In a previous article in this Journal (December, 1968) I presented a description of some elements in the contemporary revival of the Penance Service. This description made it plain that there is not one novel element in such services and that their procedures derive from the traditional practice of the Church. I based this description on my experience of the contemporary celebration of the sacrament in a variety of community contexts, and certainly these services are going on all over the place. This is evidenced in several recent books. Penance: Virtue and Sacrament, edited by John Fitzsimons (Bums and Oates, Compass Books, 90 pp., 18s., 1969), gives the papers and some idea of the excitements of the 1968 Spode Conference of Practical Liturgy. These papers and the essays collected in Making Sense of Confession edited by Otto Betz (Chapman, 25s., 1968), show us what is entailed in the appreciation of penance as a sign of the renewing love of Christ in the eucharistic congregation. These two books are decisively adult in tone, expressive of an awareness that, as Cardinal Rampolla once remarked, ‘of necessity the Church should be democratic, not demagogic, but simply the plebs sancta', and alive to the urgent demands of penance if we are to come into that holiness. Fr F. J. Heggen’s Children and Confession (Sheed and Ward, Stag Books, 118 pp., 9s., 1969) is a more particularized effort which is concerned with one area in which most successful celebrations have been developing in many parts of the world.