Reparation is, in the vocabulary of penance, the third act of the penitent, after contrition and confession. The Catechism describes it succinctly: once “raised up from sin”, the sinner “must still recover full spiritual health”; “he must therefore do something more to make amends for his sins: he must ‘satisfy’ appropriately or ‘make expiation’ for his sins”[1]. But the word goes far beyond the confessional: it also refers to the whole movement by which the soul, united with Christ, consoles the Heart of God and offers for its own faults and for those of the world. Of all spiritual vocabulary, it is perhaps one of the words that most troubles and repels people—because it is so often misunderstood.
For to the modern ear, “to make reparation” sounds like a word of accounting: paying a debt, settling a bill, buying back a favor. Or, worse, like a word of vengeance: punishing oneself, enduring a penalty, appeasing an angry God. One imagines a heavenly creditor demanding his due, a scale where enough suffering must be placed to balance out the evil committed. And so one hesitates between two refusals: “Christ has paid everything, I have nothing to add”, or “I am not a mystic, reparation is not for me”.
“I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” — Hosea 6:6[2]
Yet reparation, in the Catholic tradition, is neither a transaction nor a punishment: it is an act of justice and love—restoring an order broken by sin, and doing so with Christ and in him, never against him nor in his place. This article reviews the most common misunderstandings about reparation, grouped according to whether they concern its nature, its object and purpose, or its practice. For each, it states the error in its usual form, shows why it is appealing, why it is false, and then recalls what the Church truly teaches.
This is neither an anthology nor a practical guide: for the authentic voice of the saints on reparation—the Sacred Heart, the Holy Face, Fatima, the great mystics—see What the saints say about reparation; for the detailed nature of reparation, its concrete means, and its dimension in the Divine Will, see How to grow in reparation. Here, as in the twin articles in the series—Common errors concerning contrition and Common errors concerning penance—the aim is to clear the ground: first to learn to recognize counterfeit coins, in order to better receive the true gold.
Why is reparation so misunderstood?
A word of justice heard as a word of accounting
The first misunderstanding is one of register. “To repair” is first and foremost a word of justice: to set right what has been distorted, to restore an order that sin has twisted. But the modern ear hears it through the filter of commerce: to pay, to settle, to give change. Sin is then imagined as a quantified debt, and reparation as the sum to be paid to settle it—as if God kept a great ledger and granted forgiveness only once the bill was paid.
This image distorts everything. Catholic reparation does not “pay for” forgiveness: forgiveness is free, given in absolution before any satisfaction. The Catechism is clear: “Absolution takes away sin”—and it is “in addition”, once the sin is already forgiven, that “the sinner must still recover full spiritual health”[3]. Reparation does not precede forgiveness as its price; it follows it as its healing. It does not change God’s heart toward us—He has already received us—but it repairs in us, and around us, the disorder that sin has left behind.
A creditor God imagined as needing to be appeased
A second, more serious misunderstanding: behind the word “repair” lurks the image of a creditor or vengeful God who must be appeased, disarmed, compensated. The penalty for sin would be a punishment inflicted from outside, an anger to be extinguished by means of penances. This idea haunts fearful consciences and fuels rejection: who would want a God who keeps accounts of pain?
But the Catechism expressly rejects this image. The penalties of sin, it says, “must not be viewed as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin”[4]. Sin is not an arbitrary fine that God demands out of resentment: it truly wounds the sinner, his relationships, the order of the world, and these wounds remain even when the fault is forgiven. The Council of Trent stated it plainly: the sacrament of penance is not “a tribunal of wrath and punishments—which no Catholic has ever thought”[5]. To repair, then, is not to calm an angry God: it is, under grace, to heal a real wound that the love of God wants to cure.
Errors about the nature of reparation
“To repair is to pay a debt, to buy back God’s forgiveness”
This is the root error: to repair would be to “pay” for one’s sins, as one settles a debt, in order to obtain or deserve forgiveness. Reparation is then confused with a purchase price, and one concludes that God only forgives in proportion to what is paid to Him. The error is seductive because it is intuitive: we live by exchanges, debts, and repayments, and we spontaneously project this logic onto God.
