Allshorn: contrite

Wednesday, August 4, 2010
    Feast of John Vianney, Curè d’Ars, 1859
Meditation:
    [Jesus to the Laodiceans:] I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.
    —Revelation 3:15-16 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We have to repent of our blindness, our lukewarmness, and our disobedience, and turn back to the central truth of Christ as Lord and Saviour; an ethical system will not save us here, nor a timid sentimentalism, nor an excited emotional return, nor a dilettante mysticism.
    We have to find that deep contrition which is the condition of His abiding.
    Repentance is not a mere feeling of sorrow or contrition for an act of wrongdoing. The regret I feel when I act impatiently or speak crossly is not repentance... Repentance is contrition for what we are in our fundamental beings, that we are wrong in our deepest roots because our internal government is by Self and not by God.
    And it is an activity of the whole person. Unless I will to be different, the mind will not follow.
    True repentance brings an urge to be different, because of the sense of the incessant movement of what I am, forming, forming, forming what I shall be in the years to come.
    ... Florence Allshorn (1887-1950), The Notebooks of Florence Allshorn, London: SCM Press, 1957, p. 104 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, burn repentance into my heart. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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