[Question:]{.underline} If Christ died on the Cross for our sins, why must we also make reparation for them?
[Answer:]{.underline} It is certainly true that Our Lord Jesus Christ, being God, offered a sacrifice sufficient for the salvation of the entire world when He died upon the Cross, that is a sacrifice of infinite merit, capable in itself of making satisfaction for the sins of all men. However, this is not enough for us to be redeemed from our sins. As the Council of Trent teaches, “Although Christ died for all (2 Cor 5:15), yet not all receive the benefit of His death, but those only to whom the merit of His passion is communicated” (Db 795). The communication of the merits of the passion takes place through the Church, the mystical body of Christ, which enables us to participate in Christ’s merits through the communion of the saints. It does this primarily through Faith, Charity and the sacraments, in particular the sacrament of baptism, which infuses Faith, Hope and Charity into the soul and presumes contrition for sin, and the sacrament of penance.
SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM
However, it does not necessarily follow from the fact that Christ applies the infinite merits of the Passion through the sacraments that we should have nothing to pay ourselves, no temporal punishment for sin to offer up. Here there is in fact a radical difference between the sins committed before baptism and those committed after baptism. Baptism is in fact such a complete application of the infinite merits of the Passion that it entirely wipes away all the punishment due to sins committed beforehand. It is for this reason that the adult convert does not do penance for sins committed before his baptism.
In his Summa Theologica St. Thomas Aquinas, commenting on Is 53:4 “Surely He hath borne our iniquities and carried our sorrows”, explains that the Passion directly delivers mankind from the debt of punishment, “inasmuch as Christ’s Passion was sufficient and superabundant satisfaction for the sins of the whole human race: but when sufficient satisfaction has been paid, then the debt of punishment is abolished.” (IIIa, 49,3) This means that there is a situation in which the soul is so entirely united to Our Lord’s passion that Christ’s satisfaction is entirely sufficient and that the soul has absolutely no reparation to make for its sins. This special circumstance of complete conformity with Christ, of incorporation as members into the Head, is that which is produced by the sacrament of baptism. In his response to the second objection, which is that if satisfaction is imposed upon penitents, then Christ’s Passion must be in some way insufficient to free them from all the punishments due to sin, St. Thomas Aquinas explains:
“In order to secure the effects of Christ’s Passion, we must be likened unto Him. Now we are likened unto Him sacramentally in Baptism, according to Rm 6:4, ‘for we are buried together with Him by baptism into death’. Hence no punishment of satisfaction is imposed upon men at their baptism, since they are fully delivered by Christ’s satisfaction. But because, as it is written (I Pet 3:18), Christ died but once for our sins, therefore a man cannot a second time be likened unto Christ’s death by the sacrament of Baptism. Hence it is necessary that those who sin after Baptism be likened unto Christ suffering by some form of punishment or suffering which they endure in their own person; yet by the co-operation of Christ’s satisfaction, much light penalty suffices than one that is proportionate to the sin.”
SATISFACTION FOR SINS COMMITTED AFTER BAPTISM
The Council of Trent likewise explains the necessity of satisfaction for sins committed after baptism. Most importantly, it explains that the satisfaction that we ourselves make is not really our own, as if we could be justified by our own works, but Jesus Christ’s satisfaction made through us, “for we can do nothing of ourselves, as if of ourselves”. Yet who have sinned after baptism are not freed from the duty to make satisfaction for our sins, for our situation with respect to divine justice is quite different from that of the sinner who has just received the grace of baptism:
“Indeed the nature of divine justice seems to demand that those who have sinner through ignorance before baptism may be received into grace in one manner, and in another those who at one time freed from the servitude of sin and the devil, and on receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, did not fear to violate the temple of God knowingly, and to grieve the Holy Spirit, fall into graver ones, treasuring up to ourselves wrath against the day of wrath. For without doubt, these satisfactions greatly restrain from sin, and as by a kind of rein act as a check, and make penitents more cautious and vigilant in the future; they also remove the remnants of sin, and destroy vicious habits acquired by living evilly through acts contrary to virtue. … Add to this that, while we suffer by making satisfaction for our sins, we are made conformable to Christ Jesus, ‘who made satisfaction for our sins’”. (Db 904 in The Sources of Catholic Dogma, p. 279).
