The Poverty of Repentance
There are times in our lives when we are led deeply into the experience of inner poverty. You know that you have no
prayer, no feeling of love or power to care, no words to speak
when it is your duty to speak, nothing to give. Why does it happen? e obvious answer is, because we have sinned. Certainly this is true; were it not, the experience would not
be one of genuine personal poverty, but would be something that remained outside our real life with God, something that
did not bite deeply. Nevertheless, God means it to happen; he leads us into it, because he wants to open us wider to the reality of his salvation. . . .
Repentance is an attitude of continual conversion of heart,
and it is a poverty, because it means always beginning again,
never being able to rely on past successes or attained positions a er the manner of the rich, but always admitting your need
of God's mercy. e need seems to grow greater as the years pass. Conversion is the fruit of grace, not the condition for grace to be o ered. We do not somehow make ourselves respectable at a distance, and then approach God in prayer. Conversion is much more than our own good resolution to turn over a new leaf; it means going down into the dark chaotic waters and allowing ourselves to be re-created by God's act, not once but many times.
Sr. Maria Boulding, from her book The Coming of God