But the order of salvation is exactly the opposite. Forgiveness is never the wage of reparation: it precedes it and makes it possible. In the sacrament, absolution removes sin before penance is accomplished; the satisfaction “that the confessor imposes”[6] is received by someone already forgiven. Above all, no human reparation can, by itself, “buy” anything: “our satisfaction for our sins is only through Jesus Christ”[7]. The sinner does not reimburse God; he receives freely, then, by grace, cooperates in his own healing. To repair is not to buy forgiveness: it is to respond, with hands already full, to a forgiveness already given.
“To repair is to punish oneself, to inflict suffering on oneself”
A painful variant: reparation would essentially be self-punishment, the art of inflicting on oneself penalties proportionate to one’s faults in order to “pay” in suffering. The penitent is imagined as seeking discomfort, multiplying harsh privations, as if the amount of pain measured the quality of reparation. The error is seductive because it appears serious and generous: one who suffers seems to take sin seriously.
But it is not suffering as such that repairs—it is the love offered within it. The Council of Trent teaches a liberating truth: divine generosity is so great that “not only the punishments we voluntarily impose on ourselves… but also… the temporal trials sent by God and borne by us with patience, can satisfy God the Father through Christ Jesus”[8]. In other words, illness accepted, setbacks borne without rebellion, “the patient acceptance of the cross we must bear”[9] repairs as much or more than chosen mortifications. Reparation is not an accounting of self-inflicted pains: it is love that transforms from within all that life already brings. For the opposite danger—fleeing all penance—see Common errors concerning penance.
“Christ has repaired everything: my reparation is useless”
A logical error, often sincere and seemingly pious: since Christ has fully repaired on the Cross, any reparation on my part would be superfluous, even presumptuous—as if I wanted to “add” to a perfect work. This is, in Catholic form, the classic Protestant objection to satisfaction. The error is seductive because it is based on a crucial truth: yes, Christ has accomplished everything.
This must therefore be affirmed without reservation: Christ’s reparation is unique, perfect, superabundant. The Catechism proclaims it—“Christ, who alone expiated our sins once for all”[10]; “Jesus made reparation for our faults and satisfied the Father for our sins”[11]. But it is precisely this fullness that includes ours, rather than excluding it. Every Christian reparation is accomplished “in” him, “through” him, never apart from him: our satisfactions “draw their strength from Him, are offered to the Father through Him, and are accepted by the Father thanks to Him”[12]. Saint Paul even dares a dizzying formula:
“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church.” — Saint Paul, Letter to the Colossians 1:24[13]
Pius XI drew from this verse the key to the whole question: “the superabundant Redemption of Christ has remitted all our faults”, and yet, “by a wonderful disposition of Divine Wisdom, we must complete in our flesh what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for his body, which is the Church”[14]. Nothing “lacks” in the infinite value of the Cross; what is lacking is our free insertion into this work, our offered “yes”. To repair is not to supplement Christ: it is to let him repair in us.
“Reparation is reduced to the little penance of the confessional”
Error of reduction: reparation would be entirely contained in the penance the priest gives after absolution—some prayers, a good deed—and would be exhausted as soon as it is completed. Reparation is seen as one of the formalities of the sacrament, without suspecting that it opens up a much broader horizon. The error is appealing because it is convenient: the penance received is brief, defined, quickly done.
Yet sacramental penance is the starting point of reparation, not its limit. The Catechism lists its possible forms—“prayer, an offering… works of mercy, service of neighbor… voluntary self-denial, sacrifices, and above all… the patient acceptance of the cross”[15]: this is far from the mere “decade of the rosary” seen as a receipt in full. Moreover, beyond the sacrament, the Church recognizes a much greater reparation—that which Pius XI called “the duty of reparation” toward the Heart of God, to “make up for” by our love “the indifference, forgetfulness, offenses, outrages” of which He is the object[16]. The satisfaction of the confessional is the seed; the reparative life is the tree. For more on this life offered day after day, see How to grow in reparation.