It is for these same reasons that the Holy Council anathematized those protestants who taught that the satisfactions by which penitents atone for their sins are not a worship of God, and that they obscure the doctrine of grace and the very beneficence of Christ’s death. (Ib. Can 14, Db 924).
NECESSITY OF MORTIFICATION
The consequences of this necessity of making satisfaction ourselves for sins committed after baptism are very far reaching. It applies not only to the sacrament of penance, the integrity of which requires that a penance, that is a penitential work to satisfy for the temporal punishment due to sin, be given by the confessor in addition to the absolution from sin. It also applies to our daily lives, which must be lives of reparation for our innumerable sins, in which we offer up penitential works and accept the crosses that God sends us.
We have all sinned since baptism, and consequently we cannot purify our souls without daily mortification of our desires, or dying to ourselves every day, as St. Paul puts it (I Cor 15:31). The necessity of mortification is very frequently mentioned in the Gospels, for example the sermon on the mountain, which requires of us numerous good deeds opposed to the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, such as doing good to those who hate us, charity towards our neighbor, forgiveness, almsgiving, joyful fasting, not being solicitous for food and drink (Cf. Mt 5 & 6).
However, there is a much more profound motive also for our daily sacrifices, penances and satisfactions for our sins. It is our longing to become perfectly conformable to Christ, who desired to embrace the Cross for the salvation of our souls. If Christ has done this much for us sinners, how can we not long to return the love to him in return. This is expressed by the exhortation given by Our Lord Himself in St. Luke’s Gospel: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up h is cross and follow me” (9:24). A life of reparation for sin is the mystical identification with Christ that the true disciple longs for.
MYSTICAL SIGNIFICATION
Furthermore, it is not just for our own sins that we can make satisfaction. If Christ made satisfaction for the sins of others, and we are members of His mystical body, in the state of sanctifying grace, then we also can make satisfaction for the sins of others, contributing our little drop of water to the great mystery of the Redemption through the infinite merits of the Precious Blood of Christ. This is what St. Paul states in his letter to the Colossians (1:24): “Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for his body, which is the Church.” It is not that there is something limited, finite, imperfect about Christ’s passion, but that Our Divine Savior wants us to cooperate as willing instruments not only in our own Redemption, but also in his whole work for the salvation of the world. It is from this profound mystery, that derives from our common unity in Christ, that the whole devotion to the Sacred Heart, a devotion of reparation, is based.
This mystical dimension of the mystery of the Cross, in which every Catholic has the duty to participate, is best expressed by St. Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort in his magnificent Letter to the Friends of the Cross. He has this to say (§27): “You are members of Jesus Christ. What an honor! But, also, what need for suffering this entails! When the Head is crowned with thorns should the members be wearing a laurel of roses?…If you are led by the spirit of Jesus and are living the same life with Him, your thorn-crowned Head, then you must look forward to nothing but thorns, nails and lashes, in a word, to nothing but a cross. A real disciple needs to be treated as his Master was, a member as its Head.”
There is also a profound consequence concerning the spirituality of suffering. To the eyes of the world sickness, hardship, poverty, emotional distress all seems very unfair. However, all these evils are a part of human life as a consequence of original sin. There can be no better means of conforming ourselves to Christ, who bore all our weaknesses yet was without sin, than embracing all these evils with generosity. Suffering of all kinds attains its goal in God’s plan in two ways: - both as a satisfaction for our own sins, and a conforming of ourselves to Christ Himself, offering his sufferings for the salvation of the world.
Pope Pius XI comments on this mystery in his magnificent 1928 encyclical Miserentissimus Redemptor on devotion to the Sacred Heart, which is entirely consecrated to this mystery of reparation and expiation for sins: “The spirit of expiation or of reparation has always held the first and principal role in the worship rendered to the Sacred Heart of Jesus; nothing is more in conformity with the origin, nature, virtue and practices that characterize this devotion. … May these words that He (Christ) used never be effaced from the souls of the faithful: ‘Here is the heart that so loved men, who has filled them with all blessings, but who has received in exchange for His infinite love not only no gratitude, but instead forgetfulness, negligence and insults…’” May our devotion to the Sacred Heart inspire our own souls to dedicate themselves to make reparation to Him for our own sins, and for those of the entire world.
