Word Finder - penitential

definition

A book or set of rules pertaining to the Christian sacrament of penance

definition

Pertaining to penance or penitence

Litanies The Penitential Rite; Prayer of the Faithful; the Lamb of God.

Litanies The Penitential rite; Prayer of the Faithful; the Lamb of God.

Damiani advocated the substitution of flagellation for the recitation of the penitential psalms, and drew up a scale according to which 1000 strokes were equivalent to ten psalms, and 15,000 to the whole psalter.

In it were written most of the penitential hymns, which were possibly thought to require a more euphonious idiom than, for example, hymns of praise.

The fifth canon of the council of Macon, in 584, forbids clergy to dress like laymen and imposes a penalty of thirty days' imprisonment on bread and water; but this may be merely penitential.

Violet vestments are also worn on days of intercession, at votive masses of the Passion, at certain other masses of a pronouncedly intercessory and penitential character, at intercessory processions, at the blessing of candles on Candlemas Day, and at the blessing of the baptismal water.

As the prisoners, clad in penitential haircloth, were led across the bridge, wanton boys thrust sharp sticks between the planks to wound their feet.

By the 13th century, with the final development of the ritual of the Mass, the chasuble became definitely fixed as the vestment of the celebrating priest; though to this day in the Roman Church relics of the earlier general use of the chasuble survive in the planeta plicata worn by deacons and subdeacons in Lent and Advent, and other penitential seasons.

Speaking broadly, red is the colour for feasts of martyrs, white for virgins, violet for penitential seasons, &c.; no less than sixty-three different uses differing in details have been enumerated.

In all these lesser orders may be discerned the tendency of a return to the elements of Eastern monasticism discarded by St Benedict - to the eremitical life; to the purely contemplative life with little or no factor of work; to the undertaking of rigorous bodily austerities and penances - it was at this time that the practice of self-inflicted scourgings as a penitential exercise was introduced.

She obtained an interview with him, and to test her resolution he told her to dress in penitential sackcloth and beg alms for the poor in the streets of Assisi.

The penitential psalms are sung, and at the end of each a candle is extinguished.

A famous instance of these penitential litanies is the litania septiformis ordered by Gregory the Great in the year 590, when Rome had been inundated and pestilence had followed.

At the litaniae majores and minores and other penitential processions, joyful hymns are not allowed, but the litanies are sung, and, if the length of the procession requires, the penitential and gradual psalms.

Irish origin, and although certain of them were com piled on the continent, under the influence of the island missionaries, it seems quite certain that a Roman Penitential has never existed.'

As penances had for a long time been lightened, and the books used by confessors began to consist more and more of instructions in the style of the later moral theology (and this is already the case of the books of Halitgar and Rhabanus Maurus), the canonical collections began to include a greater or smaller number of the penitential canons.

We find that " penitential books " for the use of the confessional, founded partly on traditional practice and partly on the express decrees of synods, come into general use in the 7th century.

This fine penitential prayer seems to have been modelled after the penitential psalms. It exhibits considerable unity of thought, and the style is, in the main, dignified and simple.

He was condemned, as "vehemently suspected of heresy," to incarceration at the pleasure of the tribunal, and by way of penance was enjoined to recite once a week for three years the seven penitential psalms. This sentence was signed by seven cardinals, but did not receive the customary papal ratification.

Hence, even in countries where the Roman Church is established, such as Belgium, Italy, the Catholic states of Germany and cantons of Switzerland, most of the Latin republics of America, and the province of Quebec, and a fortiori where this Church is not established, there is now no discipline over the laity, except penitential, and no jurisdiction exercised in civil suits, except possibly the matrimonial questions of princes (of which there was an example in the case of the reigning prince of Monaco).

In the diocese of Rome, exercised discipline of a penitential kind over their lay members; but in later times their censures have generally ceased to carry temporal consequences.

It is worn, too, on the vigils of fasts, Ember Days and days of intercession, on the Feast of Holy Innocents (if on a week-day), at litanies, penitential processions, and at other than solemn benedictions and consecrations.

His prose works include sermons, treatises on vices and on baptism, a penitential, capitularies and exhortations to bishops, priests and judges.

The practice of confession in the Church of England practically dates from his two sermons on The Entire Absolution of the Penitent, in 1846, in which the revival of high sacramental doctrine is complemented by the advocacy of a revival of the penitential system which medieval theologians had appended to it.

It is difficult to say how far some of these temporal penalties were penitential only or how far they could be inflicted in invitos.