Of all the demands of the Gospel, penance is doubtless the most misunderstood — and yet it is the first that Christ uttered in His public preaching in Galilee, according to Matthew (4:17) and Mark (1:15) — His very first words reported by the Gospel of John being: "What do you seek?" (Jn 1:38)[1]. Before the miracles, before the Beatitudes, Jesus opens His preaching with a single word: "Repent." The saints never ceased meditating on this call: for them, penance is neither religious masochism nor an accounting of privations, but a turning of the heart — what the Greek of the Gospel calls metanoia — by which man, weary of his sins, returns to the love he had left.
This article gathers their own voice on this theme: the brief and burning formulas of the Fathers, the precise distinctions of the doctors, the experience of the great converts. It is not a matter of expounding once again the mechanism of the sacrament, nor of detailing each penitential work: the interior sorrow for sin is treated in What the Saints Say About Contrition, the sacrament in What the Saints Say About Regular Confession, expiation for others in What the Saints Say About Reparation, and one of the great works of penance in What the Saints Say About Fasting. This florilegium concentrates on the spirit of penance — the conversion of the heart from which all the rest flows.
Three accents can be heard in it, which do not contradict one another: the urgency of the call — "unless you repent you will all likewise perish" —, the gentleness of the mercy that awaits the sinner, and the wisdom of a repentance that must remain peaceful rather than gnaw at itself. For the great lesson of the saints is paradoxical: true penance never despairs; it is, in the words of Saint John Climacus, "the renewal of baptism"[2].
Why do the saints constantly call us to penance?
"Repent": the call that opens the preaching (Mt 4:17)
All the spirituality of penance goes back to a single sentence, which is also the first that Christ speaks in His public ministry:
"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." — Jesus, Gospel according to Saint Matthew 4:17[3]
The juxtaposition of the two verses is decisive: Jesus takes up word for word the preaching of John the Baptist[4], as if to signify that the Gospel does not begin with an easy consolation but with a call to change one's life. Penance is therefore not one devotion among others: it is the gateway to the Kingdom. Without it, the announcement of salvation would remain a dead letter, for grace is received only by turning away from what refuses it.
This call has its severe counterpart, which the saints never wanted to soften. Before those who imagined themselves sheltered, Christ warns:
"Unless you repent you will all likewise perish." — Jesus, Gospel according to Saint Luke 13:3[5]
This word, repeated twice in the same passage, founds the penitential urgency of all the preaching of the saints. But urgency is not a gratuitous threat: it is the reverse side of an immense hope, for the same Gospel affirms that "there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance"[6].
Metanoia: penance is first a turning of the heart
The Greek word used by the evangelists, metanoia, literally means a change of mind, a complete turning about. The Fathers saw in it far more than a passing regret: a reorientation of the whole existence. This is exactly the definition given by the Catechism, heir to this tradition:
"Interior penance is a radical reorientation of our whole life, a return, a conversion to God with all our heart, an end of sin, a turning away from evil, with repugnance toward the evil actions we have committed." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1431[7]
This distinction is capital, and the saints return to it constantly: penance is not reducible to "external works." The Catechism says it with a clarity that sums up twenty centuries of preaching: Christ's call "does not aim first at outward works, 'sackcloth and ashes,' fastings and mortifications, but at the conversion of the heart, interior penance"[8]. Without this turned-around heart, the harshest austerities "remain sterile and false."
"A broken heart, O God, you will not despise"
The Old Testament had already sensed this primacy of the heart. Psalm 50, the great penitential psalm which the Church recites every Friday, delivers the formula that all the saints made their own:
"The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." — Psalm 50 (51), 19[9]
The prophet Joel had said the same thing in a striking image, denouncing facade penance: "Rend your hearts and not your garments"[10]. And God Himself, through the mouth of Ezekiel, reveals the motive of this whole call — not condemnation, but life:
"Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, says the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?" — Book of Ezekiel 18:23[11]
That is why the saints, even the severest, never reduced penance to a punishment: the satisfaction it involves also aims, according to the Council of Trent, at "avenging and punishing past sins" (14th session, ch. 8)[12] — but its first motive remains mercy, a way of return toward a Father who waits.
