Penance and Repentance

Generally, Catholic Tradition uses the two terms penance and repentance interchangeably, but they do in fact have slightly different meanings, although it should be articulated that in practice the two realities ought not to be divorced from each other.

1. Penance refers to the Sacrament of Confession and to the offering of the penitent to God as a sign and symbol of repentance. We offer to God a penance, a sign or token of our love for God, of our sorrow for having offended His love through sin, and of our desire to amend our lives and turn from sin, according to the assignment of the priest in the internal forum of sacramental Confession. More generally, Christians should live lives not only of repentance, turning from sin and seeking to live holier and better, but penance, offering sacrifices and mortifications to God in order to achieve union with the Crucified Lord. Penance indicates a willingness to offer all the natural and inevitable sufferings and difficulties of our mortal lives in union with Jesus Christ so that we may be more deeply conformed to the Life and Sacrifice of the Saviour. We are called to 'offer it up,' thereby making our lives and sacrifices a sacramental representation of the Lord Jesus in the world, and allowing ourselves to participate personally and actively in the work of Christ's Redemption for all mankind: 'Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church' (Colossians 1.24). No longer must human beings endure evil in vain. In Christ, our Penance makes our experience of evil redemptive and even salvific, for ourselves and others. In Penance, natural suffering is totally transformed into supernatural communion with the Incarnate. Penance signifies our amendment of life and our will to transform and be transformed in the spiritual life, by sacrificing something of ourselves to Christ, thus being joined to Him more deeply and profoundly in the Cross of Calvary. 'Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus' (Philippians 2.5-11). The Lord Jesus calls us to conform our wills to His will of perfect love and obedience to the Father. A life of penance is a life of continual conversion and sanctification.

2. Repentance means 'to change the mind.' Metanoia, the Greek New Testament word, literally means to change one's mind, to turn one's heart to God. 'Contrition in the heart, confession on the lips, and amendment in the life' is the meaning of repentance. An Australian priest once described repentance as 'hanging a U,' making a purposeful U-turn away from sin and self and towards God. There can be no genuine penance, or self-emptying, self-oblation in humility, in union with Our Lord's perfect kenosis and self-offering, without genuine repentance, the deliberate forsaking of sin and the committed desire to obey God's holy will and commandments. We are called to repent and believe the Good News - 'repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.' Repentance is itself an ongoing process of abandoning evil and finding renewal and restoration to communion with God by His grace; real repentance should happen at every moment of lives, and is essential for growing and advancing in grace and in holiness. 'I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me' (Galatians 2.20).

As you can see, the two realities are distinguished, but only intellectually in truth, and should be held together in the Christian life. The two together make a formidable weapon against the world, the flesh and the devil, and should constitute the heart of one's approach to God.