March 20, 2022
Repentance and Forgiveness
Repentance is a powerful word. We should use it not only in Lent but constantly because daily we commit acts, say words, have inward movements that we are sorry for, wish we had not said or done, and in some way wish to atone for. That is good. It is also good to know that sin is not the immediate cause of this or that calamity. Sometimes God sends us sorrow, trials, and sadness so that we repent, do penance, and turn our face to Him. At times it is very hard to understand that those calamities and tragedies can make us understand the love of God, and His tenderness and mercy shine with a new shine, better than ever. Let us be reassured and let us open ourselves to whatever God sends us. A supposed calamity changes into a benediction, into something we could offer to God. Let us look at things that way; it takes faith, but you pray for faith.
Let us be listerners of Christ’s voice, and realize that what seems to us a tragedy is but a message, full and pressed down, of His love. Pain and suffering can lead to repentance and unite us again with Christ, especially if we have lost Him temporarily.
Sin is turning my back on God. I walk away from God, into a deadly place, a Godless place, in which I look at mirrors, and in every mirror I see myself. Sin is the adoration of self, in a manner of speaking, instead of God. The Eastern Churches pray: “Turn not away your face from your servant, for I am afflicted! Hear me speedily, attend to my soul and deliver me!”
Listen and you will understand the starting point of Lent, the mysterious mixture… of darkness and light. I stand before God, before the glory and the beauty of His kingdom. I realize that I belong to it, that I have no other home, no other joy, no other goal. I also realize that I am exiled from it in the darkness and sadness of sin: “for I am afflicted, Lord”. Only God can help in that affliction, only He can attend to my soul.
SERVANT OF GOD CATHERINE DE HUECK DOHERTY
Catherine de Hueck Doherty (+1985), born in Russia, established the Friendship House in Harlem, New York, in 1938, and later the Madonna House Apostolate in Combermere, Canada.
