Contrition

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“And behold, a woman that was in the city, a sinner, when she knew that he sat at the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment. And standing behind at his feet, she began to wash his feet with tears, and wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with ointment” (Luke 7:37-38).

This lady was identified very clearly as the sinner of the city. Sometimes, the Gospel is very clear on these things; there's a very graphic description of what is taking place.

“And she came in and she stood at his feet.” Whenever feet are mentioned in the Gospel, something very important is taking place.

She knew that she could not get close to Jesus—she could not get near the head, but she got near the feet. She, who had long followed the path of vice, was trying to follow in the footsteps marked by the holy feet of Christ.

She began to shed tears, which, St. Augustine says, are like “the blood of the heart” (St. Augustine, Confessions, Book V).

Then she washed the feet of Our Lord with the humble confession of her sins.

And so, this woman was full of contrition. This meditation is about contrition, which is a desire to be better. It’s not a feeling; it’s a desire.

We can ask Our Lord for the grace to have deeper desires of contrition, so that like this woman, we also come to have a very great awareness of how we have offended Him.

Sorrow for sin is not sorrow for having broken the law. Very often, when we break the law, we are not sorry; we are very happy. We can be delighted if we get away with it.

Sorrow for sin is not sorrow for having broken the law—but rather, sorrow for having hurt someone that we love.

This woman shows her sorrow in very concrete ways. We have to try and show our sorrow with our deeper desires to be better.

It leads us to want to use the means that God has given us to be better: first and foremost, regular Confession, exposure to the sacraments, the hunger for grace, particularly when we see our own weaknesses and our own nothingness. “Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man” (Luke 5:8).

From her depths of sorrow and repentance comes her faith, a faith that is a path that led her to that little piece of land at Our Lord’s feet—to the baptismal font—with the hope that the impossible could become a new life. This desire drives her to kneel before Him.

Our Lord knows what kind of woman is the one who is touching Him. She is a sinner. Simon, the Pharisee, also knows she is a sinner. But unlike him, she touches for love. She touches Him to hand Him her sin.

“The Pharisee who had invited him spoke within himself saying, ‘This man, if he were a prophet, would know surely who and what manner of woman this is that touches him—that she is a sinner’” (Luke 7:39).

The Pharisee immediately places distance between himself and the sinner—full of comparisons, judgments, pride. He shows an exterior hospitality, but it is not a hospitality of the heart.

She is the one who has the real hospitality. She opens her heart to Christ. She knows her absolute unworthiness. Her sins are there, obvious in her hands. She has touched death, and now she touches Life.

The true hospitality is not the one offered by Simon, but the one given by this sinner, and therefore, by each one of us.

Her hospitality was hospitality that was born of love. It is not an external behavioral act, but an act done by inner choices, dictated by love.

Simon's words opened only formally and externally the door of his heart to the Savior, while the tears of this sinful woman opened the door of her heart.

The heart is something very important in our faith. Our religion is a religion of the heart. “Come back to me with all your heart. Rend your heart and not your garments” (Joel 2:12-13). “God reads the heart” (Luke 16:15).

We ask Our Lord for a conversion of heart. “Take out this heart of stone and give me a heart of flesh” (cf. Ezek. 36:26).

There's a great comparison between the Pharisees—and we're all potential Pharisees—and this woman who comes to Him with authentic contrition, an authentic desire to change her life.

The public life of this sinful woman, the sinner of the city, changed because she knelt at the feet of Jesus. She experiences forgiveness, and also the peace in which to walk in the new life.

“And Jesus, answering, said to Simon, ‘I have something to say to you.’ And he said, ‘Master, say it.’

“‘A certain creditor had two debtors, the one who owed him 500 pence and the other, 50. And not having wherewith to pay, he forgave them both. Which therefore of the two loves him most?’

“Simon, answering, said, ‘I suppose, he to whom he forgave most.’ And He said to him, ‘You've judged rightly.’ And turning to the woman…” (Luke 7:40-44).

