'While there is time to be healed...'

Dear Parish Faithful,

Great Lent - The First Day

Genuine repentance according to God annihilates disobedience and abolishes darkness, illumines the eyes and presents knowledge to the soul; leads a person to salvation; and that which he has not learned from men, he comes to know through repentance.

While we are on this earth, let us repent. For we are but clay in the hands of the artist. Just as the sculptor makes a vessel: while the clay is in his hands, even if it falls, he is able to remold it; but once it is placed in the furnace of  fire, he can do nothing more to it. Similarly, while we are in this world, let us repent with all our heart for the evils we have committed in flesh, so that we may be saved by the Lord while there is yet time for repentance. For after we have left this world, we are no longer able to confess or repent.

While there is time to be healed, let us offer ourselves to the healer God, giving Him as recompense our sincere-hearted repentance.

~ St. Clement of Rome