Manor College Certification Program
Palm Sunday
Let’s talk about repentance; let’s talk about art. When a child first begins to do art, he or she might scribble some lines on a sheet of paper and run to Mom or Dad to show off the little “masterpiece” Mom and Dad usually praise the child’s efforts. But the work of mature artists is usually a much more painstaking affair. An artist—whether as a painter, a sculptor, a potter, whatever—will begin and then from time to time lean back or step back to get a clearer view of the work. The artist judges whether the work looks like what he or she had envisioned. If not, the artist might make some changes: a little more shadow here, or a little more reflection there; a little more of a rounded edge here, or a little less bulk there. In that sense, repentance is truly a work of art.
We were made as an image of God, but God did not complete the work. As Adam roamed Paradise God said, “It is not good for man to be alone.” We all have something missing in us, some unfinished part of ourselves. Depending on how we complete the project we will be satisfied or dissatisfied, happy or depressed. Some try to make up for what is missing with alcohol, drugs, and promiscuity; but these additions do not produce a work we can be proud of. Confession is removing from the canvass of our souls that which does not help complete the divine of the divine in us. When we try to fill up the hole with God and goodness, we finish what God had begun in a marvelous way. The purification and adornment of our souls with virtue creates a masterpiece: just what God intended.
We hear the word penance or repentance and we think of giving up beer for Lent, or sweets, or cigarettes. But the real meaning of the word repentance in Greek, metanoia, is “a change of mind.” Even the English word repentance comes from “re,” meaning to do something over, like repeat, or reassigned; and then “pensive,” deep thinking; in other words, to think something over again, to review.
So a good and effective Confession is a sacrament that requires a great amount of maturity and insight. We will baptize an infant, confirm it and even give it Holy Communion; but we do not hear the confessions of toddlers. To confect baptism we need water; to confect the Eucharist we need bread and wine. To confect Confession we need the self-assessment of an individual who is—like an artist—standing back from himself or herself and taking stock of the progress of the work. Sometimes Confession fails to make a rich impact on us because we examine ourselves with the standards we learned as a child, when we were seven or nine years old, the scribblings of our far more immature self. We need to be more adult in our self-examination.
Think of the dignity with which God has vested us: that we, who are made in God’s image, are commissioned to complete that image ourselves. God trusts that we can do that if we listen to his Word and apply it to our lives, if we take stock of ourselves and make any necessary adjustments. And consider this: in the end, when we appear before God, will he not throw his arms around us because he sees the very image on His Son in us?