“Correctly understood, repentance is not negative but positive. It means not self-pity or remorse but conversion, the re-centering of our whole life upon the Trinity. It is to look not backward with regret but forward with hope – not downwards at our own shortcomings but upwards at God’s love. It is to see, not what we have failed to be, but what by divine grace we can now become; and it is to act upon what we see. To repent is to open our eyes to the light.
“In this sense, repentance is not just a single act, at initial step, but a continuing state, an attitude of heart and will that needs to be ceaselessly renewed up to the end of life.”
-Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, in The Orthodox Way
Gladsome Lights 
The flower says it all. May we “open our eyes to the light.”
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Exactly. Beautiful photo!
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Stealing for my Facebook. 🙂
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This is a beautiful thought about repentance, making it much more positive.
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I liked that quote very much. Lovely flower too.
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Oh, my! Yes. That is beautiful! Thank you for the share.
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Beautiful quote and photo!
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This is very hopeful. Thank you!
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A post perfect for Lent.
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Re-orienting to the Light. Yes.
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Walk in the light as He is in the light…. 1 John
Amen!
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Thank you! I needed this reminder.
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This is so true and a great positive way of looking at it! It is just a recentering!!
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Just now looked back at this. How easily I forget. (I think I may get sidetracked by the mystery of confession.)
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I know, that’s easy to do, isn’t it, when we have to look back at least a week or two in order to prepare!
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The thing is, its hard to internalize Met. K.’s first sentence–although I believe it. Your posting his words with that picture helps.
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I just came aacross this from an Edith Humphreys essay on psalm 137 (which was sung during vespers last Saturday night, and commented on by our priest at Sunday’s Divine Liturgy).Her explanation helps me rethink confession:
” C. S. Lewis, again, puts into contemporary language the situation about which all the desert fathers remind us: “Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement; he is a rebel who must lay down his arms…This process of surrender…is what Christians call repentance. Now repentance is no fun at all…It means killing part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death” (Mere Christianity, 2.4). And this is the business we go about in Great Lent, with the help of the Holy Spirit, the Theotokos, the saints, and the disciplines of the Church!”
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Oh, thank you, Albert!
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Reread late, early too. Would do well to come back every night. Simple concept, but strangely elusive. A flower is not elusive though. I’ll save yours where I can see it and be reminded.
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