Repentance

By David Torkington

Pentecost (Painting from an altarpiece,
Wikimedia Commons)

On the  feast of Pentecost the Jews celebrated the day on which God had given the Law to Moses. However the first Pentecost after the Resurrection was the day on which God gave his new law – the law of love. This law was not primarily a  list of rules and regulations  like the laws that were given to Moses, but the same personal  love that God had showered on Jesus. It was this love that enabled Jesus to practise to perfection the New Commandments that he taught his disciples. Namely, to Love God with their whole hearts and minds, and with their whole being, as he did, and to love others as he did too, and still does. 

What had been given to Jesus throughout his life on earth, had been given in full measure after his Resurrection, and in such a way, that he would be able to give it to others to inaugurate a new era – the Kingdom of Love. After the Resurrection the unique and transcendental love that Jesus had received from God enabled him to love not just one person, or even a group of persons, as he had done before, but every person alive at that time and in time to come, who would believe in his love and who would freely chose to receive it. So when the crowds who had gathered on the first Pentecost, demanded to know how they could receive the love of the Holy Spirit, St Peter told them that they should repent.

Justice and Peace, Goodness and  Truth. 

When he told them to repent, he was telling them, in language that they understood, how to turn to receive this love that had already begun to change him and his friends, as they could see for themselves. In other words they had to turn away from the adolescent world in which they had been living, where self-seeking, self- indulgence and self-absorption was the norm, in order to turn to be filled with the love of Jesus, his Holy Spirit.

This love would take them out of themselves and into the new world order that Jesus had come to inaugurate. In this world, love would transform them, by enabling them to enter into the risen Christ to experience the fullness of love that deep down every human being yearns for more than anything else, because it is  this that they were born for in the first place. The fruits of this love – justice and peace, goodness and  truth, and the flowering of all the virtues, would be seen embodied in his followers, as they had been embodied in his life on earth.


Continue reading at David's blog David Torkington.

HOW sorry are you?!

By Nancy Shuman

Young Girl Singing into a Mirror by Liotard (Wikimedia Commons).

I often sang along with the radio in my preteens, long before most of you were born (really).  Never mind that I was a far from engaging vocalist.  Never mind that I was shockingly oblivious to lyrics as well.

I croaked along merrily with a soft ballad describing "white on white, lace on satin, blue velvet ribbons on purple cake..."  I even went so far as to discuss this unusual lyric with a friend.

"Doesn't that sound like the ugliest wedding cake ever?!," I tsk-tsked, never questioning the validity of my perceptions.  Either my friend had the same hearing problem as I, or she was too kind to correct me.  But we seemed to both envision a towering cake of dark purple, ringed round with turquoise bows.  I'm ashamed to admit how old I was before I found out the truth about this, but let's just say that it was my husband who told me.  And we were already married.  "...it's 'blue velvet ribbons ON HER BOUQUET'," he clarified.

Oh.

It seems my hearing lapses were not limited to lyrics.  I learned the Act of Contrition in first grade, and recited it in Confession at least bi-weekly.  I was in fourth grade when the priest on the other side of the dark shadowy veil stopped me just after I'd begun with my usual:  "O my God, I am partly sorry for having offended Thee, and I..."


Continue reading at Nancy's blog The Breadbox Letters.

Spiritual practices: repentance

By Ruth Ann Pilney

Native of Frascati at the Confessional by Bodnier (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons).

Repentance refers to sincere contrition for wrongdoing or sin, and it involves promising to change for the better. Regularly repenting is a good spiritual practice. This can be done daily, especially in the evening at day's end before going to bed.

St. John Chrysostom, an early Church Father, Doctor of the Church,  and dynamic preacher of the 5th century, delineated five paths of repentance. They are "condemnation of your own sins, forgiveness of our neighbor's sins against us, prayer, almsgiving and humility." He elaborates on each of these.

Condemnation of your own sins

"Be the first to admit your sins and you will be justified. For this reason, too, the prophet wrote: I said: I will accuse myself of my sins to the Lord, and you forgave the wickedness of my heart. Therefore, you too should condemn your own sins; that will be enough reason for the Lord to forgive you, for a man who condemns his own sins is slower to commit them again. Rouse your conscience to accuse you within your own house, lest it become your accuser before the judgment seat of the Lord."

While living here on earth we can examine our conscience and notice when we have failed to live up to our baptismal promises, whether in large matters or lesser ones.  The important thing is to slowly weed out our sinful tendencies and to replace them with virtue.  For example, the sin of arrogance can be replaced with compassion and mercy.


Continue reading at Ruth Ann's blog From the Pulpit of My Life.