[Question:]{.underline} Can the virtue of charity exist alone among the theological virtues after this life, just as the virtue of Faith can exist alone on earth?
[Answer:]{.underline} It is certainly true that the virtue of Faith can exist alone on this earth, namely without Hope and Charity. However, this is a very abnormal situation, given that generally in justification, as in baptism, the three theological virtues are infused at the same time. Furthermore, such Faith without Hope and Charity is very imperfect and very unstable, liable to be lost all together, because it is dead, without the life of sanctifying grace. It is for this reason that the Council of Trent teaches: “Faith, unless hope and charity be added to it, neither unites one perfectly with Christ, nor makes him a living member of his body. For this reason it is must truly said that ‘faith without words is dead’ and is of not profit…” (Db 800).
However, the fact that the theological virtue of charity exists alone in heaven is neither abnormal nor imperfect. It is, to the contrary, a sign of the perfection of the state of the blessed. There is no possibility of the theological virtue of Faith, for Faith is the assent to that which we cannot see, on the authority of God who reveals. But in heaven the blessed see everything in God, including all the truths and dogmas of the Faith. They are self-evident, in virtue of the beatific vision, and there is no longer any possibility of Faith. Likewise for Hope, which is the assurance of obtaining a future difficult good, based upon the Divine Omnipotence. The blessed in heaven possess God Himself, and consequently are filled with every good. There is no further good to long for, no good to hope for. It is not possible for them to have Hope.
However, the poor souls in Purgatory have all the three theological virtues and necessarily so. If they did not have the theological virtue of charity they would have been condemned to Hell. Yet despite their certitude of one day doing so, they do not at the present time see or possess God. They consequently have the infused supernatural virtues of Faith and Hope, by which they believe what they will one day see, and hope for what they will one day possess.
[Question:]{.underline} If Christ died on the Cross for our sins, why must we also make reparation for them?
[Answer:]{.underline} It is certainly true that Our Lord Jesus Christ, being God, offered a sacrifice sufficient for the salvation of the entire world when He died upon the Cross, that is a sacrifice of infinite merit, capable in itself of making satisfaction for the sins of all men. However, this is not enough for us to be redeemed from our sins. As the Council of Trent teaches, “Although Christ died for all (2 Cor 5:15), yet not all receive the benefit of His death, but those only to whom the merit of His passion is communicated” (Db 795). The communication of the merits of the passion takes place through the Church, the mystical body of Christ, which enables us to participate in Christ’s merits through the communion of the saints. It does this primarily through Faith, Charity and the sacraments, in particular the sacrament of baptism, which infuses Faith, Hope and Charity into the soul and presumes contrition for sin, and the sacrament of penance.
SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM
However, it does not necessarily follow from the fact that Christ applies the infinite merits of the Passion through the sacraments that we should have nothing to pay ourselves, no temporal punishment for sin to offer up. Here there is in fact a radical difference between the sins committed before baptism and those committed after baptism. Baptism is in fact such a complete application of the infinite merits of the Passion that it entirely wipes away all the punishment due to sins committed beforehand. It is for this reason that the adult convert does not do penance for sins committed before his baptism.