The voice of the Fathers of the Church
Tertullian: the first Christian treatise on penance
It is to Tertullian (c. 155–220), at Carthage, that we owe the first Christian treatise devoted entirely to the subject: the De paenitentia, written around the year 203. In it he unfolds the idea that penance after baptism is a precious and fearful gift, not to be squandered. There he takes up a Greek word already in use in the Church, exomologesis — an act "expressed by a rather Greek word" (De paenitentia, 9) — to designate the confession of faults accompanied by public penitential works, by which the sinner acknowledges his state before God and the Church[13]. An ecclesiastical writer — this treatise predates his break —, Tertullian would later veer into Montanism and refuse the Church the power to forgive certain faults (cf. De pudicitia, ch. 1). Long before systematic theologies, he already poses the central intuition: to repent is not to humiliate oneself in vain, but to acknowledge the truth of one's sin in order to be delivered from it.
Saint Ambrose and the tears of Peter
No episode has nourished penitential spirituality as much as the tears of the apostle Peter after his triple denial. Saint Ambrose of Milan (c. 340–397), commenting on the Gospel of Luke, draws from it a doctrine of tears that would become classic:
"Let tears wash away the fault which one is ashamed to confess aloud. Tears speak the sin without quaking with horror; tears confess the fault without wounding modesty." — Saint Ambrose, Commentary on the Gospel of Saint Luke, Book X[14]
For Ambrose, Peter is the perfect penitent precisely because he "wept bitterly" (Lk 22:62) instead of justifying himself. The holy bishop notes a decisive detail: Peter weeps only after "the Lord turned and looked at him." Penance is thus born of a gaze received — that of Christ who does not condemn but calls —, not of a solitary effort of contrition. This intuition runs through the whole spiritual tradition: the sinner is not converted by fixing his eyes on his fault, but by letting himself be looked upon by the One he has offended.
Saint John Chrysostom: "Have you sinned? Come to church"
At Antioch and then at Constantinople, Saint John Chrysostom (c. 349–407) devoted to penance a series of homilies (De paenitentia, year 387) that remained famous for their insistent mercy. Against the temptation of discouragement, he hammers home that the Church is a place of healing, never a tribunal that crushes:
"Have you sinned? Come to church and wipe out your sin. Each time you fall while walking, you get up; likewise, each time you sin, repent. Do not despair […]. The Church is a hospital, not a court of law." — Saint John Chrysostom, Homilies on Penance[15]
This word sums up the pastoral boldness of the Fathers: no number of falls ever exhausts mercy, and the only irreparable defeat would be to despair. Chrysostom thus shifts the center of gravity of penance — not anguish over the sin committed, but confidence in the forgiveness offered.
Saint Basil: bearing "fruits worthy of penance"
Saint Basil of Caesarea (329–379), the great legislator of Eastern monastic life, recalls for his part that repentance of the heart calls for a real change of conduct. Leaning on the word of John the Baptist — "Bear fruits that befit repentance"[16] —, he warns:
"For those who do penance, it is not enough, in order to be saved, to turn away from sin; they must still bear fruits worthy of penance." — Saint Basil of Caesarea, Small Ascetic Collection[17]
Basil thus maintains the balance the saints would never abandon: conversion of the heart comes first, but it does not remain mere words; it is verified by works. The same Father stresses the urgency of not delaying: "Those who believe in the Lord must first do penance," for those who do not do penance now expose themselves to a still graver condemnation[18].
Saint Augustine, the penitent par excellence
No Father spoke of conversion more truthfully than Saint Augustine (354–430), because none recounted his own with as much honesty. The Confessions are the great book of Christian penance: not a catalogue of faults, but the story of a long-fleeing heart finally seized by grace. Augustine forges there the formula that speaks the restlessness of every penitent and his final rest:
"Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in thee." — Saint Augustine, Confessions, Book I, ch. 1[19]
From his experience, Augustine draws a doctrine decisive for the whole tradition: conversion is not first a performance of the will, but a grace to be asked for. Hence his famous prayer, which outraged Pelagius at Rome — Pelagius taught that man can accomplish by his own powers what God commands, without the help of grace — so strongly does it stress the primacy of the gift:
"Give what thou commandest, and command what thou wilt." — Saint Augustine, Confessions, Book X, ch. 29[20]
One is not converted, then, by gritting one's teeth: one is converted by imploring to be converted. All the saints would take up this lesson. Effort remains necessary, but it comes second; the first word of penance is a prayer.
Penance according to the doctors
Saint Thomas Aquinas: penance, a special virtue
If the Fathers sang of penance, the doctors defined it. Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) established that it is not only a sacrament, but first a virtue: a stable disposition of the soul which hates sin committed as an offense against God, and which purposes to make reparation for it[21]. This virtue, he specifies, is a part of justice — and of a justice called "relative," which governs the relations of an inferior toward his superior: between God and man, the inferior "must do all that he can," without ever being able to equal the offense[22].
