1. The importance of Repentance.
The four general steps towards everlasting life are; a.) repentance, b.) Faith, c.) Hope and d.) Charity. Repentance is a work of grace but needs the cooperation of man. Faith, Hope and Charity are graces that comes exclusively from God. In effect, man’s work in the salvation of his soul is just Repentance.
However, man will only know that he has repented and that his sins are forgiven, if and when God gives him the grace of Faith. Man’s sins are not forgiven automatically when he goes to confession and receives absolution. There are many requirements before sins are forgiven by God. It is not the priest who forgives. The priest is supposed to find out if God has forgiven the sinner. And if God had done so, then and only then can the priest inform the penitent that his sins are forgiven.
So, when Christ came to preach, He preached; ‘Repent and believe,’ i.e. repent and don’t stop repenting until you receive the gift of Faith from God. Your prayer must be unceasing prayer of Faith. It must be prayer that is accompanied by the theological virtue of Faith. The virtue of Faith must already have been received when praying with Faith. Before that we can only say the ‘repentant prayer.’
The ‘repentant prayer’ was the prayer of the publican who was praying behind the pillar ashamed of his sinfulness. The prayer of Faith is the prayer of the Centurion and Phoenician woman. So pray like the publican and don’t stop until you pray like the Phoenician woman.
2. Christ was constantly preaching the need for repentance. He spent 30 years of hidden life showing us how to say the prayer of repentance. He spend only three years showing us the prayer of Faith, Hope and Charity. The message is clear; for salvation repentance is the most important activity. All concentration must be on it. Everything else will follow.
All of Scriptures, all of the writings of the Fathers of the Church and most of the writings of the Popes are on how to repent effectively. Repentance must be perfect before God can give us the gift of Faith. It must be perfect, otherwise, we cannot receive the gift of Faith.
The problem in the world from the beginning is man’s inability to repent. Christ warned us; ‘when the Son of man comes, will He find Faith on earth? He will not find Faith because man will not repent. This topic is for next Sunday, so we will stop here.
3. Evangelization is teaching ‘repentance,’ not teaching Faith, Hope or Charity. Without repentance it is useless to talk about the theological virtues. So the Catholic Church had always been concentrating on teaching repentance. The whole concept of ‘evangelization’ is teaching repentance. Seminaries and schools of theology are supposed to teach only ‘repentance’ because everything else is based on repentance. Without repentance the whole structure of the Catholic Church collapses.
This is the reason why Pope Benedict XVI instructed Bishop Eterovic, secretary of the Bishop’s Synod of 2012, to concentrate only on repentance in discussing the ‘new evengelization’ because repentance is the foundation of ‘evangelization.’ When the Bishop’s Synod did not discuss the subject, from then on, up to the present, ‘repentance’ had never been defined nor described by the Pope down to the lowest priest.
Ignorance on the subject had prevented souls from entering the Catholic Church; because Faith, Hope and Charity which makes one a Catholic is given only within the Catholic Church. The unrepentant adulterer, gay, atheist, protestant and abortionist are all outside the Church. What keeps them outside? They are unrepentant.
4. The delicate efforts of the Church to help all men repent.
All activities of the Catholic Church are focused on teaching and helping all men repent. All the rest are God’s work and the Church leaves the rest to God, really. Evangelization is not teaching men all the truths of God. That is impossible. All the truths are infused by God to those with Faith. Evangelization is teaching men how to repent. That and only that; teaching men their only role in the work of salvation. Since the Bishop’s Synod of 2012 all evangelizations, including most ‘new evangelizations’ are defectively protestant and cannot save soul. Why? They do not teach repentance.
Ecumenical movements are meant to teach other religions the Catholic concept of repentance. This idea of repentance is what converted Chesterton from Anglicanism to Catholicism. Proving to all other religions that the Catholic concept of repentance really forgives past sins; this is more powerful than discussing doctrinal questions. The efforts of the Ecumenical movement today of merely organizing themselves into a one world religion is Satanic and condemned by the Church.
And social doctrines, like capital punishment, is based on the Church’s concern that all men repent and go to heaven.
5. God’s chastisements are meant to make man repent.
The first thing God wants us to learn is how to repent; and this is taught through evangelization. If we have heard the way to repent but still refuses to repent, than God sends us chastisement to, sort of, push us to repent. These chastisements can come in the form of illness, sufferings, trials, earthquakes, storms, wars…… and death.
Let us just concentrate on death as a chastisement. The saints had reminded us that those who put death before their eyes will never sin. That is good because, then, there will be no need for repentance if there is no sin. But for the hard headed the only effective way to make him repent is the thought of death. Nothing else will do.
Thus the early monks kept skulls on their desk to remind them of death. And when they went to bed they would momentarily take the posture of lying in a coffin for the same purpose. The fear of death is inherent in all human beings. It forces them to think.
6. The first act of repentance is an act of the intellect; followed by an act of the will.
Let us go to the act of intellect. Repentance occurs when a soul realizes that when he commits a heinous crime, he has attacked the common good and have personally hurt himself. Realizing this the intellect becomes contrite and must desire to make restitution for his crime with his own life (specially in killing another person.) It is a grace for the criminal to see that he must pay for his life for his crime; for him to realize this he must hear himself condemned to die.
In thinking of the common good, the soul must recall the words of Christ which says; ‘if your eyes causes you to sin pluck it out.’ For the good of the rest of the body, if the eyes is the cause of harm to the whole body, it must be plucked out. This is the general reason for capital punishment. The welfare of the common good. Capital punishment is for the welfare of the common good. A criminal who is guilty of a heinous crime have ceased to be part of the community that deserve the common good.
The more specific reason for the capital punishment is the conversion or repentance of the individual criminal. The thought of death is his last motivation for repentance. There is no other thing in the whole world that can make man repent, as a last resort, than the thought of death. The thought of death is taken away when capital punishment is abolish. St. Thomas of Aquinas clearly stated that if the thought of death does not make man repent, nothing else can.
7. So when Pope Francis and the Bishop’s conference want to abolish the death penalty, firstly, they are sacrificing the common good to please a man and are depriving the souls of criminals the last strongest and most effective reason for repentance. In short, they are helping criminals be condemned by God for all eternity. For them to do so will make them deserving of the same punishment for being an accomplish in the destruction of souls. Whose work is that supposed to be?
There is a long wise argument on the benefits of capital punishment which sadly Pope Francis and the Bishop’s conference seems to be ignorant of. I have just tackled the wisest beneficial reason for capital punishment; it is first and foremost for the benefit of the criminal. And only secondarily for the benefit of society.
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