Today's Gospel: "I tell you... there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance." [Luke 15]
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"Yeah, but" nothing...
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"A brother asked a hermit, 'Is it good to be always repenting?' The hermit answered, 'We have seen Joshua the son of Nun; it was when he was lying prostrate on his face that God appeared to him.'"
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"Abba Sisoes once said with confidence, 'For thirty years I have not prayed to God without sin. When I pray, I say 'Lord Jesus Christ protect me from my tongue.' Yet even now it causes me to fall every day.'"
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So repent, and every day give great joy to the Sacred Heart of Jesus!
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Icon: Sisoes - a memento mori.
I like Abba Sisoes quote. Sounds like me.
ReplyDeleteMe too - sounds like - pulls ear! Have a great feast day.
ReplyDeleteI'm especially joyful this week...the Holy Spirit and patron Saint of engineering (whoever he is) has been great on helping me resolve some nagging engineering problems at work. I asked for spiritual help and they kept whispering in my ear :) (Yeah I don't tell too many folks that I have voices whispering in my mind helping me solve engineering problems..they'd be calling the nice men in the white coats.. )
ReplyDeleteYeah--plenty of repenting on my part,...but also plenty of me dancing and singing joyful songs. God is good !!
Sara
We wouldn't have to keep repenting if we didn't keep on sinning, and we wouldn't keep on sinning if we weren't flawed humans living in a fallen world.
ReplyDeleteSo I guess the answer is that continual repenting is pretty much a given.
Aren't we lucky that G-d accepts our sincere repentance?
Repenting always?
ReplyDeleteOh, yes.
Definitely yes!
'For thirty years I have not prayed to God without sin.
ReplyDelete***
Yep, that's me :(
It was time for confession and I noticed I was getting depressed (my sins depress me and for many reasons) and as I walked by a person who I thought needed my prayers I heard that snotty voice in my head- you know the one...
It said,"Don't pray for that person your not worthy, besides your too sinful and God wont hear your prayers anyway." And I said to myself, "No matter how sinful I am I will never stop praying for other people and whether I'm worthy or not is immaterial and even if I'm positive that I will end up in hell when I die -which I deserve by the way.
Satan is a liar. Except about the part where I may very well end up in hell but I'm trying hard not to. Well to be honest- sometimes I don't try hard enough to avoid the place...
Seems like we're all in the same boat, folks -- and I too am with Abba Sisoes re: sins of the tongue. That little flap of flesh has gotten me into heaps of trouble! Belinda, I'm hearing that snotty little Satanic voice often, too. Thanks be to God that we have the protection of the Sacred Heart and of Our Mother's Rosary -- the most potent weapons possible!
ReplyDeletePenitence is as penance does.
ReplyDeleteWe forget that Jesus also used the word "Rejoice." The Kingdom of God is not a dour gathering, and Jesus didn't sit on his mother's doorstep for 30 years -- His people were not joyless Pharisees. Keep in mind that some monks fell in love with themselves, not with God.