Three conditions are necessary for Penance: contrition, which is sorrow for sin, together with a purpose of amendment; confession of sins without any omission; and satisfaction by means of good works. — Thomas Aquinas
Repentance is the true turning of our life to God, a turning that arises from a pure and earnest fear of Him; and it consists in the mortification of the flesh and the renewing of the Spirit. — John Calvin
True penitence condemns to silence. What a man is ready to recall he would be willing to repeat. — F. H. Bradley
Repentance lifts a man up. Mourning knocks at heaven's gate. Holy humility opens it. — John Climacus
Any pain entailed in repentance will always be far less than the suffering required to satisfy justice for unresolved transgression. — D. Todd Christofferson
Four marks of true repentance are: acknowledgement of wrong, willingness to confess it, willingness to abandon it, and willingness to make restitution. — Corrie Ten Boom
True repentance means making amends with the person when at all possible. — Lawana Blackwell
Repentance is more than just sorrow for the past; repentance is a change of mind and heart, a new life of denying self and serving the Savior as king in self's place. — J. I. Packer
Repentance is something that is brought about in the human heart by the work of God the Holy Spirit. — R. C. Sproul
Of all acts of man repentance is the most divine. The greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none. — Thomas Carlyle
Whatever the cost of repentance, it is swallowed up in the joy of forgiveness. — D. Todd Christofferson
Short Penitence Quotes
Would not love see returning penitence afar off, and fall on its neck and kiss it? — George Eliot
Better make penitents by gentleness than hypocrites by severity. — Saint Francis de Sales
True penitence condemns to silence. What a man is ready to recall he would be willing to repeat. — Francis H. Bradley
The gods look in pleasure on penitent sinners. — Theodor Adorno
The last business of Christ's life was the saving of a poor penitent thief. — Dwight L. Moody
PENITENT, adj. Undergoing or awaiting punishment. — Ambrose Bierce
Penitence Image Quotes
Unfortunate Event Quotes
Your True Nature Is Love. There's Nothing You Can Do About It. — Byron Katie
Miracles are like meatballs, because nobody can exactly agree on what they are made of, where they come from, or how often they should appear. — Daniel Handler
At times the world may seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe that there is much more good in it than bad. All you have to do is look hard enough. and what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events may in fact be the first steps of a journey. — Daniel Handler
I didn't realize this was a sad occasion. — Daniel Handler
They didn't understand it, but like so many unfortunate events in life, just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it isn't so. — Daniel Handler
A people fired ... with love of their country and of liberty, a zeal for the public good, and a noble emulation of glory, will not be disheartened or dispirited by a succession of unfortunate events. But like them, may we learn by defeat the power of becoming invincible. — Abigail Adams
Beginning in 1939, there were events well to the east of Istanbul that seems to have started a progressive sequence to the west. The question is, will the sequence continue further ... Unfortunately, we think the answer is yes. — Thomas Parsons
Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it isn't so. — Daniel Handler
Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like. — Daniel Handler
Every unfortunate event does not give rise to lawsuit. — Mills Lane
Penance Quotes
Holy Communion is the shortest and safest way to Heaven. There are others: innocence, but that is for little children; penance, but we are afraid of it; generous endurance of trials of life, but when they come we weep and ask to be. The surest, easiest, shortest way is the Eucharist. — Pope Pius X
In the life of the body a man is sometimes sick, and unless he takes medicine, he will die. Even so in the spiritual life a man is sick on account of sin. For that reason he needs medicine so that he may be restored to health; and this grace is bestowed in the Sacrament of Penance. — Thomas Aquinas
Christians aren't people who never sin or always do the right thing. We're people who live in continual repentance. — LeCrae
Holy Communion is the shortest and safest way to heaven. — Pope Pius X
The best penance is to have patience with the sorrows God permits. A very good penance is to dedicate oneself to fulfill the duties of everyday with exactitude and to study and work with all our strength. — Peter Damian
If you have the courage to imitate Mary Magdalene in her sins, have the courage to imitate her penance! — Pio of Pietrelcina
I avoid that bleak first hour of the working day during which my still sluggish senses and body make every chore a penance. I find that in arriving later, the work which I do perform is of a much higher quality. — John Kennedy Toole
Since the Fall, man had accepted labor as a penance and for its power to work redemption. It was not a law of nature which forced man to work, but the effect of a curse. — Michel Foucault
To remove untouchability is a penance that caste Hindus owe to Hinduism and to themselves. — Mahatma Gandhi
Obedience is a penance of reason, and, on that account, a sacrifice more acceptable than all corporal penances and mortifications. — John of the Cross
Repentance Quotes
Happiness is attained by three things: being patient when tested, being thankful when receiving a blessing, and being repentant upon sinning. — Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya
Revival is a renewed conviction of sin and repentance, followed by an intense desire to live in obedience to God. It is giving up one's will to God in deep humility. — Charles Grandison Finney
If I repent now will God forgive me?
