In a Lenten sermon, the Holy Curé of Ars leads us to rethink the meaning we give to penance.

Editorial (03/14/2024 16:41, Gaudium Press) Why, my brothers and sisters, do we feel so much repugnance for penance and so little sorrow for our sins? Unfortunately, it is because we do not know the outrages that sin inflicts on Jesus Christ, nor the evils it prepares us for eternity.

We are convinced that, after sin, it is inevitably necessary to do penance. But look at what we do: we postpone it, as if we were the masters of time and God’s grace. Woe to us, my brothers, who among us, being in sin, would not tremble to know that we do not have a certain moment? […]

What should we take from this, my brothers and sisters? Since it is necessary, out of all necessity, to weep for our sins and do penance — in this world or the next — let us choose the less rigorous and the shorter one: [that of this world!]

What a pity, my brothers and sisters, to reach the hour of death without having done anything to satisfy the justice of God! What a misfortune to have lost so many means as we had: when we suffered some miseries, if we had accepted them for God, they would have earned us forgiveness! What a misfortune to have lived in sin, always hoping to be freed from it, and to die without having done so! Let us, then, follow another path that will be more comforting for us at that moment: let us stop doing evil; let us begin to lament our sins and suffer everything that the good God wants to send us […], so that we may have the joy of uniting with Him for all eternity. This is what I wish for you.

Extracted from: VIANNEY, Jean-Baptiste Marie. Selected Sermons. Seville: Editorial Apostolado Mariano, 2009, Vol. I, pp. 209-235.

Compiled by Gustavo Kralj