Very often in Scripture, Our Lord turns. He turns to the woman with the issue of blood, who's come to him with authentic faith (Luke 8:43-48). He turned away from the crowds and the multitudes (Matt. 14:23).

He turns towards Peter, looked upon him with love, sought him out with His most loving glance, in his lowest moments. “Peter went out and wept bitterly” (Luke 22:61-62).

He realized what he had done. He who was chosen to be the rock turns out to be rubble. This is the great moment of conversion in Peter's life. From here he goes on to become a great saint and a great apostle.

And so, our authentic contrition can lead us to that authentic conversion, to desire to improve, to desire to be better.

The Pharisee stops in the doorway of a true relationship of communion and remains imprisoned in the claim of the pretension of justice, of a man who considers himself a good person. It is so easy to be a Pharisee: to judge, to compare.

He believes himself to be without sin, and so no tear furrows his face. He judges, relying on the knowledge of the Scriptures, guided only by his criteria: those based on rules and commandments of men that have the pretension of correcting those of God.

Simon had the gift of sitting at the table with Him, but it's a formal presence with an attitude of superiority and sufficiency, that makes him forget the elementary rules of welcoming.

Our Lord was well brought up by Joseph and Mary. He missed these details.

“‘Do you see this woman?’ Our Lord said, ‘I entered your house, you gave me no water for my feet, but she with her tears has washed my feet and with her hair has wiped them. You gave me no kiss, but she since she came in has not ceased to kiss my feet’” (Luke 7:44-45).

Our Lord appreciates all these details—details of the heart that are manifested externally.

Pope St. John Paul II liked to say that we go to the great spiritual mysteries through physical signs and symbols. Those physical signs and symbols become very important: gestures, which behind them have deep attitudes of the heart—flowers on the altar, genuflections, holy water, concrete material things that express the deeper dispositions.

“‘My head with oil you did not anoint, but she with ointments has anointed my feet. Wherefore I say to you, many sins have forgiven her because she has loved much. But to whom less is forgiven, he loveth less.’ He said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven you’” (Luke 7:46-48).

These are among the most powerful words that Our Lord expresses in Scripture. “Your sins are forgiven you.”

There is no underlining that the only real evil is sin. The world presents us with all sorts of things as evils: lack of material things, unemployment, ill health, cancer, obesity. But none of these things are real evils because the only thing that can keep us out of heaven is sin.

We can ask Our Lord to deepen our hatred for sin—and not just a hatred for mortal sin, but as we progress in our spiritual life, hopefully, a hatred for venial sin—a refinement in our spiritual life.

It leads us to have this refinement of Mary Magdalene, who performed all these gestures which meant so much to Our Lord. They really reached His Heart.

A lady flew across the Atlantic in the early 1960s; she wanted to go to Confession to Padre Pio. She landed in Rome early on a Sunday morning, went to her hotel, felt tired and sleepy, so she decided she would lie down and take a nap.

She would catch a late morning Mass. There were no evening Masses in those days. But when she fell asleep, she slept the sleep of the just.

She woke up at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, having missed Mass. She knew she did not commit a mortal sin because she didn't mean to miss Mass.

The following day she went to Confession to Padre Pio and confessed her sins. When she was finished, he said to her, “Is that everything?”

And she said, “Yes.” He said, “Are you sure?”

She said “Yes.” He said, “What about yesterday when you flew across the Atlantic and you landed in Rome, and you went to a hotel and you lay down, and you slept the sleep of the just, and you woke up at 3 o'clock and you missed Mass?” He could read souls.

He said, “I know you did not mean to miss Mass. But your negligence hurt Our Lord.”

The saints functioned in the area of negligence—not just the mortal sins or the venial sins, but the little areas of carelessness.

When we go to Confession each week, maybe we also can examine our conscience about our little negligences. The refinement of love is there.

That effort to get back to Confession regularly is in itself an expression of contrition. Irrespective of how I feel, I want to be better. I want to improve.

