Lest it should be supposed that what was previously written reflected the ideas of the writer, the notions of a mere man, and in order that the reader may be more fully rersuaded of the need for repentance—which is spoken of with displeasure, or ironically smiled at by those who wander away from God—and on the other hand of its value and importance, let him give heed to what the Holy Scriptures declare. Whatever the Sacred Writings say is not the view of man but the perfect truth declared by God. The Holy Scripture is the divine book our heavenly Father, the most high God, has sent to us through God-inspired men like a letter to give light and teach the whole truth to us, His earthly children. In this divine book, God has made repentance the basis of His relations with us.
First in the times of the Old Testament, that is the period before Christ, an excellent and wonderful example of repentance and confession was set for us by David the great prophet and king, who by his personal example and his famous 50th (51st) Psalm has been ever since and will always be preaching and urging all men throughout the ages, to repentance and return to God. On the other hand God has through His messengers, the prophets, often issued appeals for repentance such as the following: “Wash you, be clean; remove your iniquities from your souls before mine eyes; cease from your iniquities” and “Be converted, and turn from all your sins” (Isa. 1:16 and Ezek. 14:6). Wash, He says, your souls clean, and stop doing the evil deeds you are doing before my eyes. Repent and turn from your abominations. When Christ, the Savior, was about to come into the world, He sent His great forerunner John the Baptist, the greatest herald of repentance, and through him He preached to the Jewish people, “Repent ye… bring forth fruits meet for repentance”. When Christ Himself came to the world opening the era of the New Testament, of the new Christian life, His first message was a proclamation for repentance. “Jesus began to preach and to say: Repent ye and believe the Gospel” (Matt. 4:17 and Mark 1:15). Jesus Himself declared that He came into the world to call sinners to repentance (Matt. 9:13). The excellent and most admirable parable of the prodigal son, this inestimable treasure of the Gospel, is the most touching sermon of repentance in which our Lord illustrates that God the Father not only enjoins repentance, but considers it of such great value that “there is joy in the presence of the angels over one sinner that repenteth” (Luke 15:10). The Lord Himself received penitents with great compassion, affection, and love. The whole teaching of Christ on earth begins with repentance. His Apostles too, were sent to the world mainly to preach repentance. On the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came and “sat upon each of them and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost”, it was through the preaching of repentance that Peter inaugurated the apostolic ministry: “Repent and be baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins”, he declared. Paul speaking to our ancestors of Athens on Mars’ Hill preached repentance saying: “The times of ignorance God winked at; but now He commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because He hath appointed a day in the which He will judge the world in righteousness” (Acts 17:30,31). He further declared that he testified “both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ”, for “God hath granted repentance that our sins may be blotted out, and unto life” (Acts 3:19, 20:21, 11:18). St. Peter adds that if our Lord has not yet come to judge and condemn sinners, He has not done so as He “is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance”. For this reason the Lord pities and considers most hapless those who have not fully repented (Matt. 11:20, Luke 13;3). The Church has until this day preached repentance as the foremost and absolutely indispensable road to salvation. Through repentance the Church has cleansed myriads of souls, sanctified them and secured for them God’s heavenly kingdom. Through repentance the Church will continue her salutary work, even unto the end of the world. For repentance is the gate of entrance and return to that divine mansion called Christ’s Church, the Christian religion. The idolater, the unbeliever, or unconverted, on the one hand—everyone who is not a Christian—must repent and be baptized in order to become a Christian and thereby enter the Church. The Christian on the other who has sinned in any way after his baptism and lost the purity he had received when he was baptized, by polluting his soul through sin and estranging himself from his Heavenly Father like the prodigal son of the parable, has to go through the sacrament of Repentance and Confession in order to get rid of sin, to cleanse his soul of the filth produced by sin and return to the Church as one of her genuine members. The Church calls to repentance not only those who are estranged from Christianity or those who call themselves Christians although they live like heathens, but also the Christians who have received a Christian education and have been kept safe from moral downfall but have nevertheless fallen or still fall into violations of the law of the Gospel. Reminding such Christians of the God-inspired saying of John the Evangelist, “If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” (I John 1:8) the Church invites them to develop a more genuine repentance, to make a firm decision of becoming true Christians, accurately examining themselves each day, and carefully uprooting even the so-called small and involuntary sins or vices—which in fact are the root of the great and serious ones. The Church urges such Christians to try, as far as is humanly possible, to live worthily of the vocation of a Christian devoted to God in spirit and in truth. For these reasons every man has need of repentance, the most valuable means of salvation for all.
The Meaning of Repentance.
To repent means literally to change one’s mind. Namely, to change sinful thoughts and opinions manifested in everyday life by sinful words and deeds; to be sorry for every sin one has committed; to disapprove of it and loath it; to make a sincere decision not to come back to it; to keep in one’s mind the thoughts on the other hand and opinions which are agreeable to God and to observe for the rest of one’s life, by word and deeds, the law that God has ordained and laid down. To use the words of the Lord Himself, to repent means “to turn(one’s self) from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God, that (one) may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified (Acts 26:18). Repentance, hence, may be defined as the divine sacrament of the Christian Church whereby God, through a priest, forgives all sins committed by Christians after Baptism, provided that they truly repent and confess their sins to the priest. Therefore, since forgiveness is granted, as was mentioned above, only to those Christians who truly repent of their sins and confess them to a priest, the act of repentance presents two sides: a) repentance proper, and b) confession—both of which we now proceed to explain.
The Characteristics of True Repentance
We repent often and of many deeds. There is no man on earth who has never repented of his evil deeds. Even Judas the traitor repented of having betrayed innocent blood. This, of course, does not mean that all people repent truly and return definitely to God and enter into the new life in Christ, clean and forgiven, walking steadily on the road of salvation like true children of God. It therefore has to be ascertained in each case whether repentance and return to God are frank and genuine. There are several signs and indications by which both the penitent and his friends or relatives may know for certain that he has truly repented and that a change in his inward disposition has been noted. Here are the most essential of these signs:
a. The Awareness of a Sinful Condition.
The penitent must first obtain a clear knowledge of his sins and be convinced that he is a sinner. He must examine, as accurately as possible, the sins he has committed during the whole time he lived a life of sin away from God. Moreover, he must examine the passions, vices and defects that sin has created in his soul and to which he has bound his mind, heart and body. This examination will convince him plainly that he is guilty not of one or two, but of many sins. As there are Christians who have never known the law of God and do not know even how to examine themselves, unaware that many of their deeds are sinful, we shall enumerate some rather serious sins in order to help them do so. We begin with the more grievous and well known sins which even the most unenlightened and ignorant Christian may detect.
(1) Transgression of Commandments and Duties.
The penitent will examine whether he tells lies in talking to others or in his dealings at his everyday occupation; furthermore, whether by long use this has become a habit. Let him know that falsehood is one of the gravest sins, which the God of truth abhors and punishes as the offspring and product of the devil, who is a liar and the father of lies, as Christ Himself declares (John 8:44). The penitent must be very careful, for this sin has spread so wide in society that many do not think of it as a serious fault and in fact often assume that they simply have to tell lies, for otherwise they cannot earn their living. This idea is preposterous and unfounded. For it is deplorable to maintain that the truthful and sincere Christian who walks in truth, obeying the God of Truth and having full confidence in Him as a good Protector and Father, cannot work and make a living. He will also examine if the vice of falsehood has led him to slander and calumny, in which case his guilt is far greater. For he has not simply brought harm on another’s material interests, but on his honor and reputation and has morally wounded or killed him.
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