Old-timey penance

[rasbat]

There is something which has been on my mind but I am not sure it will go over too well, and I might get upset responses. I have been a history student for too many years specializing in the middle ages. One thing I have noticed is the intensity of the penances prescribed by priests and performed by everyone laity, religious, clergy everyone. for example fasting on bread and water for an entire month for the offense of getting drunk once. Theft or something mid range I have seen with a penance of “recitation of three complete psalters with 150 palm thumpings” which is in reference to smashing one’s hands down on the hard floor painfully after every psalm until they are bruised. anyway these are just a couple of actual examples from texts. but I have come across hundreds even thousands of penances like this, and not just in wild ascetic literature but in normal everyday manuals for confessors and pastoral works etc. Every single sin was seen as a grave and heinous offense. They were absolved and forgiven etc just as now but heavy extreme acts of reparation were called for. the question is this: why are penances now so light in comparison? and if sin is always sin and equally offensive regardless of time period or culture are we doing enough these days? in other words why do we seem to get off the hook scott free because we happened to be born in the 20th or 21st century? are things going to be equalized when we get to judgement and spend millenia in purgatory while our forebears were ushered straight into paradise? I do not mean to question priests and confessors and I am not saying anything bad about them I just want to know what if anything others think about this.

 

[Ed_Silvia]

Very good questions.

I really think the devotion of Divine Mercy Sunday (the first Sunday after Easter) & the Divine Mercy Image is a kind of answer:
Jesus said, “Whoever approaches the Fountain of Life on this day will be granted complete forgiveness of sins and punishment.”

After all this is the time God will demonstrate His greatness attribute, MERCY.

 

[TimothyH]

The Church gets to determine what constitutes enough or appropriate penance. I listen to the Church. What I think about anyone else’s penance besides my own is not relevant.

I live in the middle ages. I choose to live in the present, not in the past.

Anyone who wants to smash their thumb with a hammer or get scurvy because they ate bread for a month and didn’t have any vitamin C is welcome to do so. Everyone is free to ask their confessor for a harsher penance. No one is stopping you.

What’s better, getting a light penance and completing it or getting a harsh penance and giving up before you are able to satisfy the requirement? I see Christ’s mercy in the former. St. Thomas teaches that mercy contains all justice and is the fulfillment of all justice.

-Tim-

 

[porthos11]

The penances are lighter because we are weaker. And no, the converse is not true (we are weaker because the penances are lighter).

 

[Bonnie]

What’s better, getting a light penance and completing it or getting a harsh penance and giving up before you are able to satisfy the requirement? I see Christ’s mercy in the former. St. Thomas teaches that mercy contains all justice and is the fulfillment of all justice.

-Tim-

I like that. I do think that we may have a better idea of God’s mercy as opposed to His punishment. I used to know a wonderful priest (RIP Fr. Van!) who would give me the penance of praying for someone in a similar situation. He never gave me a name that I would know, but it still made the penance very personal.

 

[JRS_88]

If the confession lines are short now, imagine what they would be if intense
penances were instituted? Reconciliation is already (in my opinion) an under utilized sacrament. It would scare people off.

Just my :twocents:

 

[Edmundus1581]

Can you clarify the time periods here, when you contrast the “middle ages” with what we do now?

What is the “middle ages” to you? 400AD? 900AD? 1500AD?

And when did it change? 1970? 1900? 1600? 1200?

Your anecdotes are no more than anecdotes without more information.

 

[boomerang]

…why are penances now so light in comparison? …why do we seem to get off the hook scott free because we happened to be born in the 20th or 21st century? are things going to be equalized when we get to judgement and spend millenia in purgatory while our forebears were ushered straight into paradise? I do not mean to question priests and confessors and I am not saying anything bad about them I just want to know what if anything others think about this.

My humble opinion: people back then were fanatics, what atheists would term today, “religious nutcases”. Christianity back then is where radical Islam is today. We’ve learned that we don’t have to be total fanatics in everything. It just turns people off and denies God’s mercy.

You’re right about the middle ages and earlier offering extreme penances. Penitents would go 10+ years without communion, sometimes a lifetime without communion as penance for their sins. I remember reading about one guy that had to go without meat or wine for the rest of his life, had walk to church every Sunday barefoot from all the way outside of town while being followed by a man who would beat him with a switch the whole way, and had to present a letter once a month to the bishop declaring himself a miserable sinner.

Personally, I think our modern day penances are too light.

 

[Miserissima]

Interesting topic. There were also handbooks with recommended penances.

I recall learning that in the early church, sin was a public affair since it damaged the body of Christ (wither by the sin itself or the scandal thereof), so penance was made public. I’m not sure when or why that changed, either.

