Four Holy Habits | Friday Penance

We do penance on Fridays because it's on Friday that we remember the Lord's passion and death.

We remember with particular devotion his mortification, his sacrifice, his suffering, which led to our salvation.

When Jesus' death, the Father takes the worst possible thing that could have happened, the death of his Son, and transforms it into the greatest of all possible outcomes, the resurrection.

In the Gospels, the Pharisees criticize Jesus and his disciples for not observing the Judaic law regarding fasting.

And the Lord's answer to that criticism is very illustrative.

He says, how can the friends and guests of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? The bridegroom will be taken away one day, and on that day, they will fast.

So in that moment, the Lord links fasting, penance, mortification as a way for us to open up in anticipation the fullness of the life to come in heaven.

So when I sate myself with food, with drink, with sensual pleasures, with materialism, I'm trying to fill that God-shaped hole in my heart with something less than God.

So to fast from excess, to give up something for Lent, to embrace some form of mortification or penance is to acknowledge the fact that we're not in heaven yet, that we're anticipating the fullness of the bridegroom's triumph in the glory of heaven.

And so there's something about our life on earth that needs penance, that needs mortification to strengthen our spirit and to bolster our perfection of Christian virtue.

We do penance on Fridays because it's on Friday that we remember the Lord's passion and death.

We remember with particular devotion his mortification, his sacrifice, his suffering, which led to our salvation.

When Jesus' death, the Father takes the worst possible thing that could have happened, the death of his Son, and transforms it into the greatest of all possible outcomes, the resurrection.

In the Gospels, the Pharisees criticize Jesus and his disciples for not observing the Judaic law regarding fasting.

And the Lord's answer to that criticism is very illustrative.

He says, how can the friends and guests of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? The bridegroom will be taken away one day, and on that day, they will fast.

So in that moment, the Lord links fasting, penance, mortification as a way for us to open up in anticipation the fullness of the life to come in heaven.

So when I sate myself with food, with drink, with sensual pleasures, with materialism, I'm trying to fill that God-shaped hole in my heart with something less than God.

So to fast from excess, to give up something for Lent, to embrace some form of mortification or penance is to acknowledge the fact that we're not in heaven yet, that we're anticipating the fullness of the bridegroom's triumph in the glory of heaven.

And so there's something about our life on earth that needs penance, that needs mortification to strengthen our spirit and to bolster our perfection of Christian virtue.