Chapter X.
In order to do away with the feeling of shame which
holds back the guilty from public penance, St. Ambrose points out the
advantage of prayers offered by the whole Church, and sets forth the
example of saints who have sorrowed. Then, after reproving those
who imagine that penance may be often repeated, he points out the
difficulty of repentance, and how it is to be carried out.
91. any one
endure that you should blush to entreat God, when you do not blush to
entreat a man? That you should be ashamed to entreat Him Who
knows you fully, when you are not ashamed to confess your sins to a man
who knows you not? Do you
shrink from witnesses and sympathizers in your prayers, when, if you
have to satisfy a man, you must visit many and entreat them to be kind
enough to intervene; when you throw yourself at a man’s knees, kiss his feet, bring your children, still unconscious of guilt, to entreat also for their father’s pardon? And you disdain to do this in the Church in order to entreat God, in order to gain for yourself the support of the holy congregation; where there is no cause for shame, except indeed not to confess, since we are all sinners, amongst whom he is the most praiseworthy who is the most humble; he is the most just who feels himself the lowest.
92. Let the Church, our Mother, weep for
you, and wash away your guilt with
her tears; let Christ see you mourning and say, “Blessed are ye
that are sad, for ye shall rejoice.” It pleases Him that
many should entreat for one. In the Gospel, too, moved by the
widow’s tears, because many were weeping for her, He raised her
son. He heard Peter more quickly when He raised Dorcas, because
the poor were mourning over the death of the woman. He also
forthwith forgave Peter, for he wept most bitterly. And if you
weep bitterly Christ will look upon you and your guilt shall leave
you. For the application of pain does away with the enjoyment of
the wickedness and the delight of the sin. And so while mourning
over our past sins we shut the door against fresh ones, and from the
condemnation of our guilt there arises as it were a training in
innocence.
93. Let, then, nothing call you away from
penitence, for this you have in common with the saints, and would that
such sorrowing for sin as that of the saints were copied by you. David, as it were, “ate ashes for bread, and mingled his drink with weeping,” and therefore now rejoices the more because he wept the more: “Mine eyes ran down,” he said, “with rivers of water.”
94. John wept sore, and, as he tells us, the mysteries of
Christ were revealed to him. But that woman who, when she was in
sin and ought to have wept, nevertheless rejoiced, and covered herself
with a robe of purple and scarlet, and
adorned herself with much gold and precious stones, now mourns the
misery of eternal weeping.
95. Deservedly are they blamed who think that they
often do penance, for they are wanton against Christ. For if they
went through their penance in truth, they would not think that it could
be repeated again; for as there is but one baptism, so there is but one
course of penance, so far as the outward practice goes, for we must
repent of our daily faults, but this latter has to do with lighter
faults, the former with such as are graver.
96. But I have more easily found such as had
preserved their innocence than such as had fittingly repented. Does any one think that that is penitence where there still exists the striving after earthly honours, where wine flows, and even conjugal connection takes place? The world must be renounced; less sleep must be indulged in than nature demands; it must be broken by groans, interrupted by sighs, put aside by prayers; the mode of life must be such that we die to the usual habits of life. Let the man deny himself and be wholly changed, as in the fable they relate of a certain youth, who left his home because of his love for a harlot, and, having subdued his love, returned; then one day meeting his old favourite and not speaking to her, she, being surprised and supposing that he had not recognized her, said, when they met again, “It is I.” “But,” was his answer, “I am not the former I.”