Page 62 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 10

Fr. Gregory Jensen (USA)
An Image of Repentance:

Sacramental Confession
and the Formation of Gregory Jensen,

Conscience in the Pastoral a Ukrainian Or-
thodox
priest,
Practice of the Orthodox is the founder
Church and executive
director of the
Palamas Institute, an Orthodox ministry
dedicated to adult spiritual formation and
What is Conscience For? catechesis. Currently he is the Orthodox
In one of the several prayers of absolution used chaplain at the University of Wisconsin-
in Eastern Orthodox sacrament of confession, Madison and pastor of a small Eastern
the priest asks that God “show His mercy” to Orthodox mission in Madison. He has
the penitent. Such mercy, the prayer makes published articles in psychology, theology,
clear, isn’t formless or devoid of content. Rather and economics and is the author of The
God is beseeched to create in the penitent’s Cure for Consumerism.
heart “an image of repentance” and give him the
“forgiveness of sins, deliverance, pardoning for Former article by Gregory you can see here:
all his sins, whether voluntary or involuntary.” http://emcapp.ignis.de/5/#/76
The priest concludes by asking God that the pe-
nitent be “reconcil[ed] … and unit[ed]...to Your
holy Church, through Jesus Christ our Lord, to
Whom, with You, are due dominion and maje-
sty, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen”
(Book of Needs, 1987, p. 43).
While psychologists might be content to descri-
be the dynamics of conscience and its forma- part.” The “literal sense of the Greek term for
tion, for the classical Christian tradition—East repentance, metanoia means ‘change of mind.’”
and West—the process of conscience formation So, to repent is more than simply “regret for
is secondary to the purpose (teleos) of consci- the past.” In the fullest sense, repentance is “a
ence. As the prayer suggest, in the tradition of fundamental transfor¬mation of our outlook, a
the Orthodox Church the goal of conscience— new way of looking at ourselves, at others and
or to answer the question at the beginning of at God—in the words of The Shepherd of Her-
this section, what is it for?—is to help the per- mas, ‘a great understanding.’ A great understan-
son acquire “an image of repentance.” ding—but not necessarily an emotional crisis.
This however requires that we answer a more Repen¬tance is not a paroxysm of remorse and
basic question. What “what in fact is meant self-pity, but conversion, the re-centering of our
by repentance? It is normally regarded as sor- life upon the Holy Trinity.” This re-orientation
row for sin, a feeling of guilt, a sense of grief is an act of the whole person and as such cannot
and horror at the wounds we have inflicted on be limited to “just a single act.” It must instead
others and on ourselves.” While not, funda- “a continuing attitude.” For the saint as much as
mentally incorrect, such “a view is dangerously the sinner, for the new Christian as well as for
in¬complete.” Yes, negative emotions such as those mature in the faith, while there “are deci-
“Grief and horror are indeed frequently present sive moments of conversion” this reorientation
in the experience of repentance, but they are ”the work of repenting remains always incom-
not the whole of it, nor even the most important plete” (Ware, 2000, pp. 45, 46).

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