Always in need of repentance and conversion

LET’S be frank about ourselves. We are all sinners! No matter how much we try to be good and holy—and to a certain extent, we can actually manage to achieve that ideal to some degree—we can still find ourselves falling into sin, if not big ones, then small ones, which can actually be more dangerous since we can tend to take them for granted, until we get used to them and would not feel anymore the need for repentance and conversion.

Christ expressed this concern when he reproached some people for not repenting in spite of the many good things he had done for them. “Woe to you, Chorazine! Woe to you, Bethsaida!” he said. “For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes.” (Mt 11,21)

We have to understand that conversion is a continuing affair for all of us in this life. We can never say, if we have to follow by what our Christian faith tells us, that we are so good as to need conversion no more.

We are all sinners, St. John said. And even the just man, as the Bible said, falls seven times in a day.

Besides, it is this sense of continuing conversion that would really ensure us that whatever we do, whatever would happen to us, including our failures and defeats, would redound to what is truly good for the parties concerned and for everybody else in general.

That’s because conversion brings us and everything that we have done in life to a reconciliation with God, from whom we come and to whom we go.

It’s good that we never forget this truth. But we need to prepare ourselves for it. Thus, we need to develop the virtue of penance which starts when we acknowledge these conditions about ourselves. We should be humble enough to accept this reality.

But the virtue of penance goes farther than that. It grows when we put up the necessary defenses against these enemies of our soul and wage a lifelong ascetical struggle. Yes, our life will be and should be a life of warfare, a war of peace and love that will also give us certain consolations in spite of the tension.

And for this penance to be a true virtue, it has to include an indomitable hope that can survive even in the worst of scenarios. In fact, this hope gets stronger the uglier the warfare also gets.

It’s a hope based on God’s never-sparing mercy. Some relevant words of St. Paul: “I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” (Phil 1,6) It would be good if these Pauline assurance forms the deep attitude we should have toward our fragile human condition.

Besides, we should not forget that nothing happens in our life without at least the permission and tolerance of God. And if he allows evil to happen, it is because a greater good can be derived from it.

The virtue of penance also includes the desire and practice of regular and frequent recourse to the sacrament of penance, where through the ministry of priests, Christ comes to us as father, friend, judge and doctor. This sacrament not only reconciles us with God, but also repairs whatever damage our sin would cause on others and the Church in general.