Guest Post from Fr. Tom Collins: REPENTANCE -- The Royal Road to Spiritual Regeneration

Return of the Prodigal Son, Rembrandt

by Fr. Tom Collins

When St. John Paul II introduced the new Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary, he included, as the Third Mystery, The Proclamation of the Kingdom with the Call to Repentance. Unfortunately, in a society that tends to view repentance in a negative light, this mystery is frequently subject to being abbreviated as merely, The Proclamation of the Kingdom. Yet, as the example and teaching of so many saints have so clearly pointed out, ongoing repentance is the key to authentic spiritual regeneration. It is important to stress the fact that authentic repentance must be ongoing. 

Just as the health of our physical bodies requires the ongoing operation of our immune system, so also our spiritual health, and eternal salvation, depends on an ongoing repentance guided by a rightly formed conscience (i.e., a sincere conscience docile to the whole truth of God, not a sin-seared conscience which seeks salvation through excuses and resentment). In order to accentuate this truth, it would be helpful to note some basic realities, which have been eclipsed in recent years from the consciousness of so many.

To clarify our spiritual vision, we need to rediscover the fact that repentance is the way we show hospitality to the mercy of God. Note that, when our First Parents sinned, they refused to offer God the hospitality of sincere repentance. Instead, they tried to hide from God’s mercy. And when that did not work, they sought to find salvation and restoration through excuses and resentments. Thus, having persisted in their refusal to offer Him the hospitality of repentance, they left themselves exposed to the metastasizing consequences of their disobedience.

Next, we need to rediscover the basic truth that, at its core, repentance is a gracious gift of the Holy Spirit, whereby a person seeks to love beyond his/her ability. This is done in three ways:

• First of all, where one’s ability to love is perverted and/or crippled by past sins and festering resentments, repentance humbly and gratefully opens the soul not only to forgiveness, but also regenerative joy. In this context, we need to remember that in the Sacrament of Reconciliation involves a proclamation of prayerful gratitude. What we are confessing in the sacrament is our contrite conviction that God’s gracious mercy and transformative graciousness is greater than the perverting and desecrating power of our sins. After all, what sin says about us comes from the Father of Lies, what Christ affirms about our sacredness by shedding His Precious Blood for us is truth. Thus, refusing to confess that God’s mercy is greater than a particular sin is a de facto sacrilegious assertion that our sin is greater than God, that the power of Satan to desecrate us is greater than God’s ability to regenerate us in His image and likeness.

• Secondly, loving beyond one’s ability means gratefully acknowledging that any virtue one seems to possess is actually the fruit of numerous other people’s ministry, prayers, forgiveness and sacrifices. All authentic virtue is derived through our privileged communion with such generous souls, as all of us are called to a more profound and sanctifying communion with Christ Jesus. And, like other fruit, as is indicated in Gen 1:11-12, 29, this fruit of other people’s prayers, sacrifices and ministries, contains the seeds of new life, which can germinate and take root in the lives of many others. Thus, such virtue is always permeated with a spirit of humble gratitude for the privilege of sharing in the ever-regenerative mystery and ministries of God’s love. It is never a cause for alienating pride or boasting.

• Thirdly, loving beyond one’s ability requires that we offer others the gracious hospitality of seeking their help, either when we need to further enhance our own compassion with greater competence or when our outreach to others requires the competence of others to enhance our compassion. For example, St. Teresa of Calcutta would not hesitate to ask a doctor to volunteer his professional services to the poor once a month. She did not hesitate to “repent” of her incompetence by asking others to enhance her ministry with their professional competence. Ironically, in this way she was able to draw both her helpers and her spiritual children into a deeper intimacy with the compassionate Hearts of Our Lord and Blessed Mother.

Another reason why ongoing repentance is so important for the New Evangelization to take deep root in our world is the graciousness of Jesus. Here again, in a society, where so many assert that self-esteem is based upon an alienating pride rather than a reconciling gratitude, numerous souls fail to realize the awesome depths and riches of the merciful Heart of Christ. Specifically, since approaching the Sacrament of Reconciliation involves a certain degree of awkwardness, there is a tendency either to avoid the sacrament or to downgrade the seriousness of particular sins by mumbling our sins or by using euphemisms or veiled language. 

But, here again, we can only experience the full transformative graciousness of God’s merciful love by confessing in a way that is humble, sincere and complete. One way of doing so is to offer the awkwardness we experience in approaching the sacrament as a sacrificial prayer for another soul, so that soul may also have the courage to trust in God’s mercy and seek healing absolution from his/her sins. When we do so, the Heart of Jesus is filled with grateful joy for our assistance - and Satan suffers a crushing headache. As one spiritual director pointed out, “Don’t let a good confession go to waste!”

As a conclusion of this reflection, we should note that the whole premise of repentance is that we are sacred. There is an adage, “A fly cannot offend a king.” Although a fly can irritate a king, it cannot offend him, since it is not a person. Only persons, since they are sacred, are capable of offending and desecrating themselves, others and Creation. Thus those who deny that we can offend God by our sins imply that we, as human beings, have no more dignity than a fly. 

On the other hand, since we, as persons, are sacred, we can only find true fulfillment in sanctifying others by drawing them, through repentance and the obedience of faith, into a deeper communion with Christ. Thus, in a world, which would have us ask, “How can I survive/thrive in this situation?”, the Holy Spirit invites us to ask a more authentic question, “How can I help to sanctify this person/situation?” Such sanctification begins with and is permeated with sincere and grateful repentance (i.e., with humble and grateful hospitality to the redemptive and regenerative mercy of God). And the more we are open to the many dimensions of that mercy, the more we will witness it coming to fruition in all dimensions of our lives and relationships. As Jesus Himself teaches us,

“Be earnest, therefore, and repent! See, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will enter his house and dine with him and him with Me.” (Rev 3:19-20)