Errors about the object and purpose of reparation
“Reparation appeases an angry God and changes His mood”
Error of purpose, the most persistent: reparation would serve to “calm” God, to sway an irritated Judge, to turn His anger into kindness. God would be subject to moods that our penances would soften. The error is appealing because it lingers in a certain archaic religious imagination—the gods appeased by offerings—and because Scripture itself sometimes uses the language of the “wrath of God.”
But God does not change His mood: He is “tender and merciful” from all eternity, and it is us whom reparation transforms. Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus overturned this false image in a single phrase. Thinking of souls who offer themselves “as victims to the Justice of God” to divert punishments onto themselves, she confesses she could not bring herself to do so—and exclaims:
“O my God! Will only Your Justice receive souls sacrificing themselves as victims?… Does not Your Merciful Love also need them?… Will Your despised Love remain in Your Heart?” — Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, Manuscript A[17]
Reparation does not appease an angry God: it consoles a despised Love. Its goal is not to change God—the violated order is “restored by penance,” says Pius XI, but the deeper motive is “love as well, for we must have compassion for the suffering Christ”[18]. What is restored is the order broken within us and among us; what is repaired is our hardened heart, opened anew to tenderness. Thérèse’s full voice on this point is developed in What do the saints say about reparation.
“To make reparation for the sins of others is prideful or useless”
Error of scope: one may admit, at a stretch, that one repairs one’s own faults; but to repair for the sins of others, for the world, would seem either presumptuous—“who am I to atone for the faults of others?”—or absurd—“everyone is responsible for themselves.” Thus, all vicarious reparation is rejected, though it is at the heart of devotion to the Sacred Heart and the message of Fatima. The error is appealing because it is cloaked in humility and individualistic common sense.
But this forgets the communion of saints and the very logic of the Cross. Christ, “the holiest,” precisely took upon Himself “the sins of all men”[19]; and He associates His own with this work. Saint Paul suffers “for His body, which is the Church”[20], not for his own faults alone. In the Mystical Body, “the holiness of one benefits the others”[21], and the contrite sinner is “more effectively purified” by the help of his brothers. Far from being prideful, reparation for others is the purest act of charity: to bear, with Christ, the burden of those who do not bear their own. Pius XI makes it a duty: to “make up for” before the Heart of God “the offenses, the outrages” of the whole world[22]. It is not to think oneself a savior; it is to let oneself be grafted onto the one Savior.
“Reparation is reserved for great mystics”
Error of discouragement: reparation—especially reparative, victim, offered for the world—would be the business of extraordinary saints, victim souls, the stigmatized; the ordinary Christian would have neither the vocation nor the strength to enter into it. One gives up in advance, convinced that “it’s not for me.” The error is appealing because it disguises itself as humility; in reality, it deprives the faithful of an ordinary treasure.
But reparation is within reach of everyone, and consists first of small things. Trent teaches that “temporal trials… borne with patience”[23] are enough to satisfy: there is no need for a hairshirt or ecstasy, but for a daily life offered up. Thérèse of Lisieux, doctor of the “little way,” lived her reparation in the tiny annoyances of Carmel, not in feats of prowess. The highest reparation—offering oneself to Merciful Love—does not require heroic strength but a trusting heart. Reserved for mystics, reparation? On the contrary: “almsgiving delivers from death and purifies from every sin”[24], and it is to the humblest that this word is addressed. The concrete path, accessible to all, is outlined in How to grow in reparation.
Errors Regarding the Practice of Reparation
"Once forgiven, there is nothing left to repair"
This is a very widespread error, which confuses the forgiveness of sin with the removal of punishment: since absolution erases the sin, there would be nothing left to do. Reparation is relegated to the past as soon as forgiveness is received. The error is appealing because it is based on a truth—yes, the sin is forgiven—but draws a false conclusion from it.
