Mother Siluana on repentance
Repentance means asking for forgiveness with trust in God's love. If you don't believe God loves you, don't begin your repentance. First, say: "Lord, forgive me because I don't believe You love me. Lord, show me You love me. Lord, grant me to feel that You love me. Lord, grant me to love You!" The moment you taste this love of God, you will know what repentance is…
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When we truly repent, we have nothing to promise God, we have nothing to give to God, and we finally understand that all He asks from us is to receive Him and allow Him to serve us, heal us, and fill us with His joy. Yes, we will feel a great pain, a terrible sadness of the soul, and a true crushing of the heart by seeing ourselves as we are. By experiencing this without dissimulating or defending, we will let the Comforter come into our crushed hearts, and we will feel God’s mercy; we will rest in the understanding that it is not necessary anymore to try to be different, to be someone else.
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Our repentance and asceticism are the doors of Joy, but they are not external doors, but inner embraces with the Lord our God, with His will into Which our will “gives in.” And, when we accept giving in without violence, and let ourselves be soft in His hands, everything becomes a dance with the heavenly powers that rejoice for our coming back HOME!
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A thought came to you that you sinned? Strike it! “Lord, forgive me! Lord, have mercy on me!” In fact, repentance, metanoia, means the turning of the mind, the renewal of the mind. What do we usually do when something happens to us? Our mind searches for solutions. And the mind has ready-made solutions, but can also create new combinations out of the old solutions. Repentance means not to use any of these instruments, but rather to say: “Lord, enlighten me and show me what to do; forgive me, for all I have done so far has led me to sin! Even if I don’t sin, if I do what my mind tells me to do, I end up sinning. Lord, renew my mind! Lord, heal my mind! Lord, I love You, heal me!”
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To live automatically, haphazardly, driven by sensations and perceptions, is a mortal sin, because we are dead, sleepwalking.
Consequently, the repentance we urgently need is to wake up, to ask God through prayer to wake us up, and to practice this all day long.
(from an upcoming book with daily thoughts from Mother Siluana Vlad)
If you want to read more of Mother Siluana’s words, the following books are available on Amazon:
“God, Where is the Wound?” (ebook)
“Offering Ourselves, We Enter into His Joy - Volume 1” (paperback and ebook)
“Offering Ourselves, We Enter into His Joy - Volume 2” (paperback and ebook)