If Our Sins Are Forgiven in Confession, Why Do We Get a Penance?

05-17-2026Weekly ReflectionFr. Leonard F. Villa

Satisfaction is the final act which crowns the Sacrament of Confession. The sacramental sign is the absolution of our sins by Jesus through His priest. The act which the forgiven and absolved penitent agrees to perform after receiving absolution is precisely called his or her penance. Making satisfaction is the third act of the penitent, after contrition for sins and the confession of sins. Absolution does not take away all the disorder sin has caused: harm to self and to neighbor. This must be healed in this life or in the life to come.

All sin has two consequences: it either kills (mortal sin) or weakens (venial sin) the life of grace, which is our union with God the Blessed Trinity, whereby He dwells in the Christian and makes the Christian a temple of the Holy Spirit. All sin leaves a wound. This wound is the continued, unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified. In other words, our love for God must be purified of rival loves which exist in opposition to Him and harm our relationship with Him. There will remain also a certain facility for making wrong judgments and a certain disorder in sensual desires. These are the weakened scars of actual sin and the disordered tendencies left in man by original sin, which are brought to a head by our personal sins.

It is not enough to remove the arrow from the body, says Saint John Chrysostom; we also have to heal the wound caused by the arrow. It is the same with the soul: after we have received forgiveness for our sins, we have to heal the wound that remains through penance or satisfaction for sin. There still remains in the Christian, after absolution, a dark area due to the wound of sin, to the imperfection of love in repentance, and to the weakening of the spiritual faculties. It is an area in which there still operates an infectious source of sin which must always be fought with mortification and penance.

Saint Paul the Apostle tells us what mortification means: “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5). For all of these reasons we must put a lot of love into fulfilling the penance the priest gives us before granting absolution. It is usually easy to perform and, if we really love God, we will be aware of the great disparity there is between our sins and the penance we have been given. It is yet another reason for increasing our spirit of penance, especially during Lent, when the Church calls us to it in a special way.

We are aided in making satisfaction for our sins through indulgences. An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins already forgiven, which the faithful Christian, duly disposed, can gain under certain prescribed conditions. It is either plenary or partial. The temporal punishment due to sin is an unhealthy attachment to creatures and the tendency to commit the sin again. However, we do not go it alone in our need to make up for our sins! Every Christian is joined to Christ, and he or she is joined to all the other Christians who make up the Body of Christ, the family of the Church, including those being purified in Purgatory and the angels and saints in Heaven. Hence there is an everlasting link of love which joins all Christians together. In this exchange, the holiness of one profits the other.

This holiness includes Christ’s merits and all the spiritual goods of all the members of Christ’s Body, especially the prayers and good works of the Virgin Mary and the saints. They are truly immense and pristine in their value before God, a treasury of holiness. The Church, through her power to bind and loose in Christ’s name, through an indulgence, gives the Christian a special share in the treasury of holiness of the Church to help heal his or her own wounds from sin, which can also be applied to those being purified in the afterlife in the state called Purgatory. Hence indulgences involve shared love flowing from the mercy of God which heals. The plenary indulgence heals all the wounds of our sins. The partial indulgence heals those wounds partially. Every day in our morning prayer we should make the intention to God to gain any and all indulgences attached to our prayers, devotions, and good works.

The Church grants indulgences for various activities or special occasions. A book called the Enchiridion of Indulgences contains many grants of indulgences to benefit the spiritual lives of Catholics. For example, a plenary indulgence is granted for the public praying of the prayer Veni Creator Spiritus (“Come Holy Ghost”) on January 1. From November 1–8, Catholics can gain a plenary indulgence for a soul in Purgatory by visiting a cemetery.

Indulgences are part of the Catholic faith and they form part of the instruction on the Sacrament of Confession (see the Catechism of the Catholic Church §1471 and following).

In approaching the Sacrament of Confession, three acts of the penitent are involved:

1. Contrition – whereby the penitent expresses sorrow for sin.
   Note: Perfect contrition arises from a love by which God is loved above all else. This forgives venial sins. Imperfect contrition is sorrow because of the ugliness of sin and the fear of punishment.

2. Confession of sins – whereby all mortal sins must be confessed by number and kind to the priest.
   Note: The confession of venial sins is strongly recommended by the Church. This helps to form the conscience, fight against evil tendencies, receive healing from Christ, and progress in the life of the Holy Spirit. This is called a confession of devotion.

3. Making satisfaction – the third act of the penitent. All sins, even after forgiveness, leave a wound. Absolution does not take away all the disorder sin has caused: harm to self and to neighbor. This must be healed in this life or in the life to come. To help heal the wound of sin, the Church makes indulgences available to us. Invoke the Heart of Holy Mary with the purpose and determination of uniting yourself to her sorrow in reparation for your sins and the sins of men of all times. Pray to her — for every soul — that her sorrow may increase in us our aversion from sin, and that we may be able to love the physical or moral contradictions of each day as a means of expiation.

Inscription at the Bottom of a Crucifix
Sketch of the Crucifix by Saint John of the Cross

“You who weep, come to this God because He weeps.
You who suffer, come to Him because He heals.
You who tremble, come to Him because He smiles.
You who pass by, come to Him because He remains.”

— Victor Hugo (1802–1885)