Last week, I mentioned the seminar I taught this past semester about the sacrament of marriage. I also taught a course about the sacrament of penance. (I learned to be careful when describing my course load to make clear that those were, in fact, two different courses and not a sly commentary on marriage!)
The sacrament of penance has a fascinating history, and the way in which it has been practiced over the centuries has varied more than perhaps any other sacrament. A major theme of the class, however, was that the sacrament itself is not the only way that Christians practice penance. As Thomas Aquinas pointed out (in the Summa Theologiae III q. 85), penance is not only a sacrament but also a virtue. He didn’t come up with that particular insight himself, of course, but was summarizing the theological tradition before him.
Continue reading “The Virtue of Penance”
Tony Lusvardi, S.J. 