Feel Guilty? Do Penance.

Recently a priest I know preached on guilt, which sent me pondering that subject in light of my psychological studies.  His bringing up the widespread idea of Catholic guilt which he said he had not experienced (nor have I) reminded me of the distinction between true guilt (when one feels bad for doing something wrong) versus false guilt (feeling bad for something one has not done or simply for existing or any other irrational reason).

Now his proposed answer to guilt was simple and direct: do penance.

I have never heard it put in quite the way he expressed it: that guilt is one's conscience saying that justice has not been satisfied and therefore one ought to do penance until the guilt is gone, which means that justice has been satisfied.

Naturally that makes sense for true guilt.  If one has committed a wrong against another then doing penance to satisfy justice and make reparation for the harm done seems the best response.

What about for false guilt, however?  Often false guilt is taking on another person's guilt, so perhaps doing penance in response to false guilt might also be a way to satisfy justice.  Perhaps penance could be as satisfactory a way to remove that false guilt as unveiling the irrational beliefs that lead one to feel guilty without deserving those feelings of guilt.

I have no specific convictions here, but am merely pondering.  Here I must make one important caveat, however: this theory would hold true only so long as said penance was indeed penance and not self-punishment.  It is far too easy for one not in a healthy psychological frame of mind to undertake penance as a way to punish the self for not being good enough and consequently to view penance as making the self suffer, which is not at all the essence of penance.

What is penance then?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says the following:

1434 The interior penance of the Christian can be expressed in many and various ways. Scripture and the Fathers insist above all on three forms, fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, which express conversion in relation to oneself, to God, and to others. Alongside the radical purification brought about by Baptism or martyrdom they cite as means of obtaining forgiveness of sins: effort at reconciliation with one's neighbor, tears of repentance, concern for the salvation of one's neighbor, the intercession of the saints, and the practice of charity "which covers a multitude of sins."

1435 Conversion is accomplished in daily life by gestures of reconciliation, concern for the poor, the exercise and defense of justice and right, by the admission of faults to one's brethren, fraternal correction, revision of life, examination of conscience, spiritual direction, acceptance of suffering, endurance of persecution for the sake of righteousness. Taking up one's cross each day and following Jesus is the surest way of penance.

Charity and the Cross.  Those are the surest signs of true penance and two expressions of the same reality: following the example of Christ.

Anything therefore could be penance.  Saint Therese could pick up a pin for love of God, which is the essence of penance.  Even eating chocolate might be a form of penance.  Now that may seem strange, but some people have so many wounds from their childhood that they cannot love themselves and sometimes in order to believe that they are worthy of receiving good things and being loved by God they need to give themselves good things, such as chocolate.

Is it not beautiful how many opportunities we have to show God that we love Him—which is in the end what penance truly is?  There is nothing except sin that we cannot make a penance—an act of love for God who has loved us first.  That love then will cover a multitude of sins.

Mirror of the Soul

Sometimes it is far too easy to question the purpose of being an artist.  Why put hours upon hours upon hours into creating some flawed piece of writing or theatre when there are so many people starving to death across the world?  Why should I expect spending years of my life on a novel about pirates to be worth anything if I could have spent that time helping the poverty-stricken?  Why would people come to see a play I've written and produced when those in other countries are dying from martyrdom or disease?

Blessed Albert Chmielowski struggled mightily with a similar question.  He ultimately decided in favor of poverty, living with the poor in order to show them that they were loved.

Karol Wojtyla found inspiration in Blessed Albert's decision for his own journey from the arts to the priesthood and even enshrined the memory of that holy brother in a beautiful play titled Our God's Brother.  His decision led him down the path to become the much-loved Pope John Paul II.

With such mighty giants striding before, is there not great precedent for abandoning the arts for a greater call?

Yet the Church has ever encouraged the arts throughout the centuries.  If there is reason for the Church's support of art then it must be more than mere frivolity.  It must have an essential purpose—a teleological reason for existing.

It may seem odd to turn to a man who proclaimed himself an atheist for many years and whose later belief in God—if belief it was—seemed a peculiar cross between his Protestant upbringing and a study of Eastern religions, but truth is often found in strange places.  One may see the light and speak the truth without yet knowing it fully.  Without further ado, a quote from the well-known playwright:

"You use a glass mirror to see your face;

you use works of art to see your soul."

~George Bernard Shaw

There Shaw succinctly describes the reason we need art.  If we are to come to know ourselves in order that we may come to know God—the very reason for our existence—we must find somewhere a mirror to reflect back to us our very souls.  For there is found the image of God.

The artist then must delve deep, deep, deep into the darkest depths of the human heart.  If he would produce that glass that tells no lies, then he must fear nothing as he searches out the wounds of his own heart, sweeping out all the pains and evils into the light of day, hiding nothing in his creative effort.  No coward would face the discomfort of unveiling the reality hidden there.  Only a brave soul can stand face to face with the Truth.