What's the Most difficult penance you have been given

  • Thread starter Thread starter Herculees
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
H

Herculees

Guest
When I recently went to confession, as a penance I was given was to make everything I do a prayer!!! A couple of weeks later I went to another church, and asked the priest to dispense me from the penance since I was taught your sins aren’t forgiven unless penance done, and the so called penance had no time frame and therefore no way of knowing if my sins were forgiven. Fortunately the priest did excuse me from this penance.
 
Last edited:
Your forgiveness does not depend on doing penance. You were taught incorrectly. Not doing our penance is a sign of not truly being sorry for our sins though, so it can be questioned whether one was truly repentant or not during confession if they refuse to do penance. And repentence is necessary to be forgiven. But this does not sound like your situation.

I’m glad another priest excused you.
 
Last edited:
When you go before God with the most hideous of sins…and you feel you should be punished.

And Father gives you nothing at all that you feel makes up the debt. Instead telling you that’s how God is, and ordering you to stop carrying the guilt.

That’s hard.
 
Herculees said:
I was taught your sins aren’t forgiven unless penance done
Click to expand...
You were taught incorrectly. Your absolution doesn’t “kick in” only when you’ve completed your penance.

(Perhaps you were taught that if you blithely ignore your penance, then perhaps it means you really weren’t penitent and therefore, there’s no valid absolution?)
 
Indeed. When we think that a penance is to light or easy on us, that stands as evidence of the Lord’s infinite mercy.
 
Well, right now I think it’s not being able to go to Mass until April…
 
Yeah - this is a tough penance.

As folks are saying - this is a very Lenty Lent.
 
He gave you no time frame or any way to complete it with certainty? That does seem onerous and even dangerous for some who may have a tendency to scrupulosity. You were blessed to know the right thing to do and ask for another confessor to excuse you. Did you bring this concern up with the priest who assigned that penance?

The most difficult penance I’ve had to do was with a confessor who would tell me to do a corporal work of mercy for someone; but it wasn’t really that difficult.
 
Last edited:
I find the most difficult penances to be those that are vague and general. This is why when that occurs, I usually ask for a more specific penance.
 
Last edited:
A book, for sure. Make it a trilogy: A Lenty Lent, An Eastery Easter and the Pentacostaly Pentacost. 😉
 
I’ll tell you what, if you actually write those books, I will buy the whole trilogy
 
It’s already been published and I didn’t write it. I’m pretty sure you already have it - - it’s the Holy Bible!
 
But I’m Catholic, according to stereotypes, I don’t read the Bible.(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
 
To write a letter to my ex-husband, wishing him and his new wife every happiness.

While I can never get married because I’m still married to him according to the church.

Arg, so I am to be so very happy for them because that would be charitable.

Ouch, that’s a hard one.
 
The most difficult penance for me (still working on this) is to love myself.

I was abused as a child. Then, I was diagnosed with a psychotic disorder because of this trauma. When I heard the news speaking constantly about “psychotic people being dangerous”, I thought to myself, “I’m not a citizen of this country, nor a human, nor a living being…I’m just breathing because I have to.”

Even now, my Catholic faith is my only source of comfort knowing that at least God loves me. If no one on this Earth loves me because I suffer from physical and mental disabilities, only God does. That is not a changing fact- God will always love me, in the good times and in the bad.

In confession, Father told me two things: 1. I should not hate myself because I’m made in God’s image, and 2. Anger is not a sin and often it’s a human emotion (he’s talking about how angry I am about my physical disability, not about anyone else). And then he gave me penance.

Father’s right. I’m made in God image. But when I was told as a child that I am ugly and disgusting, I can’t help but think otherwise. I’m still working on it. It gives me much comfort knowing that God loves me, and He always will love me.

St. Cecilia and Bl. Margaret of Castello, pray for us.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top