At a press conference this week, Msgr. Slawomir Oder, the person in charge of advancing the cause for sainthood of Pope John Paul II, reported on some of the penitential practices of the late Holy Father, including self-flagellation as well as spending the night on a bare floor with arms outstretched.

Msgr. Oder was addressing the media on the release of his new book, Why He's a Saint: The Real Pope John Paul II According to the Postulator of His Beatification. Click here for further coverage.

Msgr. Oder, who has been fully investigating the life of JPII, is convinced that the late pontiff is a legitimate candidate for sainthood. He did not consider the penances strange or the grounds for disqualifying him. Quite the contrary, he sees them as signs of his desire to "make up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ" (Col. 1:24).

While the general public finds the cross, and by extension penance, to be sheer folly (see 1 Corinthians 1:23), I'm afraid too many Catholics are similarly bewildered by these aspects of JPII's life. The truth is that we've largely lost a sense of the role of penance in the Christian life. As I mentioned in my last post, we're engaged in a spiritual battle. Doing penance is an integral part of the Christian life, as it is reflective of our ongoing repentance and conversion to Christ--and it entails "fighting the good fight" against things that lead us away from Him.

For a brief primer on penance, check out Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 1430 and following. Most acts of penance are optional, but the Church does require some minimal forms of penance, such as fasting and abstinence from meat on certain days during Lent. What many Catholics don't realize is that all Fridays are days of penance. The U.S. bishops have decreed that we no longer have to abstain from meat on Fridays (except on Fridays during Lent)--though we still can! However, if one doesn't abstain from meat on Friday he or she is called to do some other meaningful form of penance.

What can we do to live out the call to penance?

I'm not saying we should whip ourselves or spend all night on a hard floor. Yet, as Mother Teresa pointed out, our affluent society is spiritually poor. Or to use another image, we're spiritually flabby. And still we wonder why the "culture of death" has been able to make such inroads in recent decades.

Christ has won the victory, may we--like John Paul the Great--live in Him and for Him, to the greater glory of the Father!