theneener

Penance.

By neener | May 30, 2007

I grew up going to Catholic church and there was this seemingly strange set of actions we would do on occasions - we would go to a small room, lay out all our wrongdoings to the mystery man behind the screen, then go back to the sanctuary and then go through our penance. I came to know this routine fairly well (as our church was full of routines) and no matter what I would say, I knew my penance would be the same: five “Our Fathers” aka “The Lord’s Prayer.”

This process never jived with me because I was still ridden with guilt and shame, but on the surface level, I liked it. I liked that I could screw up big time, just confess it to the mystery man (who was usually our priest, duh, we only had one), say a prayer five times and be clean again.

But now I know different. I know it’s not about what I do or could ever do. Now when I screw up, I have to rely on faith and grace to cover that up. It jives with me more than my legalistic upbringing, but every day I forget. I forget that when I screw up, there’s nothing I can do to ultimately rectify what I did. I could apologize and perform acts of kindness ’til I’m blue in the face, but what I screwed up happened and there’s no going back.

This is where I have to let go. I have to realize there is no penance and that God’s grace covers all my muckups, even the ones I refuse to forgive myself for. It’s almost like I want to hold on to my darkness until there’s something I can do about it. But I can’t. There’s been no human being that was able to fix all of their problems (which really renders self-help books and American psychology useless) so why do I insist I can do this?

I don’t think Jesus died on the cross so I could be held prisoner by my own guilt and shame.

As Martin Luther said (as retold by Derek Webb in explaining his song, “Nobody Loves Me“):

Luther was once asked at his church why, week after week, all he preached was the Gospel. Luther’s reponse was, “Well, because week after week you forget it. Until you walk in here looking like people who are truly liberated by the truth of the Gospel, I’m going to keep on preaching it to you.”

Tags: grace, guilty, martin luther, repentance, truth

Seeking Truth

5 Comments

By Courtney, May 31, 2007 @ 10:30 am

guilt?? what do you feel guilty for???
By neener, May 31, 2007 @ 11:08 am

Among a laundry list of things: Throwing away something beautiful. Feeling soley responsible for the decline of someone’s heart. Not thinking through my decisions and not sure if I’m strong enough to own up to them. Throwing mud into the face of someone that had shown me a great amount of grace in the past. Being unable to communicate how much I love someone.

Is my guilt not valid?

I’ve been begging for a penance, but I know that ultimately, it won’t solve a thing.
By Courtney, May 31, 2007 @ 12:26 pm

I guess it is valid… is my anger not valid… sometimes i wanna punch you in the face like you wanna punch time warner… is that not valid???
By neener, May 31, 2007 @ 3:22 pm

True. I’ve never said I didn’t understand your anger, but I’ve definitely underestimated it.

Could that be my penance? A good face pummeling? Like I said, it won’t ultimately fix anything, but at least you’d feel better, yeah? Time Warner will give me money back for time lost and free movie channels, but I’m afraid I have nothing to offer to you that is of worth. Unless you want to come over and watch my movie channels.