Principles and Practices - September 27

Indispensable

We all know the necessity of some sort of penance for eternal salvation.

'Unless you do penance,' Our Lord says, 'you shall all likewise perish.'

There can be no genuine Christianity without it. For there are only two roads to heaven, the road of innocence and the road of penitence, the way of an Agnes and an Aloysius, or the way of a Magdalen and an Augustine. Only too truly our consciences bear witness that our sins have closed the way of innocence against us. Pen?ance, then, in some form is really necessary for everyone who is in earnest about his eternal salvation.

-Lonergan, S.J.
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From Principles and Practices
Compiled by Rev. J. Hogan of The Catholic Missionary Society
Published by Burns Oates & Washbourne Ltd., Publishers To The Holy See
Nihil Obstat; Eduardus J. Mahoney, S.T.D. Censor deputatus.
Imprimatur; Edm. Can. Surmont, Vicarius generalis.
First printed in 1930