Vigils Reading – 26th Sunday

A reading from

ST CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA

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The doors are open for all who sincerely and wholeheartedly return to

God; indeed the Father is most willing to welcome back a truly repentant son or

daughter. The result of true repentance, however, is that you do not fall into the

same faults again, but utterly uproot from your souls the sins for which you

consider yourself worthy of death. When these have been destroyed God will

again dwell within you, since Scripture says that for the Father and his angels in

heaven the festal joy and gladness at the return of one repentant sinner is great

beyond compare. That is why the Lord cried out: What I want is mercy, not

sacrifice. I desire not the death of the sinner but his conversion…

Although only God has power to forgive sin and to cancel transgressions,

the Lord commands us also to forgive our repentant brothers and sisters every

day. So if we who are evil know how to give good gifts, how much more generous

must be the Father of mercies, the good Father of all consolation, who is full of

compassion and mercy, and whose nature it is to be patient and await our

conversion! Genuine conversion, however, means ceasing to sin without any

backward glance.

God pardons what is past, then, but for the future we are each responsible

for ourselves. By repenting we condemn our past misdeeds and beg forgiveness

of the Father, the only one who can in his mercy undo what has been done, and

wipe away our past sins with the dew of the Spirit.

And so, if you are a thief and desire to be forgiven, steal no more. If you are

a robber, return your gains with interest. If you have been a false witness,

practice speaking the truth. If you are a perjurer, stop taking oaths. You must

also curb all the other evil passions: anger, lust, grief, and fear. No doubt you

will be unable all at once to root out passions habitually given way to, but this

can be achieved by God’s power, human prayers, the help of your brothers and

sisters, sincere repentance, and constant practice.