QualitiesIn accord with Catholic tradition contrition, whether it be perfect or imperfect, must be at once (a) interior, (b) supernatural, (c) universal, and (d) sovereign.
InteriorContrition must be real and sincere sorrow of heart, and not merely an external manifestation of repentance. The Old Testament Prophets laid particular stress on the necessity of hearty repentance. The Psalmist says that God despises not the "contrite heart" (Ps. I, 19), and the call to Israel was, "Be converted to me with all your heart . . . and rend your hearts, and not your garments" (Joel, ii, 12 sq). Holy Job did penance in sackcloth and ashes because he reprehended himself in sorrow of soul (Job 13:6). The contrition adjudged necessary by Chris and his Apostles was no mere formality, but the sincere expression of the sorrowing soul (Luke 14:11-32; Luke 18:13); and the grief of the woman in the house of the Pharisee merited forgiveness because "she loved much". The exhortations to penance found everywhere in the Fathers have no uncertain sound (Cyprian, De Lapsis; Chrysostom, De compunctione, P.G., XLVII, 393 sqq.), and the Scholastic doctors from Peter Lombard on insist on the same sincerity in repentance (Peter Lombard, Lib. Sent. IV, dist. xvi, no. 1).
SupernaturalIn accordance with Catholic teaching contrition ought to be prompted by God's grace and aroused by motives which spring from faith, as opposed to merely natural motives, such as loss of honour, fortune, and the like (Chemnitz, Exam. Concil. Trid., Pt. II, De Poenit.). In the Old Testament it is God who gives a "new heart" and who puts a "new spirit)" into the children of Israel (Ezekiel 36:25-29); and for a clean heart the Psalmist prays in the Miserere (Psalm 1:11 sqq.). St. Peter told those to whom he preached in the first days after Pentecost that God the Father had raised up Christ "to give repentance to Israel" (Acts 5:30 sq.). St. Paul in advising Timothy insists on dealing gently and kindly with those who resist the truth, "if peradventure God may give them full repentance" (2 Timothy 2:24-25). In the days of the Pelagian heresy Augustine insisted on the supernaturalness of contrition, when he writes, "That we turn away from God is our doing, and this is the bad will; but to turn back to God we are unable unless He arouse and help us, and this is the good will." Some of the Scholastic doctors, notably Scotus, Cajetan, and after them Francisco Suárez (De Poenit., Disp. iii, sect. vi), asked speculatively whether man if left to himself could elicit a true act of contrition, but no theologian ever taught that makes for forgiveness of sin in the present economy of God could be inspired by merely natural motives. On the contrary, all the doctors have insisted on the absolute necessity of grace for contrition that disposes to forgiveness (Bonaventure, In Lib. Sent. IV, dist. xiv, Pt. I, art. II, Q. iii; also dist. xvii, Pt. I, art. I, Q. iii; cf. St. Thomas, In Lib. Sent. IV). In keeping with this teaching of the Scriptures and the doctors, the Council of Trent defined; "If anyone say that without the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and without His aid a man can repent in the way that is necessary for obtaining the grace of justification, let him be anathema."
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