Repent of your ways, O inhabitants of the earth. Behold, the eye of the Householder of the world keeps vigil deep within you. Do not trust your beguiling eyes; let the Eye illumine your path. Your eyes are a curtain over the Eye of God.
Repentance is the admission of a wrong path. Repentance cuts through a new path. To the penitent the eyes are opened to two paths: the one on which he walks, and the one on which he ought to walk.
More are they who repent than they who turn their chariots onto the new path. I say to you: two courages are needful to the penitent — one courage to weep over the old path, and another to rejoice in the new.
What does it profit you to repent, yet ever shuffle along the old path? What do you call a man who is drowning and cries for help, yet when help appears does not grasp the rope of salvation? So I also call you.
Repent of your desire for this world and all that is in this world. For this world is the graveyard of your ancestors, which stands open and awaits you. Yet a little, little while, and you too will be ancestors, and you will long to hear the word repentance, but you will not hear it.
As the wind blows and carries away the mist from before the sun, so shall death carry you away from before the face of God.
Repentance makes the heart young again and lengthens life. The tears of the penitent wash the darkness from the eyes and give the eyes a childlike radiance. My lake has an eye like a doe's, ever moist and diamond-bright. Truly, moisture in the eyes dries up the anger in the heart.
Like the new moon, such is the soul of the penitent. The full moon must wane; the new moon must wax.
The penitent clears the field of his soul of weeds, and the seed of good begins to grow.
Truly, the penitent is not he who grieves over one evil he has done, but he who grieves over all the evils he is capable of doing. A wise householder cuts down not only the thorn that has pricked him, but every thorn in the field that waits to prick.
O my Lord, make haste and show the new path to the penitent, when he comes to despise his old path.
Heavenly Mother, Bride of the All-Holy Spirit, bend down to our heart when we repent. Open the wellspring of tears within us, that we may wash ourselves of the heavy clay that clouds our eyes.
All-Holy Spirit, breathe and drive out the unclean stench from the soul of the penitent, the stench that choked him and brought him to repentance.
We pray to Thee and bow before Thee, O Life-Giving and Mighty Spirit!