The book I use for daily prayer, The Divine Hours, includes a lot of confessions, like this classic: Almighty God, my heavenly Father: I have sinned against you, through my own fault, in thought, and word, and deed, and in what I have left undone.
I wince almost every time I read this prayer.
It’s cliché to wince at repentance, of course. We’re sinners, so of course we balk at kneeling. It’s why repentance is so necessary.
But my wincing feels different. (Is this self-delusion?)
I wince at repentance because I feel like I’ve repented too much. Repented for sins that weren’t mine to bear. Shamed myself for brokenness that I wasn’t responsible for…
I’m musing about repentance and an over-active conscience (yes, that’s a thing) at The Mudroom today. WOn’t you join me there?
The Sabbath: FAQ For Workaholic Christians
Link?
Also: which Divine Hours. Looking at doing this sort of thing, because the rhythms have been speaking to me more and more, recently
Wow, I’m off my game today–I didn’t reply in-line to you. It’s above 😉
Whoops! http://mudroomblog.com/have-i-repented-too-much/
It’s Phyllis Tickle’s. I don’t follow it religiously (ba-dah-bump!)–I try to pray the morning prayer whenever I get up, (she says “on the hour”, I say, “be realistic), and usually vespers after I put my kids to bed, and sometimes compline if I can. If my family is gone, I tend to pray more 🙂