In his Summa Theologica St. Thomas Aquinas, commenting on Is 53:4 “Surely He hath borne our iniquities and carried our sorrows”, explains that the Passion directly delivers mankind from the debt of punishment, “inasmuch as Christ’s Passion was sufficient and superabundant satisfaction for the sins of the whole human race: but when sufficient satisfaction has been paid, then the debt of punishment is abolished.” (IIIa, 49,3) This means that there is a situation in which the soul is so entirely united to Our Lord’s passion that Christ’s satisfaction is entirely sufficient and that the soul has absolutely no reparation to make for its sins. This special circumstance of complete conformity with Christ, of incorporation as members into the Head, is that which is produced by the sacrament of baptism. In his response to the second objection, which is that if satisfaction is imposed upon penitents, then Christ’s Passion must be in some way insufficient to free them from all the punishments due to sin, St. Thomas Aquinas explains:
“In order to secure the effects of Christ’s Passion, we must be likened unto Him. Now we are likened unto Him sacramentally in Baptism, according to Rm 6:4, ‘for we are buried together with Him by baptism into death’. Hence no punishment of satisfaction is imposed upon men at their baptism, since they are fully delivered by Christ’s satisfaction. But because, as it is written (I Pet 3:18), Christ died but once for our sins, therefore a man cannot a second time be likened unto Christ’s death by the sacrament of Baptism. Hence it is necessary that those who sin after Baptism be likened unto Christ suffering by some form of punishment or suffering which they endure in their own person; yet by the co-operation of Christ’s satisfaction, much light penalty suffices than one that is proportionate to the sin.”
SATISFACTION FOR SINS COMMITTED AFTER BAPTISM
The Council of Trent likewise explains the necessity of satisfaction for sins committed after baptism. Most importantly, it explains that the satisfaction that we ourselves make is not really our own, as if we could be justified by our own works, but Jesus Christ’s satisfaction made through us, “for we can do nothing of ourselves, as if of ourselves”. Yet who have sinned after baptism are not freed from the duty to make satisfaction for our sins, for our situation with respect to divine justice is quite different from that of the sinner who has just received the grace of baptism:
“Indeed the nature of divine justice seems to demand that those who have sinner through ignorance before baptism may be received into grace in one manner, and in another those who at one time freed from the servitude of sin and the devil, and on receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, did not fear to violate the temple of God knowingly, and to grieve the Holy Spirit, fall into graver ones, treasuring up to ourselves wrath against the day of wrath. For without doubt, these satisfactions greatly restrain from sin, and as by a kind of rein act as a check, and make penitents more cautious and vigilant in the future; they also remove the remnants of sin, and destroy vicious habits acquired by living evilly through acts contrary to virtue. … Add to this that, while we suffer by making satisfaction for our sins, we are made conformable to Christ Jesus, ‘who made satisfaction for our sins’”. (Db 904 in The Sources of Catholic Dogma, p. 279).
It is for these same reasons that the Holy Council anathematized those protestants who taught that the satisfactions by which penitents atone for their sins are not a worship of God, and that they obscure the doctrine of grace and the very beneficence of Christ’s death. (Ib. Can 14, Db 924).
NECESSITY OF MORTIFICATION
The consequences of this necessity of making satisfaction ourselves for sins committed after baptism are very far reaching. It applies not only to the sacrament of penance, the integrity of which requires that a penance, that is a penitential work to satisfy for the temporal punishment due to sin, be given by the confessor in addition to the absolution from sin. It also applies to our daily lives, which must be lives of reparation for our innumerable sins, in which we offer up penitential works and accept the crosses that God sends us.
We have all sinned since baptism, and consequently we cannot purify our souls without daily mortification of our desires, or dying to ourselves every day, as St. Paul puts it (I Cor 15:31). The necessity of mortification is very frequently mentioned in the Gospels, for example the sermon on the mountain, which requires of us numerous good deeds opposed to the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, such as doing good to those who hate us, charity towards our neighbor, forgiveness, almsgiving, joyful fasting, not being solicitous for food and drink (Cf. Mt 5 & 6).
However, there is a much more profound motive also for our daily sacrifices, penances and satisfactions for our sins. It is our longing to become perfectly conformable to Christ, who desired to embrace the Cross for the salvation of our souls. If Christ has done this much for us sinners, how can we not long to return the love to him in return. This is expressed by the exhortation given by Our Lord Himself in St. Luke’s Gospel: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up h is cross and follow me” (9:24). A life of reparation for sin is the mystical identification with Christ that the true disciple longs for.
