Editing Penance (section)

=====A moral virtue=====
Penance is a moral virtue whereby the sinner is disposed to hatred of their sin as an offence against God and to a firm purpose of amendment and satisfaction. The principal act in the exercise of this virtue is the detestation of one's own sins.

Penance, while a duty, is considered to be a gift in Catholicism, as it is held that no person can do any penance worthy of God's consideration without God first giving the grace to do so. Penance proclaims mankind's unworthiness in the face of God's condescension, the indispensable disposition to God's grace, for though sanctifying grace alone forgives and purges sins from the soul, it is necessary that the individual consent to this action of grace by the work of the virtue of penance.<ref name=Franciscan>{{cite web|url=http://www.franciscan-archive.org/franciscana/penance.html|title=The Vitue of Penance|website=franciscan-archive.org}}</ref> Penance helps to conquer sinful habits and builds generosity, humility and patience.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dioceseaj.org/vocations/searching-for-answers/virtues|title="Virtues", The Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown|access-date=2016-11-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161114172127/http://www.dioceseaj.org/vocations/searching-for-answers/virtues|archive-date=2016-11-14|url-status=dead}}</ref>

The motive of this detestation is that sins offend God. Theologians, following [[Thomas Aquinas]] (Summa III, Q. lxxxv, a. 1), regard penance as truly a virtue, though they have disagreed regarding its place among the virtues. Some have classed it with the virtue of charity, others with the virtue of religion, [[Bonaventure]] saw it as a part of the virtue of justice. [[Thomas Cajetan|Cajetan]] seems to have considered it as belonging to all three; however, most theologians agree with Aquinas that penance is a distinct virtue ({{lang|la|virtus specialis}}).<ref name=Hanna/>

{{blockquote|Penance as a virtue resides in the will. Since it is a part of the cardinal virtue of justice, it can operate in a soul which has lost the virtue of charity by mortal sin. However it cannot exist in a soul which has lost the virtue of faith, since without faith all sense of the just measure of the injustice of sin is lost. It urges the individual to undergo punishment for the sake of repairing the order of justice; when motivated by even an ordinary measure of supernatural charity it infallibly obtains the forgiveness of venial sins and their temporal punishments; when motivated by that extraordinary measure which is called perfect charity (love of God for his own sake) it obtains the forgiveness of even mortal sins, when it desires simultaneously to seek out the Sacrament of penance as soon as possible, and of large quantities of temporal punishment.<ref name=Franciscan/>}}