This distinction protects against two symmetrical errors. Against those who would reduce penance to a one-time rite, Thomas recalls that it is a permanent virtue, which must dwell in the whole Christian life: interior penance, which makes one weep for sin committed, "must last until the end of life" (Summa Theologiae, IIIa, q. 84, a. 8)[23]. Against those who would make of it a mere feeling, he stresses that it engages the will to make reparation, not only the emotion of regret. Penance is thus, for the Angelic Doctor, the act by which wounded freedom puts itself back in accord with the justice of God.
The three acts of the penitent
The theological tradition, synthesized by Saint Thomas, distinguishes three acts which make up all accomplished penance: contrition of the heart, confession of the lips, and satisfaction of works[24]. These three moments are not three mechanical steps, but the three dimensions of one same return to God: within, one hates sin; outwardly, one acknowledges it; in its consequences, one repairs it.
Each of these acts is the subject, in Ignispedia, of a dedicated article in the same series: the sorrow of the heart in What the Saints Say About Contrition, the sacramental avowal in What the Saints Say About Regular Confession, and reparation in What the Saints Say About Reparation. The present article sheds light on what unites them: the penitential spirit which animates them all.
"The second plank after the shipwreck"
To express the place of penance in the life of the baptized, tradition has kept an image to which Saint Jerome (347–420) gives, in his Letter to Demetrias (c. 414), its first meaning: penance is the "plank" offered to the shipwrecked, while the virgin who remained intact saves the ship itself[25].
The image had such fortune that the Council of Trent solemnly took it up, applying it to baptism: from its 6th session (13 January 1547), in the decree on justification (ch. 14), it calls the raising up of the sinner "the second plank after the shipwreck which is the loss of grace"; then, in its 14th session (25 November 1551), it defines the sacrament of penance as the "second plank of salvation" (canon 2)[26]. It admirably expresses the Catholic balance: sin after baptism is a real shipwreck — it must not be trivialized —, but God, in His mercy, never leaves the sinner to drown without holding out a plank to him. Penance is not a hypothetical second chance: it is salvation itself, offered anew.
The great penitents, living models
The saints did not only speak of penance: some embodied it to the point of becoming, for the whole Church, the very face of the reconciled sinner. Their example teaches better than a treatise.
Saint Peter and the gift of tears
The Prince of the Apostles denied his Master three times on the very night of the Passion. But he became, through his tears, the model of all penitents. The spiritual tradition so meditated on this "gift of tears" that it made it one of the surest signs of an authentic conversion: to weep for one's sin, not from despair, but from wounded love. This is the whole meaning of Christ's gaze noted by Saint Ambrose, and of the iconography of the Tears of Saint Peter painted tirelessly from El Greco to Georges de La Tour. Peter teaches us that holiness does not consist in never having fallen, but in rising again weeping — and in loving afterward, like Peter to whom the Risen One asks: "Do you love me more than these?" (Jn 21:15)[27].
Saint Mary Magdalene, the loving sinner
The Latin tradition brought together in a single figure — Saint Mary Magdalene — the sinner who, in Luke, bathes Jesus' feet with her tears, wipes them with her hair, and receives this decisive word:
"Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much." — Jesus, Gospel according to Saint Luke 7:47[28]
This word became the charter of all penance of love: it is not the magnitude of sin that despairs, but the magnitude of love that saves. The saints saw in it the secret law of Christian repentance — not a calculation of reparations, but an excess of love answering an excess of mercy. The most perfect penance is not the hardest; it is the most loving.
Saint Mary of Egypt, the great penitent of the desert
The Christian East venerates another astounding figure: Saint Mary of Egypt (5th century), a courtesan of Alexandria converted at Jerusalem, who spent forty-seven years alone in the desert beyond the Jordan in a penance of unheard-of rigor, living on roots and weeping for her past faults[29]. Her life, written by Saint Sophronius of Jerusalem, is solemnly read each Lent in the Byzantine liturgy. It speaks the extreme of penance: not as an ascetic feat for its own sake, but as the measure of a love which, having received much, wants to give all back. Where Magdalene shows the penance of the heart, Mary of Egypt shows that this heart can carry along a whole life.
