Penance

I'm sure most of you are not familiar with this word. It means to "repent of sins". The root of the word means "the desire to be forgiven". Many of us in today's world feel that a little (very little) time in prayer, maybe without even stopping what we're doing, confessing our sin and asking for forgivnenss is enough. In it's simplest form,that might be called repentance but not penance.

Penance is an active word, you have to do something to show God and perhaps the world that you regret what you have said or done. In earlier times one way a monk might do penance is a "crosfigel". This calls for them to stand or kneel with their arms outstretched in the form of a cross while they prayed a certain number of the Psalms. Not just verses, whole chapters and lots of them. If you don't think your legs, knees and especially arms would get tired, just try it for 5 minutes. Once you spend some time in this position you would come to appreciate that they felt forgivness was not to be taken lightly.

While I don't think we need to take it to that extreme, I do often wonder if we really understand how much it means to receive God's forgiveness for sin. We know the price Christ paid for our sin but we don't make it personal. He died all those years ago for things that I am doing right now, or will do in the future. With all the people who have lived and died over these years, that burden is unimaginable. Given the fact that Christ willingly paid the price, shouldn't we be willing to spend more time in the act of repenting? I don't want you to wallow in guilt, I want you to take the time to understand the consequences of your actions and then ask God to wipe it away. He will, gladly...oh, and don't forget to say Thank you!