What's the Most difficult penance you have been given

[Redd_Jackal]

It was suggested that I write a journal, but was also given several prayers as penance.

 

[ioannes_pius]

I’ve never really been given any absurdly difficult penances.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

As I mentioned in passing in another post a few days ago, I don’t discuss these aspects of my spiritual life, so I won’t share what my most difficult penance has been. If a penance is “totally over the top” — and it does happen — you are entirely within your rights to have the penance commuted by another priest. I may get cauterized for saying this, but priests in the confessional are not infallible, they can make mistakes. I was once told something in the confessional — a horrible comment that a priest made (nothing sexual, don’t worry) — that many people would have left the church over. The priest didn’t know me, and unless he had the gift of reading hearts, he took a huge chance making such a remark. (No, I won’t share it.)

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.

I don’t wish adulterers “every happiness”, neither am I “happy for them”. Not without the annulment.

If I have a gun to my head — as happens (figuratively, not literally) in secular workplaces where two people enter into an invalid marriage (or, I guess these days, even a gay one) — I will find some way to circumlocute, “I hope it all goes well for you”, or something to that effect. But if I am totally free to do what I wish, I don’t say bupkis. I save my well wishes for those who have not chosen a mortally sinful, invalid union.