The instrumental cause of contrition.
The instrumental cause of contrition.
§ 70. Thus the instrument through which the Holy Spirit works contrition in human hearts is the preaching of the Law, which reveals sins and God’s wrath against them so that a person acknowledges his sins and grieves earnestly over them. “I shall have respect for a contrite spirit and one who trembles at My words” (Isa. 66:2). “Is not My word like fire and like a hammer that shatters [conterens] the rock?” (Jer. 23:29). “Through the Law comes the acknowledgment of sin” (Rom. 3:20). “The Law works wrath” (Rom. 4:15). “I did not know sin except by the Law” (Rom. 7:7). “Apart from the Law sin is dead” (Rom. 7:8). In the promulgation of the Ten Commandments, the Israelites were so frightened at the sound of the horn and at hearing the divine voice that they not only fell back but even confessed that they would die if they heard such a voice again [Exod. 20:18–19]. By this spectacle God wanted to signify that He was stirring up contrition in man by the instrument of the Law. From these testimonies this theological rule is constructed: “Anything that reproves sin, declares wrath and punishment, and strikes the conscience with terrors has the nature of the Law, whenever and wherever this may occur.”
§ 71. In this way, support for the preaching of the Law is provided by: the [faculty of] discrimination between the honorable and the foul that still remains in the mind, the natural knowledge of the Law [synteresis],5 the internal testimony of the conscience, the memory of divine judgment, as well as examples of divine wrath which we see in others and the punishment for our own sins which we experience in ourselves, which are like sermons of the Law in action [reales conciones legis]. In this sense, public and private calamities can be called “instrumental contributing causes” [συαίτια ὀργανικά] of contrition. “God performs His alien work” (chastising and punishing) “in order to perform His proper work” (showing mercy) (Isa. 28:21).
Often you may see God performing an alien work
in order to perform His own work suitably.
“I will chastise you in judgment, that you may not seem to yourself innocent” (Jer. 30:11). “As I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and afflict, so will I be concerned over them to build and to plant, says Jehovah” (Jer. 31:28). “I will return to My place until they are consumed and seek My face. In their affliction they will seek Me, saying, ‘Come, let us return to the Lord, for He has torn and He will heal us, He has smitten and He will bind us up’ ” (Hosea 5:15–6:1). “I smote you with dryness, etc., yet you did not return to Me; I sent pestilence against you, yet you did not return to Me; I overthrew some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, yet you did not return to Me” (Amos 4:9–11). Christ says of the people who perished at Siloam: “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:5). “When we are judged, we are being chastened by the Lord that we may not be condemned with this world” (1 Cor. 11:32).
Basil (in Sermon Quod Deus non sit auctor mali, vol. 1, p. 355): “The flesh is stricken that the soul may be healed.”
Chrysostom (Letter 5, col. 975): “The punishment which God inflicts does not condemn but is profitable, because it is the greatest of all goods. For it provides a solid foundation for maintaining confidence in Christ and for recovering oneself from sins committed against Him in order to lead us back to the path of virtue.”
Augustine (De natura et gratia, ch. 24): “There are ills which prove beneficial by the miraculous mercy of the Lord. Did he endure anything good who said, ‘You turned Your face away from me, and I am confounded’ [Ps. 29:8 Vg (Ps. 30:7)]? Surely not, and yet this confounding was a medicine against pride. For he had said, ‘I shall not be moved in my abundance forever’ [v. 6 (Ps. 29:7 Vg)], and he was attributing to himself what he was receiving from the Lord. Therefore the Lord had to show him from whom he was receiving his wealth, that he as a humble man might receive what he as a proud man had lost.”
Fulgentius (Letter 7): “The kindness of God draws us to repentance; therefore He afflicts us with tribulations, chastises us with infirmities, instructs us with distresses so that we who have sinned in healthiness of body may learn to abstain from sin in infirmity.”
Luther (Latin ed., vol. 4, fol. 584, on Micah 7): “It is no hindrance that these calamities are punishments for your sins. It only remains for you to acknowledge your sins and not to continue obstinately in them. A father chastises his son because of his son’s sins, but the punishment is a sign of the father’s heart, just as Paul says, ‘We are chastened by the Lord so that we would not be condemned along with the world’ [1 Cor. 11:32],” etc.6
§ 72. Meditation on Christ’s suffering and death offers the same use. In fact, this is the clearest mirror of God’s wrath against our sins. “We esteemed Him stricken with blows, smitten by God, and humbled. But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities” (Isa. 53:4[–5]). As Christ was led to His punishment carrying His cross, He warned the women to weep for themselves (Luke 23:28), that is, to acknowledge their own sins and to see God’s wrath against those sins in this sad spectacle. God had displayed His wrath in various examples: the flooding of the earth, the destruction of Sodom, etc.; finally, to manifest more fully His anger against sins, He wanted His own Son to die for our sins—His Son, who complained: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” [Matt. 27:46]. Like the grape subjected to the winepress is squeezed and offers its sweet juice, so Christ, subjected to the winepress of divine wrath, offered His bloody sweat to God as an odor of sweetness for our sins [Eph. 5:2]. The fervor appears in His sweat; the price, in His blood; the sufficiency, in its outpouring.
Here we place the sweet meditations of the fathers on the suffering of the Lord. Bernard (Sermon 3 in die nat., col. 57): “Know, O man, how grave are the wounds for which Christ the Lord had to be wounded. If these were not wounds to the death and to eternal death, the Son of God would not have died as a remedy for them.”
Anselm (Lib. meditat., letter N): “A wicked man sins, and the Just One is punished; the guilty man sins, but the Innocent One is scourged; the impious man offends, but the Pious One is condemned. What the servant commits, the Master pays for. What man commits, God endures.”
Ephraem states it most beautifully (De comp. cordis, bk. 1, ch. 2): “We read that the Lord Himself, the Word of the Father, hung on the cross and died because of our sins. Do we hold Him in contempt, laugh at Him with arrogant boldness? The sun could not endure the insult to our Lord but turned the brightness of its light to darkness [Matt. 27:45]. But are we unwilling to turn from the darkness of our wickedness? The veil of the temple, which had committed no wrong, was torn apart by itself [Matt. 27:51]; are we unwilling to have our hearts pricked because of our sins?” etc.
Therefore we conclude that true contrition is stirred up in the hearts of people by the preaching of the Law as it hurls lightning against sin, by the infliction of adversities, and by meditation on the Passion of the Lord and on other examples of divine wrath.