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Objection 1: It would seem that man should be contrite on account of
the punishment, and not only on account of his sin. For Augustine
says in De Poenitentia [Hom. 50 inter 1]: "No man desires
life everlasting unless he repent of this mortal life." But the
morality of this life is a punishment. Therefore the penitent should
be contrite on account of his punishments also.
Objection 2: Further, the Master says (Sent. iv, D, 16,
cap. i), quoting Augustine (De vera et falsa Poenitentia), that
the penitent should be sorry for having deprived himself of virtue.
But privation of virtue is a punishment. Therefore contrition is
sorrow for punishments also.
On the contrary, No one holds to that for which he is sorry. But a
penitent, by the very signification of the word, is one who holds to
his punishment. Therefore he is not sorry on account of his
punishment, so that contrition which is penitential sorrow is not on
account of punishment.
I answer that, As stated above (Question 1, Article 1),
contrition implies the crushing of something hard and whole. Now this
wholeness and hardness is found in the evil of fault, since the will,
which is the cause thereof in the evil-doer, sticks to its own
ground, and refuses to yield to the precept of the law, wherefore
displeasure at a suchlike evil is called metaphorically "contrition."
But this metaphor cannot be applied to evil of punishment, because
punishment simply denotes a lessening, so that it is possible to have
sorrow for punishment but not contrition.
Reply to Objection 1: According to St. Augustine, penance
should be on account of this mortal life, not by reason of its
mortality (unless penance be taken broadly for every kind of sorrow);
but by reason of sins, to which we are prone on account of the weakness
of this life.
Reply to Objection 2: Sorrow for the loss of virtue through sin is
not essentially the same as contrition, but is its principle. For
just as we are moved to desire a thing on account of the good we expect
to derive from it, so are we moved to be sorry for something on account
of the evil accruing to us therefrom.
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