Dear Theophilus,

In our discussion I have tried to underline the importance of repentance if one is to grow spiritually. For many, the very idea of repentance seems outmoded and a throwback to the Middle Ages. It brings to mind an attitude of slavery and this grates on the sensibilities of the spirit of our times. Why do I have to grovel? I am not really that bad.

I think that there is a false basis to this kind of thinking that distorts what repentance is really about. Maybe if I made some of those points clearer, then it will be easier to see the point of repentance. The first thing that I want to point out to you is that repentance is not necessary to God. He does not need it. If He does not need it, then repentance must be something that is important for us. Repentance arises from the fact that we were created by God and we are intended for a relationship with God. This relationship has been damaged and is in need of mending and one of the prerequisites for this mending is repentance.

One of the major stumbling blocks for repentance occurring is that we feel that we have not really done anything wrong and therefore, why must we repent. This position is taken by us because we do not examine, on a regular basis, who we are and what we have done. If we were to examine our lives, as saints do, then we would see that indeed, there are things which warrant repentance on our part.

We were made by God and He loves us and has loved us and will love us into eternity. Yet, on our part, our sense of God's presence is weak and sporadic and this is due totally to our behavior and not to God. The bottom line of the matter is that we do not love God in a deep, abiding continual manner. We would much more likely talk about matters which in a sense offer us diversions and entertainment to combat the boredom that often looms in our lives. A clear illustration of this is our attitude to prayer. It is often weak, sporadic and dull. We do not delight in prayer and this shows that our love for God is lukewarm. Time, which is a precious but limited gift to us, slips away in idleness. We may go so far as to talk about prayer, and write treatises on prayer, but we do not pray as we should.

Just think about the time of your first love. Did you not want to be with her continually and to speak to her as often as possible? And is this the way you feel about God? We make every effort to master a variety of activities ranging from driving a car to mountain climbing to all sorts of other things. And yet, when it comes to worship and prayer, we continually complain. Are there not grounds here for change, and is this not the fundamental meaning of repentance - change? It would be one thing if we tried and failed and then tried again over and over. But we do not even try.

The other major commandment given to us is to love our neighbor. Here, we again maintain a minimalist position. We are called on to die for our neighbor and we grumble when we are even asked to give up some comfort for the sake of our neighbor. Instead, we often rejoice at the misfortunes of our neighbor and envy his successes. How our eyes open at the first hint of gossip. And do you notice how we are even oblivious of this behavior or that what we are doing is in any way wrong?

We have faith built on words but when it comes to actions, they betray how flimsy our faith is. What preoccupies our thoughts? It is most likely concerns for our financial well-being, our health and other matters. We rarely, very rarely turn our thoughts to eternity. We do not believe with all of our being and one of the reasons for this is that we do not practise our faith continually, starting with the continual awareness of God's involvement in our lives. Faith is something that we tack onto all the other important things in our lives. It is almost, as someone facetiously put it, a form of fire insurance. For most of us there is a secret niggling doubt which says that this is all that there is. Matters of faith are often just matters of the mind. We can argue and state things but they also must be matters of the heart that we live by. How many of us attend liturgy on Sundays? Why don't we attend more regularly? Because we don't believe that this is a matter of life and death. How little we know of our faith and with each passing generation this number shrinks. We lack a direct awareness of God and this contributes to our lack of faith, but, at the same time, our lukewarm faith contributes to our separation from God.

One of the most important calls for repentance comes from the spirit of the age that we live in. Humility and self restraint and self-denial are seen as signs of weakness bordering sometimes on mental illness. In our age it is not the violence that is characteristic. If you were to look at the middle ages you would see violence widespread and common. Just read a play like Macbeth and you will see there more gore and killing and bloodshed than in many films of today. No, it is not violence that is eating our society like a cancer but something more insidious and hard to pin down. It is pride. It is the spirit that I can do it all. It is the spirit that I should have it all. What was seen as a grievous error in the past has now been elevated to the stature of a virtue. Everything is now judged with respect to me and my wishes, and this is applauded by our society. If I happen to notice something not right with me, then I have a ready excuse - it is the fault of someone or something else such as genetic inheritance. I take every criticism in the spirit of a personal insult. In a nutshell, what all this means is that I have made a golden calf of myself - I have become my own idol. My god has become my comfort and I will do all in my power to avoid any pain or discomfort.

I have written the above in fairly general terms but there is enough there to point to everyone, without exception, that there is something lacking, something wrong in our lives. And this realization should bring us to repentance which cleanses the lens through which we see ourselves. As someone once said: it is through the lens created by the tears of repentance that we see Christ the most clearly.

When we say that we have no need for repentance, what we are stating is that we have not really examined ourselves in depth. We are still dealing with the superficial self that acts as a front in our behavior in society. When we do look inside, we see a very different picture and what repentance does is call on us to look inside and see what we are truly like. Ironically, the picture presented through our self-examination offers us not despair but hope. It is only when we realize that there is something wrong with us, that we need to find out specifically what is ailing us, before we can be healed and cured.

What we need most is to love God and this requires that we trust Him and have faith in Him. But in order to get to trust Him, we must get to know Him. If you don't know Him, how can you love Him? And in order to know Him, you must repent which fundamentally means to change our views and direction of life. Repentance does not mean, as it is sometimes falsely parodied, as a morbid hatred of self. It means a hopeful look at what state we are truly in. It is an escape from illusion and delusion and is the first step on our spiritual healing which will lead to our spiritual growth. But, you will say, when I read the great saints they seem to be so down on themselves that I find this hard to accept and it seems somehow demeaning to human worth. I agree with you that on the surface, it seems that the saints are very hard on themselves. But this is so because they have experienced in such an intense manner Him who is without any blemish and is infinite love and compassion, that in comparison, we seem so worthless. But this is the great hope. That in spite of this experience, we are still immeasurably loved. The tears of repentance are those of sorrow but they are mingled, as well, with tears of joy. In spite of our smallness, in spite of our sins, in spite of our neglect of God, He still loves us and in this lies all our hope.

Theophilus, we are all called on to repent and if we understand repentance as it is meant in Christianity, we will see that there is nothing there that takes away any value or worth of humankind. Instead, it restores humans to what they were called on - to be united with God in a bond of love which is to last all of eternity. What this fully means we do not now know, except to say that there is immeasurable bliss awaiting us.

Goodbye for now,

Bar-Abbas.