"So why would a priest give out the Lord's Prayer for punishment?"
-- Asked by Maggie today as we were reading chapter 37 in Ivanhoe, where the head of all the Templar knights was assigning penance to the guy in charge of the local group of Templars. The penance was 13 Our Fathers at Matins and 9 at Vespers, plus six weeks fasting from meat.
Assigning prayer as punishment. Excellent point.
Is praying really that distasteful, that you only do it when you're trying to ingratiate yourself with God?
Friday, May 04, 2012
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Yep. I hear a lot about that kind of stuff from Rachel at Trinity. Absolution with penance - conditions... oy. How uncomforting.
ReplyDeleteBut you can understand giving out punishments like wearing sackcloth, or abstaining from meat, or beating yourself. Those things are punishments and self-denial. But prayer? That's a joy and a privilege.
ReplyDeleteAssigning prayer as penance seems to me like taking your kid out to Culver's in response to his lying, or responding to some serious disobedience by purchasing him that bike he's been saving up for.
Yep.... I certainly. But those "Hail, Mary's" are common penance, too. I even thought indulgences weren't around anymore. Anyway, I'd make a lousy Catholic.
ReplyDelete"Hail Marys"? I think I'm making up words... and I don't know how to spell them.
ReplyDeleteI think it would be without the apostrophe. (See "Ye Sons and Daughters of the King" where it says "the Marys went their Lord to seek.")
ReplyDeleteIf you think it's okay to pray to Mary (which I know Kathy doesn't but she knows lots of people who do) then why would that be any more of a punishment than praying to Jesus?
I wonder if penance isn't meant to be punishment necessarily. But I know that's the impression that most Catholics have.
ReplyDeleteI think you've hit it, I don't think penance is supposed to be punishment.
ReplyDelete