Repentance

May 25, 2023

O Felix Culpa – Oh! Happy Fault, The Coming Home Network           

Hi!  How is each and every one?  Who said love means never having to say you’re sorry? In fact, apology and forgiveness may be a hallmark of a healthy, loving relationship. In our relationship with God, our Creator and Father, we see how great His love is for us.  Our first parents disobeyed Him and turned against His love. And yet what happened?  Happy fault!  Our Lord sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to be born like us and die for each one of us, thus redeeming us from the sin of our first parents.  And now you and I are children of God. Jesus Christ covered for us, apologized and sought forgiveness from His Father for our sins with His life. Greater love than this no one has, to die for his friend. Indeed the greatest love of all!  

True!  God loves you and me to madness.  But you and I must know by now that love is reciprocal.  “Do you want to know how to thank Our Lord for all he has done for us... With love! There is no other way. Love is with love repaid. But the real proof of affection is given by sacrifice. So, take courage: deny yourself and take up his Cross. Then you will be sure you are returning him love for Love” (The Way of the Cross, Fifth Station, 1).  Although God in His goodness created you and me without asking our permission, He will not save us without our personal cooperation, that is, without our wanting to be saved, without our loving Him in return, without the cross. Our freedom, a gift from God, is not absolute; that you and I can do as you and I want at all times?  No way!  Our freedom is to choose to do the will of God, is to choose to serve as God wants.  Remember?  “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done” (Lk 22: 42).

If your mistakes make you more humble, if they make you reach out more urgently for God’s helping hand, then they are a road to sanctity: Felix culpa! — O happy fault!, the Church sings (The Forge, 187).

Felix culpa, the Church sings. Happy fault that has brought us so great and wonderful a Redeemer. Happy fault, we could add, which has merited that we should receive Mary as our Mother. Now we are safe. Nothing should worry us now, because Our Lady, the crowned Queen of heaven and earth, is omnipotent in her supplication before our Father God. Jesus cannot deny anything to Mary, nor to us, who are children of his own Mother. (Friends of God, 287-288)

At the beginning of the Easter Vigil twice we heard this strange outburst:

 

“O happy fault,
O necessary sin of Adam

which gained for us
so great a Redeemer!”

 

The joy of these words is surprising, since we’re accustomed to think of Adam and Eve’s sin as a great tragedy. God created man in His own image and loved him with infinite love. God gave man free will, with the capacity to respond freely to God. Man misused that free will to rebel against God, and thereby infected the human race with Original Sin. Before man’s Fall, some of God’s angels had also rebelled against their Creator, and in their hatred had infected nature itself with evil. So we must say that all evil, physical as well as moral, is ultimately the result of sin, either angelic sin or human sin.

 

 Why, then, does the Church through her liturgy dare to speak of the Fall as a “happy fault” or a “necessary sin?”

You see, had our first parents not fallen by sin, they would have remained in a state of supernatural grace. Eventually they would have been taken into heaven, and would have shared in the vision of God. For unfallen persons, that would be the deepest possible union between God and human beings.

Now again, why does the Church lead us to rejoice in the Fall of the human race? The reason is that through the redemption of Jesus Christ we have been restored to the supernatural state in a way far surpassing in glory what we could have known had there been no Fall.

Sacred Heart Catholic Church       

Following is another excerpt, this time on repentance (From Joseph Tissot, How to profit from your faults pp. 104-106).

This chapter leads us to our final position on the art of profiting from our faults.  It should also help us attain the height of all perfection:  the ardor of divine love.

 If some of our readers want to know more about the genesis of love through repentance, they may refer to the final chapters of the second book of the Treatise on the Love of God.  Suffice it to recall here that this last-mentioned virtue-repentance-deals with our sins.  So it should easily be understood how they benefit us.

 Repentance is made up of various acts.  Here it will be viewed in terms that, in theological and popular parlance, are known as acts of the penitent.  Confession, contrition, and satisfaction are the substance, or at least the essence, of the sacrament of reconciliation.

