penance

“I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.”

Think about how good we feel after coming to be on the other side of healing from a bad cold or the flu, recovering from a twisted ankle, a broken collar bone, or other health conditions. If you have ever experienced an asthma attack or had the breath knocked out of you, it is such a relief to able to breathe fully again. We experience a feeling of wholeness that was missing during the midst of our suffering where we may have pondered a time or two whether or not we would ever get better.

The same can be said for estranged relationships. There is a distance of separation that can be agonizing, an inner gut-wrenching experience that gnaws away at us. We wonder if there can ever be a coming back together. When there is reconciliation, forgiveness, and mending of the brokenness, we can experience relief, lightness, and joy that we never imagined possible while in the midst of the conflict, the silence, and the separation.

Sin damages our relationship with God and one another. Unchecked and unbridled sin can rupture those relationships. The Pharisees and the scribes questioned why Jesus was eating with tax collectors and sinners, and Jesus replied: “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do. I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners” (Lk 5:32).

Jesus is a light in the darkness. For Levi and his friends, who were ambling in the darkness, Jesus shone gently and warmly. They realized there was a sage path to walk and they did. A great celebration of fellowship ensued in Levi’s home because these men and women, who had been outcasts, who were separated from the greater community were forgiven, welcomed, and embraced. They were loved by Jesus as they were. They did not have to change first for Jesus to call Levi and gather with them.

They were welcomed into the kingdom and reign of God. Their ticket to reconciliation and healing was accepting the invitation of Jesus, to receive and experience his love and welcome. Levi and the other sinners did not run from the light of Jesus, but were willing to recognize their need for healing, were willing to repent, to turn away from their prior ways of life, and so were reborn!

They were divinized because of their willingness to participate in the life of Jesus. Levi chose not to just be a repentant sinner, but continued to follow Jesus. He gave his whole life to him and allowed himself to be transformed. He chose to leave the path of darkness and to follow the Way. He continued to follow Jesus such that it was no longer he who lived, as Paul had experienced, but Christ who lived in him (cf. Galatians 2:20)!

Jesus invites us, as he invited Levi, to come and follow him. We are given the same invitation and opportunity for healing, discipleship, and transformation. Will we resist rationalizing and justifying our sinful thoughts, actions, and habits, welcome the light of Jesus that reveals our venial and mortal sins, and admit that we are in need of healing, repent, be forgiven, and be released from all the energy we have expended in protecting and hiding from ourselves and our God who loves us more than we can ever mess up?

We say yes, by quietly spending time, especially each evening, and recalling our day. When we are willing, Jesus reveals to us those ways in which we have not lived according to his will. Jesus does not reveal our sins to condemn or shame us, he does so to convict us in the hope that we will identify, renounce, and confess them. Then he will forgive us. Even when uncovering deeply rooted and mortal sins, through the intimate encounter with Jesus in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we will be forgiven and freed.

Jesus loves us as we are. Yet holding on to our sin, keeps us at a distance from experiencing the greater breadth and depth of his love. We only need to be willing to be contrite, to embrace sorrow for the harm we have inflicted with our personal sins, and go to the Divine Physician in our time of prayer and/or Reconciliation. Once absolved, the heavy weight is lifted and we are healed and go forward into the light to engage in penance, atone for our sins, and are better able to forgive others as we have been forgiven, and to love as we have been loved!

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Photo: Jesus is the light that reveals the path to lead us out of darkness.

Link for the Mass readings for Saturday, February 21, 2026

Having the humility to confess our sins frees and heals us.

It is much easier to find fault in others, and in some cases, the act of doing so has become entertainment in private as well as publicly, and especially with social media. Gossip has a seductive allure and can be consuming. Judging others is also a way to justify and or project our own inappropriate behavior onto others. We may even place ourselves in a false sense of exalted pride. Have we ever, not just stated, but thought or prayed something along the same lines as the Pharisee in today’s Gospel? “O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity — greedy, dishonest, adulterous — or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income” (Lk 18:11-12).

To pray any part of this prayer stunts the growth in our spiritual life because we are focused on ourselves instead of emptying ourselves before God. Anytime we rationalize, cover over, or deny our sinful behavior we create and support habits of selfishness. Left unchecked, we can become enslaved to them. Lent is a time for healing, purification, and transformation. To be able to heal from sinful attitudes and actions that have become habits, we first must be able to acknowledge and identify them.

Over time, reading more and more lives of the saints, I have come to understand that their recognition and confession of their sinfulness was not just pious platitudes, but true expressions that they were growing closer in their relationship with Jesus. A simple example can help express where they are coming from.

When we drive our car while it is dark we don’t give much thought to the cleanliness of our windshield because we can see fine. Yet as the headlights from an oncoming car illuminate our windshield, the smudges, dirt streaks, and bug residue come into focus. This can be evident in our spiritual life as well. The more we remain in our own darkness of denial, we feel we are fine, all is right with the world. The closer we grow in our relationship with Jesus, the more his light shines in our darkness, and he reveals to us our sin.

Jesus invites us to resist the prayer of the Pharisee who justifies himself as he prays comparing himself to someone else, instead of acknowledging his own sinful actions and he instead emphasizes that we are to follow the honest humility of the tax collector, who did “not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner’”(Lk 18:13).

Now, Jesus is not saying this is the only way we pray. We have the opportunity to worship and praise the Lord joyfully, we can seek his help in praying for others through intercessory prayer or for ourselves in petitionary prayer, we can also sit in quiet meditation during adoration or out among God’s wonder of creation. Each prayer has its time and place and each type of experience of prayer helps us to grow and deepen our relationship with Jesus and each other.

True humility is brought about by our willingness to see who we are from God’s eyes and to focus on him instead of ourselves. If we want to set a standard to live up to and if we are to compare ourselves to anyone, let it be Jesus. A daily examination of conscience is a healthy practice and discipline. We just need to be willing to invite Jesus to shine his light of love into our present places of darkness. What we see then we can confess. Admitting to and experiencing the sorrow for the hurt we have caused from our sins is healing. In our willingness to confess, promise to sin no more, and do penance, we will receive his love, mercy, and forgiveness.

One prayer I have found helpful over the last few years is the Jesus Prayer. It is very simple. Sit in a comfortable space, take a few deep breaths and exhalations, then as you take the next breath in recite, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God,” and then as you breathe out say, “Have mercy on me a sinner.” You are breathing in the light of Christ and you are breathing out the darkness of your sin.

Traditional prayer ropes exist from the Eastern Orthodox tradition for this practice. They are made of wool, usually black, and have ten decades of ten beads. The bottom can also have a fringe representing the mercy of God wiping away our tears of sorrow. You can also use your Rosary. If you have neither a prayer rope or a Rosary, you have your fingers. Start with a set of ten Jesus Prayer recitations each day and pray by prayer come closer into communion with God.

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Photo: Rosary walk and looking up, just past sunset. God is good! St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary, Boynton Beach, FL.

Link for the Mass readings for Saturday, March 9, 2024