 

[TimothyH]

I live in the middle ages.

Although it sometimes seems that way, I hereby retract this statement.

-Tim-

 

[svid2]

Pax Christi!

Great thread to follow.

The Middle Ages are dear to me, as well. Art and architecture were actually beautiful, Mass attendance was high, and stories about saints were grander.

It’s been downhill since 1200, the high noon of western Christianity.

Now, penances are pittances.

When you go to confession, do more than you’re told.

Pray. Fast. Repent. Please.

God bless.

 

[Tarpeian_Rock]

Pax Christi!

Great thread to follow.

The Middle Ages are dear to me, as well. Art and architecture were actually beautiful, Mass attendance was high, and stories about saints were grander.

It’s been downhill since 1200, the high noon of western Christianity.

Now, penances are pittances.

When you go to confession, do more than you’re told.

Pray. Fast. Repent. Please.

God bless.

Since the “high noon of Western Christianity” seems to have included Church-sanctioned slavery, serfdom, judicial torture, superstition masquerading as faith, and the slaughter of those with religious differences,I’d say we were fortunate not to be living then.

 

[rasbat]

Pax Christi!

Great thread to follow.

The Middle Ages are dear to me, as well. Art and architecture were actually beautiful, Mass attendance was high, and stories about saints were grander.

It’s been downhill since 1200, the high noon of western Christianity.

Now, penances are pittances.

When you go to confession, do more than you’re told.

Pray. Fast. Repent. Please.

God bless.

thanks for this. I wrote a huge response to others with citations and clarification of “middle ages” an in depth discussion of periodization in history as a modern construct, the superiority of medieval culture over modern etc etc etc. ad nauseum but decided it was unfit for public consumption and generally not very nice. I need a chill pill. I will leave this thread at that.

 

[Jennifoo]

I don’t feel that harsher penance are always better. Some of what you describe is rather extreme and dangerous. I’m blessed to live in a very faithful diocese with excellent priests. My p enances have been varied and challenging. I’ve been assigned one or more decades of the Rosary, reading the Mass parts and readings, three days of self denial (I got to choose what to give up.). Recently I went on a pilgrimage. On the way back my pastor had to help me out of a jam. As a penance he assigned me 80 Hail Mary’s. I absolutely loved him for that.

 

[porthos11]

Since the “high noon of Western Christianity” seems to have included Church-sanctioned slavery, serfdom, judicial torture, superstition masquerading as faith, and the slaughter of those with religious differences,I’d say we were fortunate not to be living then.

They also didn’t have flushing toilets. I’ll take this era, if people don’t mind.

 

[TimothyH]

Pax Christi!

Great thread to follow.

The Middle Ages are dear to me, as well. Art and architecture were actually beautiful, Mass attendance was high, and stories about saints were grander.

*It’s been downhill since 1200, the high noon of western Christianity.
*
Now, penances are pittances.

When you go to confession, do more than you’re told.

Pray. Fast. Repent. Please.

God bless.

Cistercians, Dominicans, Franciscans and Jesuits would disagree.

-Tim-

 

[rasbat]

Well. I actually decided to reply and clarify a few things now. First of all there was the question of what exactly constitutes the middle ages in my mind. This is a complicated question. The periodization we use is only a construct for our convenience. I am considering a huge period of time to be the middle ages roughly the early fifth century through the mid sixteenth. The tendancy these days is to understand cultural time according to a model of both continuity and change. What I mean by this is that there were certainly elements of classical civilization present in the culture of the time kiddie text books refer to as the middle ages the typical 500-1500 bookends. Likewise there were “medieval” elements in the culture in some places up until around the mid nineteenth century. However these things are neither here nor there the two examples I posted here which were called mere “anecdotes” came from a penitential document or confessors manual. This particular document has been possibly erroneously ascribed to Bede and is probably from within a couple of centuries after him unless it is actually genuine. These however were only two examples. the fact remains that from late antiquity through early modernity this strongly penitential character is an overarching theme of many religious writings. So when I say medieval I really mean the whole general epoch not just a particular century or place. I would say it is a common theme of the early, central or high, and late middle ages. I can reccomend “medieval handbooks of penance” by Mcniel and Gamer as introductory reading on the subject. It is a collection of parts of pennitential documents translated into english. These texts are only the tip of a massive iceberg. More evidence is found in saints lives from these centuries or rather entire millenium of history, but the modern critical mind recoils in horror and tries to claim them as false or even ludicrous which is where this thread would go if I attempted to use them. Monastic and assorted ascetic literature is even more filled with heavy penances. I could cite endless examples from a decade of reading things like this for my studies. Just look at the rule of columbanus when compared side by side with that of st. Benedict for example. Mystical writings contain many long laments over sin and descriptions of heavy penances. The two penances by the way I have shared are childs play compared to some of the things I have come across as far as brutality. what about a “cross vigil” in which one stands with their arms outstreached as on the cross holding them in that position all night from dusk till dawn with no sleep or relief to the arms. Or hundreds of lashings with a scourge with metal filings in it? or what about the things described in the exemplar of Blessed Henry suso in which he made a suit and mittens filled with nails, wore a cross the size of his back under his clothing and once whipped himself until he broke a blood bessel in a limb and nearly bled out. The point is that I am hardly advocating these kinds of things as something realistic to give to everyday people in the confessional. it was only a question about the overpowering sense of gravity of sin that people in the distant past posessed.
Another poster described the people of the middle ages as fanatics. I do not think this is the case. It seems that they just actually acted in accordance with what they believed which has become more rare these days. This is an assumption that people make about the past all the time. They see something which they do not understand and are quick to label it as crazy. They do not take into account the fact that these people were operating from a mindset and group of perceptions very alien to modernity. In other words Z makes sense if you believe X and Y are the case. People see Z with no understanding of the others and jump to conclusions.

