“Now, therefore,” says the Lord, “Turn to Me with all your heart, With fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.” So rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the Lord your God.” (Joel 2:12-13)
“As sin is separation from God, repentance then is returning to God. God says: “Return to me, and I will return to you” (Mal 3:7). When the prodigal son repented, he returned to his father (Luke 15:18-20). True repentance is a human longing to the origin from which it was taken. It is the desire of a heart that stayed away from God, and felt that it cannot go any further away.
Repentance is also a spiritual awakening. The sinful person is unaware of his state. The Bible says to him: “that now it is high time to awake out of sleep” (Rom 13:11). By this context, repentance is the return of a person to himself. Or the return of one’s self to its original sensitivity, the return of the heart to its fervour and the return of the conscience to its work. It is justly said about the prodigal son in his repentance: “He came to himself” (Luke 15:17). He then came back to his alertness, to his correct thinking and to his spiritual understanding.
For as sin is regarded as spiritual death, just as the Bible says about sinners that they are: “dead in trespasses” (Eph 2:5), then repentance is transfer from death to life according to the expression of St. John the Evangelist (1 John 3:14). St. Paul the apostle says about this: “Awake, you who sleep; Arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light” (Eph 5:14). St. James the apostle confirms the same meaning by saying: “he who turns a sinner from the ‘error’ of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:20).
Repentance is resurrection for the spirit, because the death of the spirit is separation of the spirit from God, just as St. Augustine said: ‘Repentance is a new pure heart, which God gives to the sinners to love Him with’. It is a divine act performed by God inside the person, according to His divine promise which says, “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, I will cleanse you from all your filthiness....I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you....and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgements and do them” (Ezek 36:25-27).”
His Holiness Pope Shenouda III
5th Monday of the Holy Great Fast
ካብ ውሽጢ ኤርትራ ዝተረኽበ ንቤተ ክርስቲያን ተዋህዶ ንምቁጽጻር ብመንግስቲ ኤርትራ ክካየድ ዝጸንሐን ዘሎን ሽርሒ ዘቃልዕ ቪድዮ
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