Grant Us to Learn Repentance

Lord Christ, grant to us your servants the blessing of learning the discipline of repentance.

And as we learn repentance, it is also good for us to learn to avoid sin—so we will have no need to repent!

Those who have escaped a shipwreck generally tend to avoid ships and the sea in the future. By keeping fresh the memory of disaster, they honor the second chance you gave them. They honor their deliverance, and are not willing to tempt your mercy all over again.

We have escaped once. Now let us allow ourselves to experience sin's danger that far only-and no farther! Even if it seems that chances are good for us to escape a second time.

Amen.

— Tertullian

(Source: Fount of Heaven, Prayers of the Early Church; Robert Elmer, Editor)