The good thief: the penance of the eleventh hour
Finally, the Gospel places at the summit of the Cross the model of penance in extremis. The good thief — whom tradition names Dismas —, crucified beside Christ, acknowledges his fault, defends the innocent One, and implores:
"Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." — The good thief, Gospel according to Saint Luke 23:42[30]
The answer is immediate: "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise."[31] The saints saw in this scene the proof that no penance is ever too late as long as the heart beats: a single act of true contrition, at the final hour, opens Heaven. It is the exact reverse of the urgency preached by Christ — urgency exists only because mercy, for its part, is without limit.
The right way to do penance
There remains a question which the spiritual masters never ceased to refine: how to repent without destroying oneself? For penance misunderstood can become a trap — that of scrupulosity, bitterness, pride disguised as severity. The saints answer it with an astonishingly gentle wisdom.
A peaceful repentance, never embittered
The great master of this balance is Saint Francis de Sales (1567–1622). Against raging repentance that vents itself upon the soul, he teaches a peaceful compunction:
"We must therefore have a displeasure at our faults which is peaceful, settled, and firm. […] We chastise ourselves far better by quiet and constant repentances than by bitter, hasty, and angry ones." — Saint Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, Part III[32]
The holy bishop of Geneva illustrates this lesson with a luminous image: as a father's remonstrances, "made gently and lovingly," correct the child better than outbursts of anger, so the heart which takes itself back "with gentle and calm remonstrances, having more compassion for itself than passion against itself," conceives a repentance which "will enter far deeper and pierce it better" than one which is "spiteful, irritable, and stormy"[33]. True penance is not a relentlessness against oneself: it is the very gentleness of God learned toward one's own misery.
Penance is a means; love is the end
Saint Catherine of Siena (1347–1380) lays down a decisive principle: austerities are worth nothing for themselves; they are only instruments at the service of charity. In the Dialogue, the Eternal Father tells her clearly:
"Virtue is the principal end; penance is but a means to attain it. […] By leaning too much on penance, one harms one's perfection." — The Eternal Father to Saint Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue[34]
This word forestalls the subtlest illusion: confusing harshness with holiness. One can multiply fasts and remain hard, vain, without love. Catherine teaches on the contrary that penance is not measured by suffering endured, but by the love it expands: "Satisfaction lies in the ardor of a soul which truly repents and which hates sin," and "perfect contrition satisfies for fault and punishment, not by the pain one feels, but by the infinite desire one experiences"[35].
When love takes the place of penance
In the same light, the venerable Sister Consolata Betrone (1903–1946) reports this word of Jesus received in prayer: for the soul which loves perfectly, love itself becomes the highest penance.
"Do you want to do penance for your sins? Love me; let your penance be love." — Jesus to the venerable Sister Consolata Betrone, 22 November 1935[36]
Make no mistake: these saints do not abolish penance; they fulfill it. As Saint Alphonsus Liguori teaches, "our works, penances, communions, alms, please the Lord only on condition of being in conformity with His divine will; otherwise, they are no longer works of virtue, but defective works deserving punishment"[37]. Christian penance was therefore never an end: it is the path by which a heart returns to love — and, once returned, love becomes in turn the permanent penance that keeps it in the light. This is the whole meaning of the spiritual crowning aimed at by the gift of living in the Divine Will — that gratuitous gift revealed by Jesus to the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta, which is not only doing the will of God but receiving it and letting it live in us: no longer only repairing sin, but living in total transparency to God.
Such is the common wisdom of the saints on penance: urgent because grave sin brings death to the soul, gentle because God is Father, ordered wholly to love because it is love, and love alone, that brings the prodigal child home.
To go further
- What the Saints Say About Contrition — the interior sorrow for sin, first of the three acts of the penitent: perfect and imperfect contrition.
- What the Saints Say About Regular Confession — the avowal of faults and the sacrament of reconciliation, the penitent's second act.
- What the Saints Say About Reparation — satisfaction and expiation, in particular for the sins of others.
- What the Saints Say About Fasting — one of the three great works of penance, with prayer and almsgiving.
- What the Saints Say About Temperance — the cardinal virtue ordering our relation to pleasure, the ground of the penitential combat.
- The Divine Will — the gratuitous gift of living in the Will of God, revealed by Jesus to the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta: the crowning of the penitential life, where love transfigures the whole life into a gift to God.
Notes and References
Gospel according to Saint John 1:38 (RSV): "Jesus turned, and saw them following, and said to them, 'What do you seek?'" — the first words of Jesus reported by the fourth Gospel.
1Saint John Climacus (c. 579–649), The Ladder of Divine Ascent (Klimax), 5th step (On Repentance), § 1: "Repentance is the renewal of baptism, a contract with God for a second life" (in Greek: deuterou biou, "of a second life"). Monastic treatise of the East written c. 600; English translation by Colm Luibheid and Norman Russell (Paulist Press).
