Ideas and words like sin and
repentance are used by all of us. But, do we truly understand them? Do we
comprehend their deeper meaning and what they mean for us Christians? Many of
these ideas are related, giving birth to one another. Sin is followed by
repentance. But what does it truly mean to repent? How can we come closer to
God? Christos Yannaras in The Freedom of Morality gives an explanation
of this term:
‘. . . μετάνοια. This word in Greek means “change
of mind,” in other words a change in man’s whole attitude – in his existential stance, not simply in his behaviour.
Repentance is the recognition that man’s self-sufficiency is inadequate; it is
a search for the life which is realised in personal relationship with God, a
thirst for personal communion with Him. . .
Repentance does not mean simply
the “improvement” or even “perfection” of individual behaviour and individual
psychological feelings, or the strengthening of the individual will. All these
can come about while a man still remains a prisoner in his autonomous
individuality, unable to love or to participate in the communion of love which
is true life. Repentance is the change in our mode of existence: man ceases to
trust in his own individuality. He realises that existing as an individual,
even a virtuous individual, does not save him from corruption and death, from
his agonising existential thirst for life. This is why he takes refuge in the
Church, where he exists as someone
loving and loved. He is loved by the saints, who give him a “name” of personal
distinctiveness and take him into the communion of their love despite his
sinfulness; and he himself strives to love others despite their sinfulness, to
live free from the necessities of his mortal nature. He struggles to overcome
his individual resistances, his individual wishes and autonomous impulses, not
in order to “improve himself” individually, but in order to measure up to the
“frenzied love” of Christ and the saints, to the preconditions required for
personal life as opposed to natural survival.’ (pp. 40-42).
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