Great Penitents Quotes

“Penitence and gloom are not necessarily synonymous. It would be a mistake to think of the great exemplars of sorrow for sin as useless mourners kneeling in the corner, beating their breasts with ear for nothing but their own lamentations. The science of the penitential life is the determination to atone. Into that enters personal mortification, suffering, self-affliction. The body has sinned; it must pay the penalty. It must suffer not only for the evil it has done, but it must be subjected against the possibility of the soul being again dominated by it. Penance looks not only to the past; it looks to the future as well. It wants to make up, to redeem the time.”
― Hugh Francis Blunt, Great Penitents