WHY WE NEED PATIENCE

For a stalk to grow or a flower to open there must be time that cannot be forced; nine months must go by for the birth of a human child; to write a book or compose music often years must be dedicated to patient research. To find the mystery there must be patience, interior purification, silence, waiting.

- Pope John Paul II

WE NEED PENANCE AND MERCY

I must say that we Christians, even in recent times, have often avoided the word 'penance,' which seemed too harsh to us. Now, under the attacks of the world that speaks to us of our sins, we see that being able to do penance is a grace and we see how it is necessary to do penance, that is, to recognize what is mistaken in our life, to open oneself to forgiveness, to prepare oneself for forgiveness, to allow oneself to be transformed. The pain of penance, that is to say of purification and of transformation, this pain is grace, because it is renewal, and it is the work of Divine Mercy.

--Pope Benedict XVI, April 2010, referring to the child abuse scandals

24 Tollam quippe vos de gentibus
et congregabo vos de universis terris
et adducam vos in terram vestram;
25 et effundam super vos aquam mundam,
et mundabimini ab omnibus inquinamentis vestris,
et ab universis idolis vestris mundabo vos.
26 Et dabo vobis cor novum et spiritum novum ponam in medio vestri
et auferam cor lapideum de carne vestra et dabo vobis cor carneum;
27 et spiritum meum ponam in medio vestri et faciam,
ut in praeceptis meis ambuletis
et iudicia mea custodiatis et operemini.
28 Et habitabitis in terra, quam dedi patribus vestris,
et eritis mihi in populum, et ego ero vobis in Deum.

I will take you from among the Gentiles,
I will bring you together from all the earth,
I will lead you into your own land.

I will pour clean water on you,
and you will be cleansed from your filth:
from all your worship of idols I will cleanse you.

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.
I will take the stone heart from your breast and put a heart of flesh in its place.
I will put my spirit among you,
so that you will walk in the paths of my law,
keep my judgements and obey them.

You shall live in the land I gave to your fathers.
You shall be a people for me, and I will be your God.

(Ezekiel 36:24-28)