The Virtue of Penance (1)

Many Christian communities observe the forty-day Season of Lent, modelled on the long period Jesus spent alone in the desert overcoming the devil's temptations before embarking on his public ministry. In the first week of Lent this year Fr Ian explores the particular value of the Old Testament in understanding the Christian virtue of penance.   

Calling of St Peter and St Andrew by Juan De las Roelas (c. 1570 - 1625)

The Unitive Way

By Fr Ian

This is the last of four articles on the three main stages of Christian spiritual life, as understood in the tradition of Catholic spiritual theology

Saint Thomas Aquinas in Prayer by Stefano di Giovanni (c. 1400-1450)
© Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

‘The third endeavour and pursuit of man should be to rest in God and enjoy Him; and this belongs to the perfect who desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ.’ [1]

In the final, unitive, phase, the individual reaches the point of being free from even minor sins and imperfections, with only the most trivial and inconsequential exceptions, and now enjoys a relationship of constant loving contemplative union with God, perfect love of neighbour and a positive loving regard for the world and everything made by God.