Fr. Ed Brown, OMV

 Our dear Doctor gives us a sublime teaching on each of these three points.  In the light of his words, we will discover the treasures our faults bring us.  They do so by nourishing those acts our souls perform in repenting.  Self-accusation seems to be the first.  It includes the ceaseless effort of attracting blessings, as a powerful means of converting our faults into merit.

 “The loving heart of our Redeemer measures and organizes all events in the world.  He does all this for the benefit of souls who want to respond wholeheartedly to his divine love…  It is there, my dear, that our faults are thorns in our souls.  But once removed through voluntary self-accusation, they are subsequently transformed into roses and perfumes.  They enter our heart through our malice, but they are thrown out by the Holy spirit” (Letter to a lady 787).

 “The scorpion’s sting is poisonous the moment it bites; but the oil drawn from it is an effective remedy against its own sting.  Sin is shameful when we commit it; but once converted through confession and repentance, it becomes honorable and salutary.

 “Contrition and confession are so beautiful and so fragrant that they wipe away the ugliness of sin and purify its stench.  Simon the leper called Mary Magdalen a sinner, but our Lord did not agree with him.  He spoke only of the perfumes she poured out and of her great charity.  If we are truly humble, Philothea, our sins will be infinitely offensive to us, for God is offended by them.  But a declaration of our sins will be pleasant and agreeable because God is honored by it.  Just telling the doctor of the pain that torments us gives us some kind of relief.  When you kneel before your spiritual director, Imagine yourself to be on Mount Calvary, at the feet of Jesus Christ crucified.  His precious blood seeps through each of your pores to wash away your sins.  Although it is not the physical blood of the Savior, what flows so abundantly over penitents in confessionals is the merit of his Blood.  Open wide your heart, then, so that you can cast out your sins in confession. As fast as they leave, the precious merits of Christ’s Passion will enter there and fill it with blessings” (Introduction to the Devout Life, 1, 19).

In confession, “you will also practice the virtues of humility, obedience simplicity, and charity.  You will exercise more virtues in this single act of confession than in any other act whatsoever” (Ibid., 2, 19).”If sin has made man guilty, then confession and contrition make him infinitely more honorable” (Advice to confessors).

May you and I learn from Mother Teresa’s words.  I have witnessed how  lack of humility  can harm the work of grace in a person.  Two persons were commended for their good example of corresponding to the grace of state only to witness thereafter the resulting opposite actuation. 

“O Lord!  What happiness the heart of a loving father experiences when he hears his daughter confess that she was envious and cunning!  This envy is a blessing indeed, for it is followed by such a frank confession!  By writing your letter, your hand made a more courageous gesture than any made by Alexander” (Letter to Mother Favre 361).

 Father du Pont has some striking comments on this subject.  He outlines the multiplicity of virtuous acts practiced in confessing our faults.  He doesn’t hesitate to consider it a superhuman degree of virtue.  According to him, this is what Job seems to suggest, for he bears witness to God as never having concealed my transgressions from men, by hiding my iniquity in my bosom (Job 31:33).

 St. Gregory states that it often requires more courage to confess a sin than it takes to avoid it.  We know the words of St. Augustine:  “God accepts your faults.  But if you accept them yourself, you find yourself united to him.”

 When one realizes that a sin committed once can become, with repeated self-accusation, an occasion for unassailable virtues and merits, don’t we have the right to repeat:  Felix culpa! (O happy fault!)?

O Happy Fault – Catholicism.org

I must apologize for the two day delay of this post.  I am sure I am not the only one who battles against the grain in these days of heat and dryness. But I guess there is no other way than to keep on trying and conquering a step at a time.  I heard from Lewis Howes, author of Greatness Mindset that fulfilling little goals during the day is success in personal greatness but not yet fulfilling.  Greatness always includes serving others.  One’s clear, conscious goals must include other people.  If I am winning, others must be winning with me.  It is more fulfilling on a daily basis. According to Coby Bryant, 100% personal fulfillment is how to inspire other persons next to you and they inspire other persons next to them.  How we impact people.  The ripple you make among people, family, friends to be great as well and how people feel your love.

See you in the next post, “May tomorrow be a perfect day; may you find love and laughter along the way; may God keep you in his tender care; ‘til He brings us together again.”

Affectionately,

Guadalupinky