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Myth #10 — Monastic Penance is Too Harsh

“I heard they sleep on the floor and use rocks for pillows!”

“You’ll ruin your health with all that fasting!”

“Can such a penitential life really be good for you?”

Among the most colorful “nun myths” are those that have to do with our lives of penance and self-denial. Popular imagination throughout the ages has painted a grim picture of the deprivations in store for any young woman unfortunate enough to find herself in a monastery. Nuns must be either stoically tough or hopelessly broken-down to deal with this kind of torture, mustn’t they?

A few days with any normal monastic community is enough to dispel these misconceptions, however. The joy and peace that so many notice on the faces and in the bearing of Sisters is not in spite of penance, but — paradoxically enough — because of it! In an age obsessed with pleasure and self-assertion, self-denial is hardly a popular ideal, but the experience of centuries of monks and nuns have proven that it is absolutely essential to finding true happiness.

The logic goes like this: since the Fall, we are all topsy-turvy inside. The parts of us that should be in control (our will and reason) are instead at the mercy of our emotions and desires (the “passions”). We’ve all experienced the frustration of wanting to do the right thing, but being pulled strongly in the opposite direction by unruly desires. We know it’s wrong … but it’s so hard to say no!

To help correct this tendency, the spiritual masters agree on the remedy: penance. Penance — any act of deliberate self-denial for the sake of God — is not about inflicting suffering on oneself. Rather, it’s about training our wills to choose a higher good. When we choose to give up something inherently good (like dessert, for instance) out of love for God, we exercise the “muscles” of our wills so that we’ll be stronger next time we are faced with an attractive but dangerous temptation.

Penance can also be part of intercession. In God’s mysterious plan, our little prayers and sacrifices can be joined with the redemptive Passion of Christ for the salvation of others. We could think of this “intercessory penance” in terms of Our Lord’s famous words: “Greater love than this no one has, that one lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” When we choose to “lay down our lives” even in small ways, the love motivating that act of self-denial has great power for the good of the world.

The specific forms of penance will vary in different Congregations, cultures, time periods, and individual monasteries, but all are based on these ideals. In our own community, penances include:

• Fasting and abstinence from meat (three days a week, plus all of Advent and Lent)

• The Offerings of the Precious Blood (prayed with extended arms for five minutes)

• Generous fidelity to the Rule and Constitutions, the Horarium, and our daily duties! These “everyday” penances can be some of the hardest, because they’re not exciting or extraordinary … but in God’s plan, these hidden acts of virtue can be incredibly powerful.

  
  

  “For the love of Christ, [the Passionist Nuns] generously embrace as their first work of conversion and penance the difficulties of daily life, together with ‘the practice of solid virtue, the imitation of Jesus Christ, the observance of the Rule, loving to be unknown, having equal love for all, doing everything in God’s presence,’ and ‘striving to be resigned to God’s Will in everything.’” (Constitutions #67)