Like many ARC members, I am old enough to have memories of growing up in the pre-Vatican II Catholic Church. Mandatory penitential acts, like abstaining from meat on Fridays, fasting on prescribed days, and giving up sweets for Lent were part and parcel of life. Friday abstinence was sufficiently well known as a marker of Catholicism that secular functions on Fridays often included meatless snack food. Regarding any pain or inconvenience as something to be offered up in penance was also very much on our minds as children.

That changed when, post-Vatican II, some rules were changed and we were expected to determine our own penitential acts. The success of that change probably varied and certainly our expectations changed. I recall one year in the 1980s when many of us in a country parish were taken aback by our parish priest suggesting that we should be performing penitential acts during Advent. Among ourselves we commented unfavourably on ‘Black Advent’.

My musings are prompted by a piece from Maria Morrow in Church Life Journal, Offer It Up: Revisiting Penance 60 Years Later. Much of what she has to say resonated with me though there are some nuances associated with the different context of the Church in the USA. She begins by recounting some of the history of penance, describes the changes following Vatican II and the effect of concurrent societal/cultural changes, notes that for many penance has apparently fallen into disuse, and proposes a renewed focus on penance.