No, but if God forgives you, you will repent. — Rabia Basri
God always forgives when you are totally repentant and you desire to change. He forgives... and He never gets tired of forgiving. Never. You may get tired asking. I hope not. He never, never tires of forgiving. Never. — Mother Angelica
You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. — Mary Oliver
Never lose hope. Stay close to Allah and when you mess up, go back to Him. Never, ever stop going back to Him. Repent often. Cry to Allah. And hold on tight-with your life-to His remembrance and to prayer. If you do this, you may get wet, but insha Allah never drown in this ocean of dunya. — Yasmin Mogahed
I believe that a great number of people are going to die and go to hell because they’re counting on their religiosity in the church instead of their relationship with Jesus to get them to heaven. They give lip service to repentance and faith, but they’ve never been born again. — Adrian Rogers
The difference between true and false repentance lies in this: the man who truly repents cries out against his heart; but the other, as Eve, against the serpent, or something else. — John Bunyan
Legalistic remorse says, "I broke God's rules," while real repentance says, "I broke God's heart." — Timothy Keller
Patriotism means unqualified and unwavering love for the nation, which implies not uncritical eagerness to serve, not support for unjust claims, but frank assessment of its vices and sins, and penitence for them. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The Christian churches and Christianity have nothing in common save in name: they are utterly hostile opposites. The churches are arrogance, violence, usurpation, rigidity, death; Christianity is humility, penitence, submissiveness, progress, life. — Leo Tolstoy
All the impressions which are made on us by Nature are designed to exercise our soul during its terms of penitence, to prompt us towards the eternal truths shown beneath a veil, and to lead us to recover what we have lost. — Louis Claude de Saint-Martin
Woman, thou shouldst ever be clothed in rags and in mourning, appearing only as a penitent, drowned in tears, and expiating thus the sin of having caused the fall of the human race. Woman thou art the gate of the devil. It is thou who hast corrupted those whom Satan dare not attack face to face. — Tertullian
Nevertheless, the liturgy of Ash Wednesday is not focussed on the sinfulness of the penitent but on the mercy of God. The question of sinfulness is raised precisely because this is a day of mercy, and the just do not need a savior. — Thomas Merton
All the tears of a penitent sinner, should he shed as many as there have fallen drops of rain, since the creation, to this day, cannot wash away one sin. The everLasting burnings in hell, cannot purify the flaming conscience, from the least sin. — John Flavel
It's not my business to try and make God think like me... but to try, in prayer and penitence, to think like God. — Aiden Wilson Tozer
We have forgotten love, and Sat lonely beside each other. We have eaten together, Lonely behind our plates, we Have hidden behind children, We have slept together in A lonely bed. Now my heart Turns toward you, awake at last, Penitent, lost in the last Loneliness. Speak to me. Talk To me. Break the black silence. — Kenneth Rexroth
An implicit confession is almost as bad as an implicit faith; wicked men commonly confess their sins by wholesale, We are all sinners; but the true penitent confesses his sins by retail. — Thomas Brooks
Someone who is elated with wine speaks the truth on all subjects, even without meaning to. In the same way, anyone who is inebriated with the spirit of penitence will never be able to tell lies. — John Climacus
Prayer in the sense of petition, asking for things, is a small part of it; confession and penitence are its threshold, adoration its sanctuary, the presence and vision and enjoyment of God its bread and wine. — C. S. Lewis
Don't offer God partnership when he wants penitence. Don't present him with lip service when He wants your life. — William Henry Houghton
If we do not know what the sorrow of penitence is, we have been living only on the surface of life--unmindful of its deep realities, unconscious of its grander glories. — Frederic Dan Huntington
I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin. — Robert Louis Stevenson
God's mercy is a holy mercy, which knows how to pardon sin, not to protect it; it is a sanctuary for the penitent, not for the presumptuous. — Edward Reynolds
He prays best who, not asking God to do man's work, prays penitence, prays resolutions, and then prays deeds--thus supplicating with heart and head and hands. — Theodore Parker
Man approaches God most nearly when he is in one sense least like God. For what can be more unlike than fullness and need, sovereignty and humility, righteousness and penitence, limitless power and a cry for help? — C. S. Lewis
Here is the interesting twist:[McLeod] Campbell came to his views through reading Jonathan Edwards who suggested at one point in his ruminations on the atonement that Christ could have offered up a perfect act of penitence instead of punishment, and that this would have been an acceptable offering suitable to remit our sinfulness. — Oliver D. Crisp
The happy sequence culminating in fellowship with God is penitence, pardon, and peace - the first we offer, the second we accept, and the third we inherit. — Charles Brent
