This post might seem more appropriate for the Lent. However, Advent is also a penitential season in the Church. We tend to forget that because of all the gifts, shopping, parties, and food during this time. But just like Lent, Advent should be a time of penance in preparation for the holy day of Christmas.
Here in this article by “penance,” I do not mean the Sacrament of Penance, also known as the Sacrament of Reconciliation. By “penance,” I mean those spiritual works we do after we repent of sin.
I have often puzzled about the true meaning of penance. For many years, it felt like it was some kind of spiritual punishment. After we receive absolution in Reconciliation, we do our penance. For many people this feels like the spiritual debt that we pay for our sins. Sadly, that is how I treated penance for many years of my life.
But the idea of penance being spiritual punishment doesn’t quite jibe with our faith. Christ paid the debt of sin on the cross. We therefore do not earn our salvation by contributing to the payment of that debt. That isn’t to say there isn’t a need for reparation. All sin causes damage to the community. That damage, even if forgiven, needs to be repaired. If I break old Mrs. Krestel’s window while playing stickball in the street, I have an obligation to repair the damage done, even if she forgives me.
This is partly the meaning of penance. When sin has been done, there must be something done to repair in the world that which is damaged. I was speaking with a priest recently about one of his mission trips. While he was there, someone had desecrated the Blessed Sacrament at one of his churches. When Rome reached out to them regarding what needed to be done, one of the things that was required was that the entire community do penance. To be clear, the person who desecrated the Eucharist was apparently outside of this community. Nevertheless, the Vatican said that the community was required to do penance for the outrage. The penance was partial done because the community had failed to properly evangelize or witness to the perpetrator.
But the main purpose of penance is to live out your holiness.
In penance, I live out the life of Christ in me. When I do this, I voluntarily take up the cross. I don’t do this so that I can “earn” credit towards my salvation. Instead, by doing this I am uniting myself to Jesus, my Savior. And in doing so, I make my life more like His.
A penance can be passive. For example, fasting during Lent is a way to passively not partake in our desire for food. We can also passively accept some trouble or misfortune that comes our way and offer it up in union with the cross.
But you can also have an active penance. In this way, you can take on an activity like feeding the hungry or visiting the sick. The missionary priest I mentioned earlier asked his community what penance they wanted to do. They chose to perform an ancient tradition where each person picked the heaviest stone they could carry and bring it up the nearby mountain. He said that this penance was done as a community and the event was actually quite joyous. In carrying the penance together, the whole community drew closer to the joy of God.
And key to penance is that it should be done for God. This means that if you take up a penance of cleaning, it should be done as if you are doing it for God. This particular penance would be difficult for me, because my method of cleaning is basically to shove everything in a closet or cover it with a blanket. If I did it as a penance, I wouldn’t do it in such a slip-shod manner. Instead, I put all of my best efforts because I am not cleaning for myself, but for God.
A penance can be many things: it can be fasting, writing letters to the homebound, gardening, giving an hour of your expertise to help anohter, working a food bank, going to mass at a shrine, attending a funeral mass for someone, memorizing a new prayer, studying a book of the Bible, wake up at an early hour to prayer, a technology fast, domestic cleaning, going out of your way to help someone feel special, going on pilgrimage, etc. As you can see, there are many varied ways to live out your holiness so you can find one that is best at bringing your closer to God.
There are three things a penance should have:
1. A beginning and an end time:
When taking on a penance, if you keep it open-ended, it could end up going on forever. Unless you have a good reason to do so, it is important to have an ending in mind. This is why we have specific seasons of penance in the Church (Advent and Lent). Even penitential practices like abstaining from meat is reserved the beginning of Friday until the end of Friday.
2. A sense of growth:
The process of penance, like that of exercise, should lead some growth. In exercise, we see a growth in health. In study, we see a growth in wisdom. In penance, we should see a growth in holiness. Even if the penance is something simply like cleaning a bathroom, doing it for the Lord should help us grow closer to Him. I am reminded of the St. Theresa of the Child Jesus who would do little things like pick up rubbish on the ground and say, “Jesus, I do this for love of You.”
3. A sense of completion:
This is similar to the first point. But here, we mean that when the penance is complete, something should be accomplished. In the example above with the missionary priest, the community accomplished the goal of taking the rocks up the mountain. If you penance is cleaning, you will know your penance is complete when the room is clean. As with any task, a sense of completion reinforces the lessons of the penance.
As we prepare for the coming of Christ at Christmas, let us enter into the Advent in preparation. Let us remember that Christ was not only born in that stable in Bethlehem, but He is born into each of our hearts this season.
Copyright 2025, WL Grayson
W.L. Grayson
I am a devoutly Catholic theology teacher who loves a popular culture that often, quite frankly, hates me. I grew up absorbing every movie, TV show, comic book, science fiction novel, etc. I could find. As of today I’ve watched over 2100 movies and tv shows. They take up a huge part of my life. I don’t know that this is a good thing, but it has given me a common vocabulary to draw from in order to illustrate whatever theological point I make in class. I’ve used American Pie the song to explain the Book of Revelation (I’ll post on this some time later) and American Pie the movie to help explain Eucharist (don’t ask). The point is that the popular culture is popular for a reason. It is woven into the fabric of our lives and imaginations, for good or ill. In this blog I will attempt to bring together the things of heaven with the things of earth. Of course this goal may be too lofty for someone like me.
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