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March 1, 2026“The Lord does not delay His promise, as some regard ‘delay,’ but He is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” St. Peter the Apostle (1st century)
“Repentance...is a medicine to trespasses, a destruction to lawlessness, an end to tears, courage before God, a weapon against the devil, a knife that decapitates his head, the hope of salvation, the abolishment of despair.” St. John Chrysostom (4th-5th centuries, Doctor of the Church)
“Recall that the human race lay sick, because of its sins. To heal this great body of the sick the Almighty Physician came down from heaven. He humbled Himself to take mortal flesh to Himself, coming to the sickbed. Come to this Physician. This is the time to be healed, not the time for vain pleasure.” St. Augustine of Hippo (4th-5th centuries, Doctor of the Church)
“To repent is to deplore something one has done.” St. Thomas Aquinas (13th century, Doctor of the Church)
“God is long-suffering toward sinners, waiting for them with incredible patience.” St. Robert Bellarmine (16th-17th centuries, Doctor of the Church)
“Repentance is a second innocence.” St. Francis de Sales (16th-17th centuries, Doctor of the Church)
“What does amaze me is that God should be so affected when we stray. He knows quite well that we are nothing and suffers no real loss when we break away from Him. Yet He shows profound grief at our separation and makes every effort to win us back. Nor is that mere fantasy; it is the teaching of the Gospel and of Jesus Christ Himself. Would you care to know what the Savior of the world feels every time you lose the grace of God? He is distressed to the very depths of His soul; He is as troubled as a poor shepherd who has lost one of his sheep, or a poor woman who mislays one of the ten gold coins that are all her worldly wealth...It is He Who must make all the advances, Who must offer us His grace, pursue us and beg us to take pity on ourselves; otherwise we should never think of asking Him for mercy...Despite His intense desire to win us back He never uses force, but only the gentlest of ways. I find no sinner in the entire Gospel story who was induced to repent by anything other than gentleness and kindness.” St. Claude de la Colombiere (17th century)
“We make His path straight whenever we bring His word to a world that is dying for lack of it…Nothing less than repentance can lead out of disaster today…Repentance is more than penitence. It is not remorse. It is not admitting mistakes. It is not saying in condemnation, ‘I’ve been a fool.’ Who of us has not recited such a dismal litany? All of us have. They are common and easy to recite. Repentance is more. It is even more than being sorry for one’s sins. It is a moral and spiritual revolution! To repent is one of the hardest things in the world; yet it is basic to all spiritual progress. It calls for a complete breakdown of our prideful self-assurance, a stripping away of the cloak of prestige that is woven from our petty successes, a breaching of the innermost citadel of our self-will.” Servant of God Catherine de Hueck Doherty (19th-20th century)
“We cannot love sin during life and begin to love virtue at death. The joys of heaven are the continuance of the Christ-like joys of earth. We do not develop a new set of loves with our last breath. We shall reap in eternity only what we sowed on earth. Then let not our presuming moderns who pile sin on sin think that they can insult God until their lease on life has run out and then expect an eternal lease on one of the Father's mansions. Did He Who went to heaven by a Cross intend that you should go there by sinning?” Ven. Fulton Sheen (19-20th centuries)