Vigils Reading

THE SEASON OF PENANCE

From a sermon by St Ambrose

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Behold now is the appointed time, in which you must confess your sins to

God, and to the priest; and by prayer and by fasting, by tears and by almsgiving,

wipe them away. Why should sinners be ashamed to make known their sins, since

they are already known and manifest to God, and to the angels, and even to the

blessed in heaven? Confession delivers the soul from death. Confession opens the

door to heaven. Confession brings us hope of salvation. Because of this the

Scripture says through Isaiah: “First tell your iniquities, that you may be

justified.” Here we are shown that they will not be saved who, during their life, do

not confess their sins. Neither will that confession deliver you which is made

without true repentance. For true repentance is grief of heart and sorrow of soul

because of the evils one has committed. True repentance causes us to grieve over

them with the firm intention of never committing them again.

And even though every day we live may rightly be a day of repentance, yet is

it in these days more appropriate to confess our sins, to fast, and to give alms to the

poor, since in these days you may wash clean the sins of the whole year. Therefore I

counsel all of you, and I exhort each one of you to repair whatever you know within

your soul is blameworthy. Whoever among you discerns within yourself what is

unworthy in a Christian, make amends. What does it mean to give tithes faithfully,

but that no one should offer to God [anything that] is defective or stunted. For of

all things which the Lord bestows on us, a tenth part we reserve to God. So it is not

lawful to keep what is reserved to God. And if you do not give God’s tenth part, God

will take nine parts from you.

Again, if you know in your own heart that you have taken something unjustly

from another, make amends by restoring what you have unjustly taken. For if you

do not render the tenth to God, which is reserved for Him, and [return] to another

what you took from him unjustly, you are a person who no longer fears God and

does not know the meaning of true repentance, or of true confession of sins.

And you ought to do this, since each person should give to the needy

according to his means; that is, that you who have much should give much and if

you have little ought to give little; as the holy Tobias taught his son: “Give alms out

of your substance, and do not turn away your face from the poor, that the face of

the Lord may not be turned away from you”.