And because I am aware of my own nothingness, I need all the grace that I can get. I expose myself regularly to that Niagara Falls of grace. Or that Victoria Falls that come in its abundance.

Where there is weakness, there's an abundance of grace to lift us up onto a new level.

We can ask Our Lord for that grace to grow in our contrition, so that like the prodigal son we can say, “I am not worthy to be called your son. I have sinned against heaven and before you” in all sorts of ways. I have wasted my time. I have wasted your graces. I have wasted my talents. “Treat me as one of your hired servants” (cf. Luke 15:22).

He does not demand anything. He does not enter into a negotiation with his father. It is total humility. I am not worthy of anything. And the father is so great; he restores him to his original dignity.

Blessed Álvaro del Portillo liked to tell the story of the guy who went to Confession: He was told to go and get a glass and fill it with water to have his sins forgiven.

He thought this a very easy penance, and so he went to a tap, and he tried to fill the glass with water, but it would not fill.

Then he went to a stream, and he tried to fill it there, but it would not fill there either. Then he went to a river and tried to fill it with a river, but somehow the glass would not fill.

Finally, he went to the ocean. But even there the glass still would not fill. He realized, ‘It seems to be impossible for this glass to be filled.’

He went back to the sand, and he fell on the sand, and he began to weep, because he realized his sins could not be forgiven. As he wept, his tears fell into the glass, and the glass got filled. And so, his sins were forgiven.

Authentic contrition—authentic sorrow that is manifested in deeds.

St. Augustine says it is not a question of weeping over our wretchedness, but of being willing to get up out of it. Being willing.

Lord, strengthen my will. Give me fortitude in the will. My desire to be better leads me to use the means more, to savor those means that we've been given, to love them, to thank God for them, to turn to them in all sorts of ways.

When a sheep falls into a mucky pond, it gets up out of it. The pig stays there. Love of self and complacency and our own excellence are often so great, that even unconsciously, we can make ourselves the center of the universe.

That's what the Pharisee did. He was the judge. He knew everything. His pride blinds him.

Another Pharisee fasted on the appointed days, but whose heart was so puffed up with pride that his prayer amounted to nothing more than praise of self and scorn for his neighbor, did not have a spirit of humility and contrition and therefore was not justified by God (Luke 18:10-14).

“Why,” says St. Teresa of Avila, “do we shrink from interior mortification—of our ego, our will, our judgment—since this is how every other kind of mortification may become more meritorious and perfect, and may be practiced with greater tranquility and ease?” (St. Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection).

As long as our mortification does not strike at our pride, it remains at the halfway mark, and never really reaches its goal.

Contrition that is authentic leads to a purpose of amendment: I want to improve. I want to be better. I want to begin again. We live in the land of beginning again, of starting over.

What pains Our Lord most may often be our lack of sorrow, the sorrow of love, for having offended that person that we love.

“The soldiers therefore came and they broke the legs of the first, and of the other that was crucified with him. But after, they were to come to Jesus, when they saw that he was already dead.

“They did not break his legs, but one of the soldiers with a spear opened his side, and immediately there came out blood and water. And he that saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true” (John 19:32-35).

He knows that what he said was true. Pope Benedict XVI comments, “The beloved disciple, present with Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and the other women in Calvary, was an eyewitness of the thrust of the spear which pierced Christ's side so that blood and water came out.

“This gesture of an unknown Roman soldier, destined to be lost in oblivion, was imprinted on the eyes and heart of the apostle, who had recounted it in his Gospel.”

He says, “In the course of the centuries, how many conversions have taken place precisely thanks to the eloquent message of love that he receives who contemplates Jesus crucified.” Therefore, we need to have “our gaze fixed on that side of Christ” (Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus, Feb. 26, 2007).

In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI chose as the theme for Lent those words, “They shall look upon him whom they have pierced” (John 19:37).

We have also pierced the side of Christ with our negligence and our carelessness, our lack of awareness of the gift of God. “If you knew the gift of God...” (John 4:10).