 

[rasbat]

As far as 1200 being the high noon of western Christendom I agree with the sentiment, but not necessarily the date. There were many developments in medieval religious life especially in the great orders as another poster pointed out. The middle ages had some very nasty things going on and I do not idealize everything about them. It would be tough to do that. Even in the church there were terrible problems. But I do think of the high and late middle ages as a kind of golden age as far as religious culture. Scholasticism came into full flourish, a great mystical tradition did as well. Larger than life saints abounded, Doctrine was clarified. Christendom still existed as a cultural unit in which church and state sought to create a symphony. Someone would not ask about the religion of another as it was assumed that everyone was a Christian as a birthright simply because they lived in latin Christendom is what I mean by this. Modernity seems to have fallen away from this grandeur layer by layer at a steady pace since the reformation, the fall of monarchies, the scientific revolution, the enlightenment, the rise of calssical liberalism killing the old regimes. Most of all a paradigm shift has occurred in which a universe once understood as beutifully ordered by our creator has been supplanted by one of chaos and uncertainty in the realm of intellectual life. The industrial revolution, the cultural revolution of the 1960s globalization and relativism in our culture put the final nails in the coffin.
My overall point in this huge rant is that sometimes there is great value in making the effort to just for a moment strip off the layers of modernity from one’s mind and attempt to see what others before us saw when they looked toward God. I suppose I am a bit of a weirdo, and my opinions about these things are met with disgust and irritation and I have noticed a strange kind of fear as well. This fear seems to revolve around some sense that my saying thse things might “undo” a sense of “progress” going on. or that they might look back and see things making them feel like a horrible person by comparison. but there are neither of these things to fear when looking back. there are great riches in the past. I wish I could articulate my thoughts better. They always sound so much better upstairs. sorry if you have red this only to find I have wasted your time.

 

[Edmundus1581]

Thanks rasbat for the extra information. It does help a lot, and fills in my knowledge of the Church in the middle ages.

I hope to revisit and reply at more length. You answered my question very well, and deserve a good reading and response.

 

[Mintaka]

Penitential manuals were not designed to be harsh. They were designed to be easier on people than the earliest Christians saying, “Do penance for every sin for the rest of your life, because you shouldn’t be sinning seriously after Baptism.” (Or people putting incredibly harsh penances on themselves, which was a big problem with the Irish loving their asceticism.) Many penitentials were designed for religious, whether choir or lay brothers or sisters, and not for ordinary laypeople not living in an abbey.

They were also guidelines, not laws, if I recall correctly. Confessors could soften them; pilgrimages and other activities could be substituted for all or part of them. People doing hard manual labor like farming were not usually restricted to bread and water, because you don’t want Farmer Brown fainting in the middle of the field.

Penances are easier now, because it’s more a concern that penitents not lose heart. They also adjust to conditions of life - it’s not harsh to put someone on bread and water if he doesn’t usually eat much more than bread and water and wine, plus meat for Sunday dinner.

There’s probably something to be done by juxtaposing Irish penitential manuals with Irish brehon lawbooks. Penitentials seem to me to be proposing non-judicial punishments that actually affect the lawbreaker longer, and mold his behavior for the better, whereas the normal law covered everything including murder with a fine of money. Caste status mattered under the law, whereas the penitentials I’ve seen, well, they didn’t care if you were a noble with 40 cows or a guy with a farm.