Let the priests weep

When they think of contrition, many Catholics simply think of the Act of Contrition: a formal prayer they rattle off before Confession or during terrifying plane flights.

Today’s first reading (Joel 2:12-18) reminds us what contrition really should be.

Even now, says the LORD,
return to me with your whole heart,
with fasting, and weeping, and mourning;
Rend your hearts, not your garments,
and return to the LORD, your God.

The key elements, of course, are not the wearing of one’s heart on one’s sleeve but the heartfelt realization of one’s sinfulness – to open our hearts fully to the pain God feels when we reject him - and the wholehearted resolve to direct the course of one’s life according to the way of God.

We may be grievous sinners, who have longed strayed or who have been playing complex games of multilayered hypocrisy, but even now God extends to us this opportunity to open ourselves to his grace so that things can be right again.

Even now, says the LORD,
return to me with your whole heart,
with fasting, and weeping, and mourning;
Rend your hearts, not your garments,
and return to the LORD, your God.