That can lead us to a deeper thanksgiving for all the graces that God gives to us, day by day, hour by hour, year by year, and ask Him to lift us up onto a new plane.

Lift us up like little children, to have a greater refinement—refinement and sorrow of love, so that we follow this pathway of Mary Magdalene, who later on in the Gospel is going to win an Oscar on Easter Sunday morning.

She cannot sleep. There's a hole in her heart. Pope St. John Paul II says, “Every person has a chasm in the human heart.”

That sense of loss of Christ leads her to get up early and go to the tomb when everybody else is asleep. The story of the Resurrection could start with St. Peter, or Our Lady, or some very important personality.

But it starts with the sinner who learned how to love. She represents the whole of sinful humanity. She represents each one of us.

We are told in The Way of the Cross, “So much wretchedness! So many offenses! Mine, yours, those of all mankind. ... I, like all men, came into the world stained with the guilt of our first parents. And then...my own sins: rebellions, thought about, desired, committed...

“To purify us of this rottenness, Jesus willed to humble himself and take on the form of a slave (cf. Phil 2:7), becoming Incarnate in the spotless womb of Our Lady, his Mother, who is also your Mother and mine.

“He spent thirty years in obscurity, working as any other man, at Joseph's side. He preached. He worked miracles...and we repaid him with the Cross” (Josemaría Escrivá, The Way of The Cross, Fourth Station).

In The Forge, we are told, “Although it pains us to admit it—and I ask God to increase that sorrow in us—you and I have our share in the death of Christ. For the sins of men were the hammer-blows which stitched him to the Cross with nails” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 550). And so, Lord, help me to see.

In one of his documents on memory and reconciliation, Pope St. John Paul II said, “Acknowledging the weaknesses of the past is an act of honesty and courage” (John Paul II, Tertio millennio adveniente, Nov. 10, 1994).

We too have to examine our past life and see the many reasons we have for starting over. “Unless a man is born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven” (John 3:5).

Acts of sorrow, love-sorrow, and of contrition can be frequently on our lips. “A humble and contrite heart, O Lord, you will not spurn" (Ps. 51:17).

“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me, a sinner!” (Luke 18:38)—acknowledging our weakness, so that our heart flies there.

We can show that contrition in concrete ways, with little sacrifices—all the occasions for physical or moral suffering permitted by divine providence, sufferings that may accompany some illness or some fatigue, the effort required by the performance of our duties, by a life of intense labor; the beginning again; the going back to our work, and to little problems that may be waiting for us; the privations imposed by a state of detachment.

All these can be excellent physical penances. Accept them wholeheartedly, because that is what God wants.

A great devotion on this particular day would be to make more frequent acts of contrition, thanking God for the fact that we have the practice of a regular Confession: the greatest act of contrition.

“Do not be surprised,” we are told, “that though the virtuous man falls seven times, he stands up again” (Ps. 24:16).

In our spiritual battle, there will always be failures. But we should immediately react to our mistakes, to errors, making an act of contrition, which will come to our heart and our lips as quickly as blood rushes to a wound, fighting successfully against a foreign body, the germ of infection.

Lord, help me to see in my life the many lacks of love, the little negligences, the need for more contrition and to start over; to have a stronger interior life, full of that joy and peace.

From the words of St. Peter, we can gain a lot of serenity and peace: “Lord, you know all things. You know that I love you” (John 21:17).

I may make many mistakes. I may put my foot in it from time to time. I may forget things. I may make a complete mess of things. But “You know all things. You know that I love you.”

You know that I am trying. You know that I want to try again. I want to start over. That act of contrition can be a great moment in our life for a new beginning.

Our Lady “stood beside the Cross” (John 19:25), as though making up for the whole of humanity, co-redeeming, becoming the Mediatrix of Graces, standing there full of fortitude, as though inviting the whole of humanity to learn from her how to stand beside the Cross, the little crosses that God may send us, with a real act of love-sorrow with our deeds.

We ask Our Lady that she might help us to grow in that spirit of contrition that we see in her heart at the foot of the Cross.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

NJF