Virtue and vice are both prophets; the first, of certain good; the second, of pain or else of penitence. — Ralph Venning
A heart renewed--a loving heart--a penitent and humble heart--a heart broken and contrite, purified by love--that and only that is the rest of men. Spotlessness may do for angels, repentance unto life is the highest that belongs to man. — Frederick William Robertson
Stars looking at our planet, watching entropy and pain and maybe startin' to wonder how the chaos in our lives could pass as sane. I've been thinkin' 'bout the meaning of resistance of a world beyond our own and suddenly the infinite and penitent began to look like home. — Jon Foreman
I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as a beloved daydream, on the thought of the separation of these elements. — Robert Louis Stevenson
Oh, what peril attaches to sin willfully committed! For it is so difficult for man to bring himself to penance, and without penitence guilt remains and will ever remain, so long as man retains unchanged the will to sin, or is intent upon committing it. — Catherine of Genoa
It is better to be affected with a true penitent sorrow for sin than to be able to resolve the most difficult cases about it. — Thomas a Kempis
The incarnation of God is a necessity of human nature. If we reap and truly have a Father, we must be able to clasp His feet in our penitence, and to lean on His breast in our weary sorrowfulness. — Charles Deems
He was drunk upon the average once a day, and penitent upon an equally fair calculation once a month; and when he was penitent, he was invariably in the very last stage of maudlin intoxication. He was a ragged, roving, roaring kind of fellow, with a burly form, a sharp wit, and a ready head, and could turn his hand to anything when he chose to do it. — Charles Dickens
If an American is concerned only about his nation, he will not be concerned about the peoples of Asia, Africa, or South America. Is this not why nations engage in the madness of war without the slightest sense of penitence? Is this not why the murder of a citizen of your own nation is a crime, but the murder of citizens of another nation in war is an act of heroic virtue? — Martin Luther King, Jr.
And could I look upon her without compassion, seeing her punishment in the ruin she was, in her profound unfitness for this earth on which she was placed, in the vanity of sorrow which had become a master mania, like the vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, the vanity of unworthiness, and other monstrous vanities that have been curses in this world? — Philip K. Dick
I once took pleasure some place in seeing men, through piety, take a vow of ignorance, as of chastity, poverty, penitence. It is also castrating our disorderly appetites, to blunt that cupidity that pricks us on to the study of books, and to deprive the soul of that voluptuous complacency which tickles us with the notion of being learned. — Michel de Montaigne
Faith can cut in so many ways. If you're penitent and not triumphal, it can move us to repentance and accountability and help us reach for something higher than ourselves. That can be a powerful thing, a thing that moves us beyond politics as usual, like Martin Luther King did. But when it's designed to certify our righteousness - that can be a dangerous thing. Then it pushes self criticism aside. There's no reflection. — Jim Wallis
Tears that are shed in time of affliction are rarely tears of penitence, but more likely they are shed out of self pity and pain or sorrow. — John Calvin
And I do further recommend to my fellow-citizens aforesaid, that on that occasion they do reverently humble themselves in the dust, and from thence offer up penitent and fervent prayers and supplications to the great Disposer of events for a return of the inestimable blessings of peace, union, and harmony throughout the land which it has pleased him to assign as a dwelling-place for ourselves and for our posterity throughout all generations. — Abraham Lincoln
Know what your sin is and confess it; but do not imagine that you have approved yourself a penitent by confessing sin in the abstract. — Theodore L. Cuyler
And for our unparalleled ingratitude to that Adorable Being Who has seated us in a land irradiated by the cheering beams of the Gospel of Jesus Christ ... let us fall prostrate before offended Deity, confess sincerely and penitently our manifold sins and our unworthiness of the least of His Divine favors, fervently implore His pardon through the merits of our mediator. — Elbridge Gerry
Prayer is the converse of the soul with God. Therein we manifest or express to Him our reverence, and love for His divine perfection, our gratitude for all His mercies, our penitence for our sins, our hope in His forgiving love, our submission to His authority, our confidence in His care, our desires for His favour, and for the providential and spiritual blessings needed for ourselves and others. — Charles Hodge
And now that Thou has restored to me the knowledge of Thyself, O Lord, let thy pardon fall on me, since Thy infinite mercy is not better known in anything than in pardoning a Dismas (the traditional name of the good thief) on the Cross and a Dominicus Corea on the gallows. If in Hell there is room for sinners, in Heaven also there is room for penitents. — Dominicus Corea
The inward sighs of humble penitence
Rise to the ear of Heaven, when peal'd hymns
Are scatter'd with the sounds of common air. — Joanna Baillie
In Conclusion
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