance. However, your forgiveness is not dependent on it. The type of penance might be something you can adjust yourself or discuss further with a priest, see above.

OK, but why does a priest need to tell me how to show remorse?

First of all, you’re free to show remorse to God any time without waiting for a priest to invite you to do it. A lot of us do penance frequently and not just after we’ve confessed.

Second, the priest gives people suggestions and guidance because often people are not really able to set a good penance on their own. Some might not have any idea what to do, some might do too little, others might do too much.

 

[Ilkka]

the classical Protestant position is that one should be concerned about sin and use all the means of grace and spiritual disciplines to resist it

I think you just described what Catholics believe.

In the Catholic Church, the seven sacraments are the means of grace and spiritual warfare. While baptism saves, any sin after baptism is dealt with in the sacrament of penance. This is all so that we would have a part in the greatest of all sacraments: the Eucharist which gives eternal life (the bread that comes down from heaven).

The need for penance comes from the fact that to parttake in the Eucharist one has to have a clean conscience. If someone has a sting of conscience and takes part in the Eucharist, instead of eternal life they are receiving damnation. (1st Cor. 11:26-29)

From my ex-protestant view, protestants lack the fullness of spiritual aid due to misunderstanding of the Catholic faith. While a public confession is good and also used in the Catholic church, it is not enough. The fact that I can hear with my own ears an apostolic minister say the words ’your sins are forgiven’ in persona Christi after confessing my specific sins is a great weapon against scrupulosity and the evil one’s lies.

I’m thankful towards God for the sacraments which are given to our aid so we would indeed be strengthened to fight the good fight and be on the right hand Christ when He returns as a judge to judge every man.

 

[BigRon]

Would a Protestant ever feel any need to do penance for their sins?

Not the protestants I’ve ever spoken to, they think Jesus did it all for them on the cross.