Yet the Church teaches exactly the opposite, and this is one of its least known dogmas. The Council of Trent declares it is "completely false and contrary to the Word of God to say that the fault is never forgiven by the Lord without the entire punishment also being graciously remitted"[25]. Forgiveness removes "eternal punishment", but "temporal punishments for sin remain"[26]: a disordered attachment to be purified, an order to be restored. In matters of justice toward one's neighbor, the Catechism is even more explicit:
"Every offense committed against justice and truth entails the duty of reparation, even if its author has been forgiven. […] This reparation, moral and sometimes material, must be evaluated according to the extent of the damage caused. It is binding in conscience." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2487[27]
Forgiveness therefore opens the worksite of reparation; it does not close it. To be forgiven is not to be discharged: it is to be reconciled and called to heal what the sin has left behind.
"Reparation is interior: there is no need to repair the harm done to others"
This is an error of spiritualization: reparation is reduced to a movement of the heart—regret, prayer, intention—forgetting that it often requires concrete actions toward those we have wronged. One believes one has made reparation by repenting, while the stolen good is not returned, the destroyed reputation is not restored, the debt is not paid. The error is appealing because it is comfortable: interior repentance costs less than restitution.
But without restitution, reparation toward one's neighbor remains an empty word. "In accordance with commutative justice, reparation for injustice committed requires the restitution of stolen goods to their owner"[28], the Catechism reminds us, taking as a model the conversion of Zacchaeus:
"Look, Lord: I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much." — Zacchaeus, Gospel according to Saint Luke 19:8[29]
Christ himself places reconciliation with one's brother before the offering at the altar: "leave your gift there before the altar, go first to be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift"[30]. Reparation has substance: to return, to restore, to make amends, to ask for forgiveness. Repentance that dispenses with this is not perfect reparation, but interrupted reparation. It is this concern for rendered justice that links this article to Common errors regarding justice.
"The more I suffer, the better I repair"
The last error, a mirror image of the first: if reparation involves punishment, then the more I suffer, the better I repair—the value being measured by the amount of accumulated pain. This leads to seeking suffering for its own sake, taking on more than is reasonable, sometimes to the point of scrupulosity or spiritual pride. The error is appealing because it pushes a correct intuition to the extreme: yes, bearing the cross does repair.
But it is not the measure of suffering that repairs, it is the measure of love given within it. God "desires mercy, not sacrifice"[31]; and all satisfaction is worthwhile only "through Jesus Christ"[32], not by its quantity. A drop of pain offered in love is worth more than a torrent of suffering endured in tension. Again, it is Thérèse who corrects: to the victim offering to Justice, which seeks to "draw down punishments", she prefers the offering to Love, where one allows oneself to be "consumed" by tenderness. Seeking suffering for its weight is to fall back into accounting; offering with love whatever life brings is to enter into true reparation. "Let us do everything out of love": quantity is nothing, love is everything. For discernment between false and true reparation, see also How to grow in reparation.
Error and Truth at a Glance
The table below summarizes the misunderstandings discussed: on the left, the error in its common form; in the center, what makes it false; on the right, what the Church actually teaches, with its source. Read it line by line, as a quick antidote to common misconceptions.
| Common Error | Why It’s False | What the Church Teaches |
|---|---|---|
| To make reparation is to pay a debt to buy forgiveness | Forgiveness comes before satisfaction and cannot be bought | “Absolution removes sin”; only then “make reparation” (CCC § 1459)[33] |
| To make reparation is to punish oneself, to inflict suffering | It is love offered, not pain, that repairs | Even “trials… borne patiently” satisfy (Trent DS 1693)[34] |
| Christ has made all reparation: my reparation is useless | His fullness includes ours rather than excluding it | “Complete… what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ” (Col 1:24; Pius XI)[35] |
| Reparation is limited to the penance given in confession | Sacramental penance opens up a reparative life | Prayer, mercy, service, “cross… carried” (CCC § 1460)[36] |
| Reparation appeases an angry God | Punishments flow from sin, not from God’s vengeance | Not “a vengeance inflicted by God from without” (CCC § 1472)[37] |
| Making reparation for others is prideful or useless | Forgets the communion of saints and the Cross | Suffer “for his body, which is the Church” (Col 1:24; CCC § 1473)[38] |
| Reparation is reserved for mystics | Confuses sensible heroism with trusting love | “Temporal trials borne patiently” are enough (Trent DS 1693)[39] |
| Once forgiven, there is nothing left to repair | Confuses remission of guilt with remission of punishment | “The duty of reparation, even if its author has been forgiven” (CCC § 2487)[40] |
| Reparation is purely interior | Forgets the restitution owed in justice | “Restitution of stolen goods” (CCC § 2412; Lk 19:8)[41] |
| The more I suffer, the better I repair | The value lies in love, not in the amount of pain | “I desire steadfast love, not sacrifice” (Hos 6:6)[42] |
Satisfaction, Expiation, Reparation, Restitution, Penance: Do Not Confuse Them
Many errors arise from vague vocabulary, where one word is mistaken for another. A few classic distinctions are enough to clear the fog. Satisfaction is the technical term of the sacrament: “doing something more to make up for one’s sins” after absolution; the Catechism specifies that it “is also called ‘penance’”[43]. Penance, in this narrow sense, is thus the act of satisfaction imposed by the confessor—not to be confused with the virtue of penance (the spirit of conversion) nor with the entire sacrament.
