REPENTANCE: A Lenten Call to Interior Conversion

“Be ashamed when you sin, don’t be ashamed when you repent. Sin is the wound, repentance is the medicine.”- St John Chrysostom. 

The Bible is full of passages about repentance. In the Old Testament, God demanded his people to turn away from sin as we hear in Ezekiel 18:21where God says, “But if the wicked man turns away from all the sins he has committed, if he keeps all my statutes and does what is just and right, he shall surely live. He shall not die!” Ezekiel, like many other prophets in the Old Testament, exhorted Israel to real, heart-felt interior conversion. "For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies, says the Lord God. Return and live!" (Ez. 18:32). Repentance, therefore, simply means coming to life again.

In the New Testament, repentance was first preached by John the Baptist (Matthew 3:1-12). In his preaching he calls for repentance because the kingdom of God is at hand, and he warns that baptism brings with it the call to bear fruit worthy of repentance. Jesus, too, started his ministry with the same theme of repentance; continuing with the same message of John the Baptist (Mt 4:17)

In the liturgy of the Hours, the antiphon for midmorning prayer reads, “The time of penance has come, the time to atone for our sins and seek our salvation." The Holy Mother Church invites all Catholics to return to the Lord. It is a Lenten call to repentance. We must heed to this call because it is God’s.

During Stations of the Cross, Catholics repeatedly pray, ‘With all my heart I repent of ever having offended you. Never let me be separated from you again.’ Those powerful words touch my heart so deeply. In fact, Lent is a season which invites Catholics and other Christians around the world to kneel before the base of the Cross, meditate upon the sins we have committed which caused our Savior's suffering, and enter into a period of profound conversion and change. For this reason, Lent is a time of atonement and penance, a period in which we acknowledge our sinfulness, turn away from our past life toward a life with Christ, and embrace the call to holiness. In order to fully enter into such a call, fervent repentance is necessary (F. Bartils).

However, in this hedonistic world where secularism is predominantly influencing and driving today’s generation, the true meaning of repentance is often overshadowed, distorted, watered-down or all together erased.

F. Bartils explains that atonement for one's sins and penance -- which are integral and necessary aspects of repentance -- are often deemed "unnecessary and burdensome practices of the past" in which only the "unenlightened" participate. Perhaps such an attitude is due, in part, to the fact that these penitential practices involve a measure of voluntary suffering -- which is something quite unwelcome in our contemporary world. Thus it is rather easy to give in to the temptation which tells us there is no merit in these sacrificial acts of repentance.

The Greek word “metanoia” which means repentance simply means "to change one's mind." This change of mind entails a profound innermost conversion in which we firmly turn from worldly darkness, and embrace a new way of life as Christ's disciples. Repentance, therefore, is a union of mind, heart and soul to the Person of Christ. To repent is to die to Christ, discarding our former way of life in favor of the Way, Truth, and Life that is Christ himself (John14:6).

Jesus in Matthew 7:13-14 says, "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few." Our Lord warns us of the serious need for complete, life-changing repentance.

To repent is to submit ourselves wholeheartedly to the Lord; it is to return from those dark paths we have walked for so many years, setting off on a journey toward a new horizon, one which glows with eternal Light.

Joel 2:12 says, "Return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God." When we return to God with our whole heart, we weep and mourn; for we see with stark clarity those numerous times-- those times of sin -- when we failed to love God. The rending of our heart drives us toward a desire to do penance; for we see our lowliness in the divine light of fervent conversion, which clearly reveals all our attachment to sin.

Yet the most profound call to repentance is experienced as we go before the Cross this Lenten season, as we kneel there along with our Blessed Mother, as we gaze upon our loving Savior who gave entirely of himself for love of us -- even though we are sinners. See our Redeemer there, crucified at Calvary; battered, bloodied and dying; he cries aloud, "I thirst" (Jn. 19:28). Our Lord thirsts for us. The meaning of the Cross is God's incomprehensible thirst for love. Filled with an unexplainable and radical love for you and me, Jesus Christ thirsts for our repentance, conversion and prayer; he thirsts for our soul.

As we go for confession, let us approach God’s altar asking forgiveness with a sincere heart as St John Vianney explains, “It is said that many confess and few are converted. I believe it is so, my children, because few confess with tears of repentance.” May you celebrate the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus with a repentant heart.

Spiritual Reflection by Fr Clement Piruwa