MYSTICAL SIGNIFICATION
Furthermore, it is not just for our own sins that we can make satisfaction. If Christ made satisfaction for the sins of others, and we are members of His mystical body, in the state of sanctifying grace, then we also can make satisfaction for the sins of others, contributing our little drop of water to the great mystery of the Redemption through the infinite merits of the Precious Blood of Christ. This is what St. Paul states in his letter to the Colossians (1:24): “Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for his body, which is the Church.” It is not that there is something limited, finite, imperfect about Christ’s passion, but that Our Divine Savior wants us to cooperate as willing instruments not only in our own Redemption, but also in his whole work for the salvation of the world. It is from this profound mystery, that derives from our common unity in Christ, that the whole devotion to the Sacred Heart, a devotion of reparation, is based.
This mystical dimension of the mystery of the Cross, in which every Catholic has the duty to participate, is best expressed by St. Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort in his magnificent Letter to the Friends of the Cross. He has this to say (§27): “You are members of Jesus Christ. What an honor! But, also, what need for suffering this entails! When the Head is crowned with thorns should the members be wearing a laurel of roses?…If you are led by the spirit of Jesus and are living the same life with Him, your thorn-crowned Head, then you must look forward to nothing but thorns, nails and lashes, in a word, to nothing but a cross. A real disciple needs to be treated as his Master was, a member as its Head.”
There is also a profound consequence concerning the spirituality of suffering. To the eyes of the world sickness, hardship, poverty, emotional distress all seems very unfair. However, all these evils are a part of human life as a consequence of original sin. There can be no better means of conforming ourselves to Christ, who bore all our weaknesses yet was without sin, than embracing all these evils with generosity. Suffering of all kinds attains its goal in God’s plan in two ways: - both as a satisfaction for our own sins, and a conforming of ourselves to Christ Himself, offering his sufferings for the salvation of the world.
Pope Pius XI comments on this mystery in his magnificent 1928 encyclical Miserentissimus Redemptor on devotion to the Sacred Heart, which is entirely consecrated to this mystery of reparation and expiation for sins: “The spirit of expiation or of reparation has always held the first and principal role in the worship rendered to the Sacred Heart of Jesus; nothing is more in conformity with the origin, nature, virtue and practices that characterize this devotion. … May these words that He (Christ) used never be effaced from the souls of the faithful: ‘Here is the heart that so loved men, who has filled them with all blessings, but who has received in exchange for His infinite love not only no gratitude, but instead forgetfulness, negligence and insults…’” May our devotion to the Sacred Heart inspire our own souls to dedicate themselves to make reparation to Him for our own sins, and for those of the entire world.
[Question:]{.underline} Can the virtue of charity exist alone among the theological virtues after this life, just as the virtue of Faith can exist alone on earth?
[Answer:]{.underline} It is certainly true that the virtue of Faith can exist alone on this earth, namely without Hope and Charity. However, this is a very abnormal situation, given that generally in justification, as in baptism, the three theological virtues are infused at the same time. Furthermore, such Faith without Hope and Charity is very imperfect and very unstable, liable to be lost all together, because it is dead, without the life of sanctifying grace. It is for this reason that the Council of Trent teaches: “Faith, unless hope and charity be added to it, neither unites one perfectly with Christ, nor makes him a living member of his body. For this reason it is must truly said that ‘faith without words is dead’ and is of not profit…” (Db 800).
However, the fact that the theological virtue of charity exists alone in heaven is neither abnormal nor imperfect. It is, to the contrary, a sign of the perfection of the state of the blessed. There is no possibility of the theological virtue of Faith, for Faith is the assent to that which we cannot see, on the authority of God who reveals. But in heaven the blessed see everything in God, including all the truths and dogmas of the Faith. They are self-evident, in virtue of the beatific vision, and there is no longer any possibility of Faith. Likewise for Hope, which is the assurance of obtaining a future difficult good, based upon the Divine Omnipotence. The blessed in heaven possess God Himself, and consequently are filled with every good. There is no further good to long for, no good to hope for. It is not possible for them to have Hope.
However, the poor souls in Purgatory have all the three theological virtues and necessarily so. If they did not have the theological virtue of charity they would have been condemned to Hell. Yet despite their certitude of one day doing so, they do not at the present time see or possess God. They consequently have the infused supernatural virtues of Faith and Hope, by which they believe what they will one day see, and hope for what they will one day possess.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.