Expiation emphasizes the removal of moral disorder: the Catechism uses it as a near-synonym—“to make suitable satisfaction or expiate one’s sins”[44]—while reserving to Christ expiation in the fullest sense: he “alone has expiated our sins once for all”[45]. Reparation, the broadest term, refers both to sacramental satisfaction and to the loving compensation offered to the Heart of God and the restoration of the order that was harmed. Restitution, finally, is its concrete aspect toward one’s neighbor: “to return” stolen goods, restore reputation, “compensate for injuries”[46]. These words are not interchangeable at random: satisfaction and penance name the act of the penitent in the sacrament; expiation highlights its purifying effect, first and foremost in Christ; reparation embraces the whole, from the confessional to the world; restitution is its demand of justice. To confuse them is precisely to fall back into the errors discussed above.
Restoring the True Greatness of Reparation
Once the counterfeits are set aside, reparation appears in its true light. Far from being a transaction, a punishment, or an appeasement, it is the response of love to Love: letting Christ complete his work in us, consoling the Heart of God who is misunderstood, and restoring, with him, the order broken by sin. Pius XI gave this formula, both demanding and burning with zeal:
“The duty of reparation and expiation is imposed by an even more compelling motive of justice and love: of justice first, for the offense committed against God by our crimes must be expiated, and the violated order must be restored by penance; but also of love, for we must have compassion for the suffering Christ.” — Pius XI, Miserentissimus Redemptor (1928)[47]
This reparation is neither sad nor crushing: it is one of the most beautiful names for active charity. It transforms the penitent into a consoler, the victim into an offering, the suffering endured into a gift. And it remains, to the end, the work of Christ in us: “we are therefore ambassadors for Christ… be reconciled to God”[48]. To make reparation is to enter into this reconciliation and extend it—for oneself, for the world, in the very Heart of God.
Such is the true greatness of reparation, the exact opposite of the caricatures that have disfigured it: not a debt to be paid, nor pain to be accumulated, nor a God to be appeased, but a free and trusting act of love—the share Christ gives us in his work of salvation, the tender care for the wounds left by sin, and the consolation offered to a Love so often scorned. “What is lacking in the sufferings of Christ… I complete for his body, which is the Church”[49]: it is this “yes” freely given, and not the measure of our sufferings, that God receives as true reparation.
To go further
- What do the saints say about reparation — the anthology: the voice of the Sacred Heart, the Holy Face, Thérèse, Fatima, and the mystics on the reparative heart.
- How to grow in reparation — the practical guide: nature, counterfeits, concrete means, reparation in the Divine Will, Mary as the first associate in reparation.
- Common errors concerning contrition — the twin article: misunderstandings about the penitent's first act.
- Common errors concerning penance — misunderstandings about penance and satisfaction.
- Common errors concerning regular confession — misunderstandings about sacramental confession.
- Common errors concerning justice — the virtue of justice, which includes restitution.
- How to make a good confession — the concrete steps of the sacrament of reconciliation.
