A few days before Easter, Pope Francis gave a homily about compunction to the priests of the Diocese of Rome. Though not a word one often hears, he said compunction is “essential” to the spiritual life. It’s related to the word puncture, referring to “a piercing of the heart that is painful and evokes tears of repentance.” Compunction is a feeling of guilt over having done something bad. Indeed, it is important that we feel guilt for our sins. But the Holy Father explains that compunction “is not a sense of guilt that makes us discouraged or obsessed with our unworthiness, but a beneficial ‘piercing’ that purifies and heals the heart.” He refers to the experience of Peter’s triple denial of Christ the night of Our Lord’s arrest. Earlier that night, despite Christ telling him it would happen, Peter didn’t believe that he was capable of such a betrayal. Afterwards, when Jesus catches his eye, Peter’s heart is broken over his sin and he weeps bitterly (Luke 22:61-2). According to Pope Francis, this experience of compunction was crucial for Peter, whose tears opened his heart to the working of the Holy Spirit, and eventually the supreme joy of reconciliation with his Master. Filled with the Spirit, Peter would go on to preach repentance to the people of Jerusalem, breaking the hearts of those who heard his words, which filled them with the desire to be reconciled with the One they crucified (Acts 2:36-8). Compunction is essential because it “brings us back to the truth about ourselves, so that the depths of our being sinners can reveal the infinitely greater reality of our being pardoned by grace.”
The pope says that compunction heals a culture rife with division by fostering solidarity. He describes the natural tendency in all of us “to be indulgent with ourselves and inflexible with others.” This default setting of the heart affected by Original Sin harms our personal relationships, makes contemporary politics toxic, and fosters grievance culture, which identifies external forces as the cause of all our problems. With compunction, “there occurs a sort of reversal, [where] by God’s grace, we become strict with ourselves and merciful towards others.” Acknowledging his capacity for evil and having experienced the balm of divine mercy, the man of compunction is moved by genuine charity to desire that his enemy might experience the joy of divine mercy too.
Compunction is a gift that we must ask for in prayer. We might know intellectually that we are sinners who need God’s mercy. But only grace allows us to be transformed interiorly by that knowledge. When that happens, something breaks within us, and tears of contrition flow. This opens space within us to receive a torrent of divine mercy, which spills forth from our little hearts into the world through the mercy we show our neighbor. The Holy Father recommends frequent repetition of what’s called the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” On this Sunday dedicated to Divine Mercy, may Our Lord grant us the grace of compunction.
posted 4/6/24
The Parish of St. Cecilia-St. Gabriel 