On Repentance 8

If you doubt this, unroll what the Spirit says to the churches. He charges the Ephesians with forsaken love; he reproaches the Thyatirans with fornication and eating things sacrificed to idols; he accuses Sardis of works not full; he rebukes Pergamum for teaching perverse things; he chides Laodicea for trusting in riches; and yet he calls all of them to repentance, under threats, indeed. But he would not threaten the one who does not repent if he did not forgive the one who does. It would be doubtful, had he not shown this outpouring of his clemency elsewhere too. Does he not say, “He who has fallen will rise again, and he who has turned away will turn back”? He it is, surely, he it is, who “prefers mercy to sacrifices.” The heavens rejoice, and the angels there, at the repentance of a man. Ho, sinner, take heart! You see where there is rejoicing over your return. What do those arguments of the Lord's parables mean for us? That a woman loses a drachma and searches for it and finds it and invites her friends to rejoice: is this not an example of the restored sinner? One little sheep of the shepherd goes astray, but the flock was not dearer than that one: that one is sought out, that one is longed for in place of all, and at last it is found and carried back on the shepherd's own shoulders; for it had suffered much by its wandering. Nor shall I pass over that most gentle father, who calls back his prodigal son, gladly receives him repentant after his want, kills the fatted calf, and adorns his joy with a feast. Why not? He had found the son he had lost; he had felt him dearer because he had gained him back. Whom are we to understand by that father? God, of course. No one is so truly a father, no one so loving. He, then, will receive you, his son, even if you have squandered what you received from him, even if you come back naked, because you have come back; and he will rejoice more over your return than over the soberness of the other. But only if you repent from the heart, if you compare your hunger with the plenty of your father's hired servants, if you leave the swine, that unclean herd, if you seek your father again, offended though he is, saying, “I have sinned, father, and I am no longer worthy to be called yours.” Confession of sins lightens them as much as concealment aggravates them. For confession is the counsel of satisfaction; concealment, of contumacy.