Notes and References
Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1459: "Many sins do harm to others. One must do what is possible to repair it (for example, return stolen goods, restore the reputation of someone who has been slandered, compensate for injuries). Simple justice requires this. But in addition, sin wounds and weakens the sinner himself […]. Absolution removes sin, but it does not remedy all the disorders sin has caused (cf. Council of Trent: DS 1712). Raised up from sin, the sinner must still recover full spiritual health. He must therefore do something more to make amends for his sins: he must 'satisfy' for them in an appropriate manner or 'make expiation' for his sins. This satisfaction is also called 'penance.' "
1 3 33 43 44 46Hosea 6:6, official liturgical translation (AELF): "I desire steadfast love, not sacrifice, knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings." Prophetic verse reminding us that it is not the quantity of offerings or sufferings, but the love and faithfulness of the heart, that God receives.
2 31 42Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1472: "Grave sin deprives us of communion with God […]. On the other hand, every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which needs purification […]. This purification frees from what is called the 'temporal punishment' of sin. These two punishments must not be conceived as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but rather as following from the very nature of sin."
4 37Council of Trent, Session XIV, ch. 8 (DS 1692): "The priests of the Lord must therefore […] impose salutary satisfactions […]. And they have not, because of this, considered that the sacrament of penance was a tribunal of wrath and punishments—which no Catholic has ever thought—nor that, by such satisfactions on our part, the power of the merit of our Lord Jesus Christ was either obscured or diminished in any way."
5Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1460: "The penance imposed by the confessor must take into account the penitent's personal situation […]. It can consist of prayer, an offering, works of mercy, service to neighbor, voluntary self-denial, sacrifices, and above all in the patient acceptance of the cross we must bear. Such penances help us to become configured to Christ who alone expiated our sins once for all. They allow us to become coheirs with the risen Christ, 'provided we suffer with him' (Rom 8:17) […]. 'But our satisfaction, that which we make for our sins, is only through Jesus Christ […] in whom we make satisfaction, by producing worthy fruits of penance (Lk 3:8), which draw their strength from Him, are offered through Him to the Father, and through Him are accepted by the Father' (Council of Trent: DS 1691)."
6 7 9 10 12 15 32 36 45Council of Trent, Session XIV, ch. 9 "Satisfactory Works" (DS 1693): "The council further teaches that such is the extent of divine munificence, that not only the penalties we voluntarily inflict upon ourselves as punishment for sin, or those imposed by the will of the priest according to the measure of the fault, but also (which is the greatest sign of love) the temporal trials inflicted by God and borne by us with patience, can satisfy God the Father through Christ Jesus."
8 23 34 39Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 615: "By his obedience unto death, Jesus accomplished the substitution of the suffering Servant, who 'offers his life as an offering for sin,' 'while bearing the sin of many,' 'and makes intercession for the transgressors' (Is 53:10-12). Jesus made reparation for our faults and satisfied the Father for our sins" (cf. Council of Trent: DS 1529).
11Letter to the Colossians 1:24, official liturgical translation (AELF): "Now I find joy in the sufferings I endure for you; what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ, I complete in my own flesh for His body, which is the Church." Key verse for the theology of reparation: not that anything is lacking in the value of the Cross, but that the members of the Body are called to truly unite themselves to it.
13 20 35 49Pius XI, Miserentissimus Redemptor (1928): "The superabundant Redemption of Christ has remitted all our faults"; and yet, "by a wondrous disposition of divine Wisdom, we must complete in our flesh what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for His body, which is the Church" (cf. Col 1:24). The infinite merit of the Cross needs no addition; what is added is the free participation of the members in the work of their Head.
14Pius XI, encyclical Miserentissimus Redemptor (May 8, 1928), on the duty of reparation to the Sacred Heart, French translation: "The duty of reparation and expiation is imposed by an even more compelling motive of justice and love: of justice first, for the offense committed against God by our crimes must be expiated, and the violated order must be restored by penance; but also of love, for we must 'have compassion on Christ suffering and overwhelmed with reproaches.'" Elsewhere, the encyclical speaks of the creature's duty to offer the Uncreated Love a "compensation" for "the indifference, forgetfulness, offenses, and outrages" of which He is the object.
