Motive
It is the motive for repentance (rather than the intensity of feeling) that distinguishes the two forms of contrition, and it is possible for perfect and imperfect contrition to be experienced simultaneously.
According to Catholic teaching, perfect contrition removes the guilt and eternal punishment due to mortal sin, even before the sinner has received absolution in the sacrament of penance. However, a Catholic is still bound, under Church law, to confess grave sins at the first opportunity.
Read more about this topic: Perfect Contrition
Famous quotes containing the word motive:
“A supreme love, a motive that gives a sublime rhythm to a woman’s life, and exalts habit into partnership with the soul’s highest needs, is not to be had where and how she wills.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“And I envy the intransigence of my own
Countrymen who shoot to kill and never
See the victim’s face become their own
Or find his motive sabotage their motives.”
—Louis MacNeice (1907–1963)
“We have not the motive to prepare ourselves for a “life-work” of teaching, of social work—we know that we would lay it down with hallelujah in the height of our success, to make a home for the right man. And all the time in the background of our consciousness rings the warning that perhaps the right man will never come. A great love is given to very few. Perhaps this make-shift time filler of a job is our life work after all.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)