Jeremy L. Berg

“Repentance is not a paroxysm of remorse and self-pity, but conversion, the recentering of our life upon the Holy Trinity. As a “new mind,” conversion, recentering, repentance is positive, not negative. In the words of St. John Climacus, “Repentance is the daughter of hope and the denial of despair.” It is not despondency but eager expectation; it is not to feel that one has reached an impasse, but to take the way out. It is not self-hatred but the affirmation of my true self as made in God’s image. To repent is to look, not downward at my own shortcomings, but upward at God’s love; not backward with self-reproach, but forward with trustfulness. It is to see, not what I have failed to be, but what by the grace of Christ I can yet become.” -Bishop Kallistos Ware, The Inner Kingdom