Penance can be defined under three basic categories: as a public liturgical rite, a private liturgical rite, and those "expiatory acts, particularly fasting, imposed on sinners who had acknowledged their sins" (Paylr 487). According to Mary Flowers Braswell in her work The Medieval Sinner, "the very term penitent implies that some change has taken place. The sinner hasbecome one who is sorry for his past actions and is willing to undertake a prescribed punishment for them" (22-23). Thus, penance involves not only the act of confession, but also the act of reparation.

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