When must repentance be done?
When must repentance be done?
§ 139. When must repentance be done? From the foregoing the response is easily concluded. Bellarmine (De poenit., bk. 2, ch. 9, toward the end) writes about this subject: “Since the command about repentance is affirmative, it does not obligate at any time but only at certain times, as when we are involved in peril of our life, when we must come to confession, when God invites us with a special inspiration to repentance, etc.”
But Augustine writes much more correctly (Letter 105 ad Seleuc.): “Repentance is the daily penalty of good and humble believers, beating their breasts and saying, ‘Lord, forgive us our debts’ [Matt. 6:12]. With these words we humble our souls and in some way never cease our daily repentance.”
Jerome (on Matthew 10): “Let us never think that the ardor of our faith can be sufficient. The cross must always be carried so that we may always teach how to love Christ. That is how the apostle was always bearing the mortification of this flesh in his own body. Whoever does this always prays, always repents, at every time.” “Because we always sin, we must always repent and come to our senses” (Letter 45).
Gregory (on Kings, bk. 2, ch. 2): “Since we sin every day, let us run every day to the laments of repentance.”
The first of Luther’s theses ([Latin ed.,] vol. 1, Propos. de indulg., thes. 1) agrees with this: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Do penance,’ He wanted the whole life of the faithful to be repentance.”14 But this is the denial of ourselves, the mortification of the flesh, and the daily cross of the truly devout which Christ requires of all His people every day. Meanwhile, we are not opposed to the idea of a distinction between the daily repentance of the reborn and the special or solemn repentance which follows more serious lapses or that which precedes the communion of the Eucharist or that which is aroused by calamities. This special or solemn repentance by no means differs from daily repentance in essence, but only in degrees and perhaps in external actions.