16 18 22 47Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus (1873-1897), Manuscript A (Story of a Soul), folio 84r, regarding the Act of Offering to Merciful Love of June 9, 1895: "I thought of souls who offer themselves as victims to the Justice of God in order to turn aside and draw upon themselves the punishments reserved for the guilty; this offering seemed great and generous to me, but I was far from feeling drawn to make it. 'O my God!' I cried out in the depths of my heart, 'will only Your Justice receive souls sacrificing themselves as victims? ... Does not Your Merciful Love also need them? ... Will Your despised Love remain shut up in Your Heart?'" The saint then offers herself "as a victim of holocaust" not to Justice but to Merciful Love. Text in the public domain.
17Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 616: "It is 'love to the end' (Jn 13:1) that confers its value of redemption and reparation, of expiation and satisfaction to Christ's sacrifice. […] No man, not even the holiest, was able to take upon himself the sins of all men and offer himself as a sacrifice for all. The existence in Christ of the divine Person of the Son […] makes possible his redemptive sacrifice for all."
19Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1475: "In the communion of saints 'there exists, therefore, among the faithful […] a constant bond of love and an abundant exchange of all good things.' In this wonderful exchange, the holiness of one profits others, far beyond the harm that the sin of one could cause others. Thus, recourse to the communion of saints allows the contrite sinner to be purified more quickly and more effectively from the punishments of sin."
21 38Book of Tobit 12:9, official liturgical translation (AELF): "Almsgiving delivers from death and purifies from every sin. Those who give alms will be filled with life." Almsgiving as a satisfactory work accessible to all (see also Dn 4:24: "Redeem your sins by righteousness, and your offenses by showing mercy to the poor.").
24Council of Trent, Session XIV (November 25, 1551), Doctrine on the Sacrament of Penance, chapter 8 "Necessity and Fruit of Satisfaction" (Denzinger-Schönmetzer 1689): "The holy council declares […] that it is utterly false and contrary to the Word of God to say that guilt is never forgiven by the Lord without the entire penalty also being graciously remitted. For there are, in fact, in Holy Scripture clear and well-known examples which […] very clearly refute this error" (cf. Gen 3:16-19; Num 12:14; Num 20:11; 2 Sam 12:13-14).
25Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1473: "The forgiveness of sin and restoration of communion with God entail the remission of the eternal punishment of sin. But temporal punishments of sin remain. The Christian must strive, by patiently bearing sufferings and trials of all kinds […], to accept as a grace these temporal punishments of sin; he must apply himself, by works of mercy and charity, as well as by prayer and the various practices of penance, to completely put off the 'old man' and put on the 'new man.'"
26Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2487: "Every offense committed against justice and truth entails the duty of reparation, even if its author has been forgiven. When it is impossible to repair a wrong publicly, it must be done in secret; if the person who has suffered harm cannot be directly compensated, satisfaction must be given to him morally, in the name of charity. This duty of reparation also concerns offenses committed against another's reputation. This reparation, moral and sometimes material, must be measured according to the damage that has been caused. It binds in conscience."
27 40Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2412: "By virtue of commutative justice, the reparation of injustice committed requires the restitution of stolen goods to their owner: Jesus blesses Zacchaeus for his commitment: 'If I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold' (Lk 19:8). Those who, directly or indirectly, have taken the property of others are obliged to return it […]."
28 41Gospel according to Saint Luke 19:8, official liturgical translation (AELF): "Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, 'Look, Lord: I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone, I will pay back four times as much.'" Evangelical model of restitution as a concrete part of reparation (cited by the CCC § 2412).
29Gospel according to Saint Matthew 5:23-24, official liturgical translation (AELF): "So, if you are presenting your offering at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar, go first to be reconciled with your brother, and then come and present your offering." Christ places reparation toward one's neighbor before worship.
30Second Letter to the Corinthians 5:20, official liturgical translation (AELF): "So we are ambassadors for Christ, and it is God himself who is appealing through us: we implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God." Reparation is part of the ministry of reconciliation, God's work in us.
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