Published 12.09.2022.
taken from his book “Mass and the Sacraments”
“Contrition is pain or grief of mind and detestation of sin committed, with the firm purpose of sinning no more” (Council of Trent).
Contrition is the most necessary part of our preparation for the reception of the Sacrament of Penance. Without contrition no sin is ever forgiven. Hence the act of contrition must be made before confession or at least before absolution is given.
2. Contrition Is an Act of the Will. – The penitent turns away from sin, detests it, regrets that he committed it, and is resolved to make satisfaction for it and to avoid it in future. Such an act of the will presupposes the knowledge that sin is an evil. Hence if we wish to become truly contrite we must think of the malice of sin and its dreadful consequences. An act of the intellect must precede the act of the will.
3. Our contrition, and therefore also our purpose of amendment, must be interior, universal, supreme and supernatural. –
a) Our contrition is interior if we detest sin in our hearts as the greatest of all evils and sincerely wish we had never committed it. “Rend your hearts and not your garments,” says the prophet (Joel 2,13). […]
b) Our contrition is universal if it covers all our mortal sins without exception. If we have only venial sins to confess, we must be truly sorry for at least one of them, otherwise our confession will be null and void. […]
c) Our contrition is supreme if we are resolved not to commit a mortal sin for the love or fear of anything whatsoever.
d) Our contrition is supernatural if it is produced by the grace of God and founded on motives which faith makes known to us, e.g., if we are sorry for our sins because by them we have offended God, lost Heaven, and deserved Hell. If we were sorry for our sins only because they brought disgrace or temporal loss of some kind upon us, our sorrow would be merely natural sorrow and of no avail for our salvation.
Supernatural contrition may be imperfect or perfect. – If we are sorry for our sins because we fear that God will punish us for them, our contrition is imperfect (attrition). It is imperfect because it is not born of the highest motive of love. “He that feareth is not perfected in love” (1 John 4,18). If, on the other hand, we are sorry because we have offended God, who is infinitely good and who is our greatest benefactor and most loving Father, our contrition is perfect. “Perfect love casteth out fear” (1 John 4,18)
[…]
Perfect contrition at once blots out all mortal sins, even before we confess them, – just as the ten lepers were cured on their way to the priests. “He that loveth Me, shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him” (John 14,21).
Hence if we ever have the misfortune to fall into deliberate sin, we should make an act of perfect contrition immediately. Of course we are still bound to go to confession, in order to fulfill the ordinary law, and we should do so reasonably soon. When others are in danger of death, and no priest is present, we should help them to make acts of perfect contrition. “Perfect contrition is the key of Heaven.”
We should always strive after perfect contrition for our sins. But who can say with certainty that his contrition is perfect? Therefore imperfect contrition must suffice for the reception of the Sacrament of Penance. “Imperfect contrition,” says the Council of Trent, “though it cannot of itself, without the Sacrament of Penance, justify the sinner, yet disposes him to receive divine grace in the Sacrament of Penance.”
4. Our contrition must be accompanied with a firm purpose of amendment. – We must resolve:
a) To avoid all sin, at least all mortal sins;
b) To shun the proximate occasion of sin and to use the means which are necessary for our amendment;
c) To perform our penance and to repair, as far as possible, any injury caused by our sin.
If we have only venial sins, we must firmly resolve to avoid them or at least to lessen their number.
By a proximate occasion of sin we mean anything that is likely to lead us into sin, such as bad companions, bad amusements, bad reading. “He that loveth danger shall perish in it” (Ecclus. 3,27).
If we are not resolved to avoid mortal sin or its proximate occasion we have no true contrition; we make a bad confession and the absolution is of no use to us.