Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Ash Wednesday

In our repenting commonly we make such haste as we take away before the fruits come. But if there happen to come any, is not this even our case? Our tears, if any, dry straight; our prayers, if any, quickly tedious; our alms indeed pitiful; our fasts, fast or loose upon any the least occasion; and so our repentance, if any, poenitentia poenitenda, "a repentance needing another, a new, a second repentance to repent us of it." To repent us of our repentance, no less than of our sin itself.

—Lancelot Andrewes, Sermon on Ash-Wednesday, 1624

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