Daily Journey Through the Great Fast With the Early ChurchSample

God is faithful to forgive, He is faithful when we ask Him to “turn away Your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities” [Psalm 50:9] that He will - but in order for Him to turn away His face from our sins we must first tell Him “I am conscious of my iniquity; and my sin is at all times before me.” [Psalm 50:3].

Keeping my sins “at all times before me” is not to be depressed because of my sins but to always keep aware that I have fallen short and yet, through repentance in my heart and confession to God in the presence of the priest, I am given the strength to rise again and am cleansed of my sins. St. Paul says, “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.” [2 Corinthians 7:10] - meaning that when we repent, the sorrow of committing our sins, while holding on to God’s goodness in His forgiveness, will lead us to salvation...to live a life of repentance is to take the sins that I committed, that I repented and confessed of, and to allow them to “produce fruits worthy of repentance” [Matthew 3:8, Luke 3:8]. St. John Chrysostom says, “Worldly sorrow, in contrast to this, is regret for the loss of money, reputation and friends. That kind of sorrow merely leads to greater harm, because the regret is often a prelude to a thirst for revenge. Only sorrow for sin is really profitable.”

When a farmer wants to grow crops, they plant the seeds they use fertilizer (animal manure) in order to allow the soil to hold more nutrients and water, and when they do so the soil becomes more fertile and is more able to produce crops. Where the animal manure (sin) is used for a good use to help produce crops (fruits worthy of repentance), if put in your bedroom, a bad use, will nauseate you, cause you to be sick from the smell, and will attract flies, insects and so on. We should never be ashamed to repent because God is faithful to forgive us our sins when we acknowledge and repent.

“Do not be ashamed to enter again into the Church. Be ashamed when you sin. Do not be ashamed when you repent. Pay attention to what the devil did to you. These are two things: sin and repentance. Sin is a wound; repentance is a medicine. Just as there are for the body wounds and medicines, so for the soul are sins and repentance. However, sin has the shame and repentance possesses the courage.” [St. John Chrysostom, 4th century Archbishop of Constantinople and a “doctor of the Church”]