2Gospel according to Saint Matthew 4:17 (RSV): "From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'" The Greek verb metanoeîte means "change your mind, turn about." Cf. Mk 1:15 (RSV): "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel."
3Gospel according to Saint Matthew 3:2 (RSV): John the Baptist already proclaims, word for word: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Jesus takes up the Precursor's preaching.
4Gospel according to Saint Luke 13:3 and 13:5 (RSV): "Unless you repent you will all likewise perish." A warning repeated twice by Jesus concerning the Galileans and the eighteen victims of the tower of Siloam.
5Gospel according to Saint Luke 15:7 (RSV): "Even so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance." Conclusion of the parable of the lost sheep.
6Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1431: "Interior penance is a radical reorientation of our whole life, a return, a conversion to God with all our heart, an end of sin, a turning away from evil, with repugnance toward the evil actions we have committed."
7Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1430: "Jesus' call to conversion and penance […] does not aim first at outward works […], but at the conversion of the heart, interior penance. Without this, such penances remain sterile and false."
8Psalm 50 (51), 19 (RSV): "The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." The great penitential psalm (Miserere), attributed to David after his sin.
9Book of Joel 2:13 (RSV): "Rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and repents of evil."
10Book of Ezekiel 18:23 (RSV); cf. Ezek 33:11: "Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, says the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?"
11Council of Trent, 14th session (25 November 1551), Doctrine on the sacrament of penance, ch. 8 "Necessity and fruit of satisfaction" (DS 1692): the satisfaction imposed by the confessor "aims not only at safeguarding the new life and healing weakness, but also at avenging and punishing past sins." Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§ 1459–1460.
12Tertullian (c. 155–220), De paenitentia (On Penance), c. 203: the first Latin Christian treatise devoted to penance; in it he describes exomologesis, the course of confession and penitential works. Text in Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina I; English translation in the Fathers of the Church series.
13Saint Ambrose of Milan (c. 340–397), Expositio Evangelii secundum Lucam, Book X, commentary on Lk 22:54–62 (Peter's denial and tears). Latin text: "Lavant lacrimae delictum, quod voce pudor est confiteri […]. Lacrimae sine horrore culpam loquuntur, lacrimae crimen sine offensione verecundiae confitentur." Edition in Sources Chrétiennes, vol. II (no. 52); PL 15.
14Saint John Chrysostom (c. 349–407), Homilies on Penance (De paenitentia, preached at Antioch c. 386–387), PG 49, col. 285–286 (passage translated from the Greek): "Have you sinned? Come to church and wipe out your sin. Each time you fall while walking, you get up; likewise, each time you sin, repent. Do not despair […]. The Church is a hospital, not a court of law; it grants pardon, it does not demand an account for sin."
15Gospel according to Saint Luke 3:8 (RSV): "Bear fruits that befit repentance." Preaching of John the Baptist by the Jordan.
16Saint Basil of Caesarea (329–379), Small Ascetic Collection (ascetic extracts), Abbaye de Bellefontaine edition, 2013, p. 96: "For those who do penance, it is not enough, in order to be saved, to turn away from sin; they must still bear fruits worthy of penance." (Translated from the French edition.)
17Saint Basil of Caesarea, Small Ascetic Collection, Abbaye de Bellefontaine edition, 2013, p. 95: "Those who believe in the Lord must first do penance, in accordance with the preaching of John and of our Lord Jesus Christ himself; for those who do not do penance now are the object of a graver condemnation than those who were condemned before the Gospel." (Translated from the French edition.)
18Saint Augustine (354–430), Confessions, Book I, ch. 1, § 1: "Fecisti nos ad te, et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te." ("Thou hast made us for thyself, and our heart is restless until it rests in thee.") Reference edition: the Augustinian Bibliothèque augustinienne (Desclée de Brouwer) or the Penguin Classics translation.
19Saint Augustine, Confessions, Book X, ch. 29, § 40: "Da quod iubes et iube quod vis." ("Give what thou commandest, and command what thou wilt.") This formula on the grace needed for conversion outraged Pelagius, who heard it read at Rome c. 405 (cf. Augustine, On the Gift of Perseverance, 20, 53).
20Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), Summa Theologiae, IIIa, q. 85, a. 1–3: penance is a special virtue, distinct from the sacrament, by which one hates sin committed as an offense against God. Reference edition: English translation by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Benziger Bros.).
21Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, IIIa, q. 85, a. 3 ("Under which virtue should penance be ranged?"): penance is a part of justice — a justice called "relative," between an inferior and his superior, where the inferior "must do all that he can." Reference edition: English Dominican translation.
22Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, IIIa, q. 84, a. 8 ("On the duration of penance"): interior penance, which makes one weep for sin committed, "must last until the end of life"; only exterior penance (signs, confession, satisfaction) is measured by the gravity of sin.
23Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, IIIa, q. 90, a. 1–3: the three acts or parts of penance (as sacrament and as accomplished virtue) are contrition of the heart, confession of the lips, and satisfaction of works. Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1448 and §§ 1450–1460.
24Saint Jerome (347–420), Letter 130 to Demetrias, § 9 (c. 414): penance is the plank offered to those who have suffered shipwreck, while the virgin who remained intact saves the ship itself. The application of the image to baptism comes from the Council of Trent (cf. next note).
25Council of Trent, 6th session (13 January 1547), decree on justification, ch. 14 "Those who have fallen and their restoration" (DS 1542): the raising up of the sinner, "the second plank after the shipwreck which is the loss of grace"; 14th session (25 November 1551), Doctrine on the sacrament of penance, canon 2 (DS 1702): it is not right to deny that penance should be called the "second plank of salvation."
26Gospel according to Saint John 21:15 (RSV): "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" — the first of the three questions by which the Risen One repairs the triple denial and entrusts His flock to Peter (Jn 21:15–17).
27Gospel according to Saint Luke 7:47 (RSV): "Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much." Scene of the forgiven sinner at the house of Simon the Pharisee (Lk 7:36–50), traditionally associated in the West with Mary Magdalene.
28Saint Mary of Egypt (5th century), according to the Life attributed to Saint Sophronius of Jerusalem (c. 560–638): a courtesan of Alexandria converted at Jerusalem before the icon of the Mother of God, she lived forty-seven years of solitary penance in the desert beyond the Jordan. Her Life is read in the Byzantine liturgy of Great Lent (Thursday of the 5th week). Text in PG 87.
29Gospel according to Saint Luke 23:42 (RSV): "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." The word of the "good thief" crucified at Christ's right hand; tradition names him Dismas.
30Gospel according to Saint Luke 23:43 (RSV): "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise." Jesus' answer to the good thief.
31Saint Francis de Sales (1567–1622), Introduction to the Devout Life (1609), Part III, ch. 9 (on gentleness toward oneself): "We must therefore have a displeasure at our faults which is peaceful, settled, and firm […]. We chastise ourselves far better by quiet and constant repentances than by bitter, hasty, and angry ones." French original: "Il faut donc avoir un déplaisir de nos fautes qui soit paisible, rassis et ferme […]. Nous nous châtions bien mieux nous-mêmes par des repentances tranquilles et constantes que par des repentances aigres, empressées et colères."
32Saint Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, Part III, ch. 9: "As a father's remonstrances, made gently and lovingly, have far more power over a child to correct him than anger and wrath; so, when our heart has committed some fault, if we take it back with gentle and calm remonstrances, having more compassion for it than passion against it, […] the repentance it conceives will enter far deeper and pierce it better than would a spiteful, irritable, and stormy repentance."
33Saint Catherine of Siena (1347–1380), The Dialogue, Treatise on Discretion, ch. IX, § 2: words of the Eternal Father: "Virtue is the principal end; penance is but a means to attain it, and it must always be used only within the measure of what is possible. By leaning too much on penance, one harms one's perfection." French translation by E. Cartier.
34Saint Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue, ch. III, § 2 (the Treatise on Discretion begins only at ch. IX): "Satisfaction lies in the ardor of a soul which truly repents and which hates sin. Perfect contrition satisfies for fault and punishment, not by the pain one feels, but by the infinite desire one experiences." French translation by E. Cartier.
35Venerable Sister Maria Consolata Betrone (1903–1946), Capuchin Poor Clare of Turin, Jesus Speaks to the World (collection of her interior conversations), Éditions du Parvis, 1994, p. 87: word of Jesus of 22 November 1935 — "Do you want to do penance for your sins? Love me; let your penance be love."
36Saint Alphonsus Liguori (1696–1787), Preparation for Death, 36th Consideration ("Union of our will with the will of God"), 1st point: "[…] Our works, penances, communions, alms, please the Lord only on condition of being in conformity with His divine will; otherwise, they are no longer works of virtue, but defective works deserving punishment."
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