Transformation in Christ_ On the Christian Attitude - Dietrich Von Hildebrand [19]
What is the essence, however, of true penitence?
Bad conscience is not the same as contrition
There exists a kind of bad conscience which must be sharply distinguished from penitence. We can well imagine a sinner who, without being really penitent, suffers from a guilty conscience. He is oppressed with pangs of conscience: he is aware of acting badly, and that awareness disturbs his peace and deprives him of inner harmony. Yet, he still refuses to capitulate; he seeks to benumb his conscience, and clings to solidarity with his sins. This kind of sinner is typified by Macbeth, while sinners like Richard III or Don Giovanni are not bothered by remorse at all. But remorse as such may involve no metanoia, no change of heart. In spite of his bad conscience, a man may refuse to shift his position: he may persevere in deliberate identity with himself as the author of his sins and, much though they oppress him, heap new sins upon the old ones. He may harden his heart against remorse, being loath to reverse his path.
Contrition requires a repudiation of our past sins
In contradistinction to that attitude of soul, true penitence means a definite revulsion from one’s sins, and active repudiation of them. It means a disavowal of the past, a relinquishment of one’s former position with its implication of sinning. He who is seized by contrition repudiates his former self, and abandons his former position completely. He quits the fortress of self-assertion, and casts off his armor. He humiliates himself, and submits to the voice of his conscience. The very disharmony which reigns in his soul will be changed in its quality when he experiences contrition. The dull, passive feeling of depression, poisoned with the note of inner discord and disintegration that results essentially from sin as such, will yield its place to the vivid pain with which the person now reacts to his sin. His heart is transpierced by that pain; but at the same time it is already illuminated by a ray of yearning toward the Good.
Contrition implies that we not only deplore the sin we have committed but condemn it expressly, denouncing, as it were, our allegiance to it. We would revoke the wrong we have perpetrated. But immediately the consciousness of our impotence to do so will dawn upon us: for we are not at liberty to undo the guilt engendered by our deed. We feel clearly that our change of heart and our new orientation are unable to dissolve the sin and to erase the guilt. Therefore, unless it implies hope for God’s mercy, contrition must lead to despair. Judas’ contrition was of this kind.
Contrition involves our surrender to God’s mercy
In true Christian penitence, there is always present a positive relation to God, grafted on the negation of sin. It forms in us an attitude of self-effacement before God, and of surrender to Him. We are willing to do penance and to make atonement for our sins; we offer ourselves to God so as to receive our just punishment, whatever it be, from His hands. Moreover, we seize, as it were, the spear of atonement that is to transfix us, and cooperate with the gesture that represents God’s reaction to our sins. Yet, confiding in God’s mercy which will open to us the path of reconciliation with Him, and believing in His power to erase all guilt of sin, we also ask in penitence for His forgiveness.
True penitence makes appeal to God’s mercy, and solicits from Him the forgiveness of sin. While the Christian knows that penitence by itself is unable to abolish the guilt, he also knows that “the Lamb of God hath taken away all sins”; and that for Christ’s sake a merciful and almighty God, Who alone has the power of absolving from guilt, will pardon all who with a contrite heart confess their guilt unto Him.