Acts of reparation

Pietro Lorenzetti fresco detail, Assisi Basilica, 1310-1329.

In the Roman Catholic tradition, an Act of Reparation is a prayer or devotion with the intent to repair the "sins of others", e.g. for the repair of the sin of blasphemy, the sufferings of Jesus Christ or as Acts of Reparation to the Virgin Mary.[1] These prayers are not a petition for a living or deceased beneficiary, but aim to repair sins.

Pope Pius XI wrote, in Miserentissimus Redemptor, that based on the premise that a "creature's love should be given in return for the love of the Creator," reparation is a creature's compensation to the Creator for "neglect[ing] by forgetfulness or violat[ing] by offense".[2]

Pope John Paul II wrote that for some people reparation is "a daily life of prayer ('ora') and the unceasing effort ('labora') to stand beside the endless crosses on which the Son of God continues to be crucified."[3]

Prayers of reparation

A number of prayers such as the Act of Reparation to the Virgin Mary appeared in the Raccolta, a collection of Catholic prayers and good works with attached indulgences. The Raccolta included a number of diverse prayers for reparation.[4] The Raccolta was deprecated in 1968.[lower-alpha 1]

Duty of reparation

The idea of reparation is an essential element in the Roman Catholic devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.[9] Pius XI wrote, in Miserentissimus Redemptor, on the reparation to the Sacred Heart, that we are held "to the duty of reparation and expiation" by justice, "that the offense offered to God by our sins may be expiated and that the violated order may be repaired by penance," and by love, "that we may suffer together with Christ suffering."[2](n. 7) Pius XI wrote that "this duty of expiation" is entrusted to all of humanity because everyone, after the fall of man, is depraved and subject to concupiscence.[2](n. 8) According to Pius XI, men historically "in a manner acknowledged this common debt of expiation" and guided by their natural instinct "endeavored to appease God by public sacrifices."[2](n. 8)

First Friday communion of reparation

Receiving Holy Communion as part of a first Friday devotion is a Catholic devotion to offer reparations for sins through the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In the visions of Christ reported by St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in the 17th century, several promises were made to those people that practiced the first Friday devotions, one of which included final perseverance.[10]

The devotion consists of several practices that are performed on each first Friday of nine consecutive months. On these days, a person is to attend Holy Mass and receive communion.[11] In many Catholic communities the practice of the Holy Hour of meditation during the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament during the First Fridays is encouraged.[12]

Apparitions

Some Marian apparitions have mentioned the need for reparation.

The messages of Our Lady of Akita include the following statement attributed to Mary, the mother of Jesus:

Many men in this world afflict the Lord. I desire souls to console Him to soften the anger of the Heavenly Father. I wish, with my Son, for souls who will repair by their suffering and their poverty for the sinners and ingrates.[13]

The messages of Our Lady of Fatima also emphasized the need for reparations. According to the child seers, Mary asked them to make sacrifices to save sinners. By this the children understood her to mean moderate acts of mortification of the flesh.[14]

Confraternities and pious associations for reparation

Some Catholic organizations focus is reparation:

Theology

According to Catholic Encyclopedia reparation is a theological concept closely connected with those of atonement and satisfaction, and is a sacred mystery of Christian faith. It is the teaching of that faith that man is a creature who has fallen into original sin from an original state of grace in which he was created, and that through the incarnation, Passion, and death of Jesus Christ, he has been redeemed and restored again in a certain degree to the original condition. Although God might have condoned men's offences gratuitously if He had chosen to do so, yet in divine providence He did not do this; He judged it better to demand satisfaction for the injuries which man had done Him. It is better for man's education that wrongdoing on his part should entail the necessity of making satisfaction. This satisfaction was made adequately to God by the suffering, passion, and death of Jesus Christ, made Man for us. By voluntary submission to His passion and death on the cross, Jesus Christ atoned for our disobedience and sin. He thus made reparation to the offended majesty of God for the outrages which the Creator so constantly suffers at the hands of His creatures. We are restored to grace through the merits of Christ's death, and that grace enables us to add our prayers, works, and trials to those of Our Lord "and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for his body, which is the church" (Colossians 1:24). We can thus make some sort of reparation to the justice of God for our own offences against Him, and by virtue of the Communion of the Saints, the oneness and solidarity of the mystical Body of Christ, we can also make satisfaction and reparation for the sins of others.[9] Many Protestant Christians on the other hand believe in sola fide.

The Mass, the representation of the sacrifice of Calvary, is specially suited to make reparation for sin.[9] One of the ends for which it is offered is the propitiation of God's wrath.[9] The Eucharist is offered is for reparation.[9]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ In 1968 Enchiridion Indulgentiarum (EI) replaced Raccolta to comply with Pope Paul VI's 1967 Indulgentiarum doctrina. EI lists "only the most important prayers and works of piety, charity and penance" that have an attached indulgence.

References

  1. ↑ Acts of Reparation http://catholicism.about.com/od/prayers/qt/Reparation_HN.htm
  2. 1 2 3 4 Pope Pius XI (1928-05-08). "Miserentissimus Redemptor". vatican.va.
  3. ↑ Pope John Paul II (2000-09-27). "Letter of the Holy Father John Paul II to Cardinal Fiorenzo Angelini for the 50th anniversary of the Benedictine sisters of reparation of the Holy Face". vatican.va.
  4. ↑ Joseph P. Christopher et al., 2003 The Raccolta, St Athanasius Press ISBN 978-0-9706526-6-9
  5. ↑ Michael Freze, 1993, Voices, Visions, and Apparitions, OSV Publishing ISBN 0-87973-454-X
  6. ↑ Dorothy Scallan. The Holy Man of Tours. (1990) ISBN 0-89555-390-2
  7. ↑ Our Lady of Fatima http://www.fatima.org/
  8. ↑ Story of Fatima http://www.salvemariaregina.info/SalveMariaRegina/SMR-104.html
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Slater, Thomas (1911). "Reparation". In Herbermann, Charles. Catholic Encyclopedia 12. New York: Robert Appleton.
  10. ↑ Stravinskas, Peter M. J., ed. (1998). "First Friday devotion". Our Sunday visitor's Catholic encyclopedia (revised ed.). Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor. p. 428. ISBN 9780879736699.
  11. ↑ Roman Catholic worship: Trent to today by James F. White 2003 ISBN 0-8146-6194-7 page 35
  12. ↑ Meditations on the Sacred Heart by Joseph McDonnell 2008 ISBN 1-4086-8658-9 page 118
  13. ↑ "The Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Akita, Japan, to Sr. Agnes Sasagawa". ewtn.com. Irondale, AL: Eternal Word Television Network. November 2011. Archived from the original on 2011-12-08. Retrieved 2015-09-13. Despite claims that Cardinal Ratzinger gave definitive approval to Akita in 1988, no ecclesiastical decree appears to exist, as certainly would in such a case.
  14. ↑ Santos, Lúcia (July 2007). Kondor, Louis, ed. Fatima in Lucia's own words: Sister Lucia's memoirs (16th ed.). Fatima: Secretariado dos Pastorinhos. pp. 45–48, 82, 93.
  15. ↑ "Hildebrand Gregori a step closer to canonization". zenit.org. New York: Innovative Media. 2007-07-17. Archived from the original on 2015-09-13. Retrieved 2015-09-13.

External links

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