Bishop Lowe invites people to conversion and Confession

In a video commenting on the Sunday Gospel for March 23, Bishop Lowe said that the word “repent” appears often in Scripture. But the corresponding word in Greek in the Scriptures is “metanoia”, which has a deeper meaning.

“Yes, we have to turn away from sin,” Bishop Lowe said, “but more than that, we have got to be converted. We have got to turn our hearts and our lives more and more towards Jesus.”

Bishop Lowe spoke about the action of beating one’s breast in the Confiteor prayer at Mass and saying “Through my fault, through my fault, through most grievous fault”.

“It is a real reminder that we want to break these hardened hearts, and have hearts that live and love like Jesus [as he] gives us in his great example of his life.”

God wants people’s hearts to be changed, Bishop Lowe said. At the same time, “we have to keep tending to those faults and failures, those sins within ourselves”.

Bishop Lowe shared a story of being in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican with 30,000 children who were preparing for First Holy Communion.

“One of the children asked Pope Benedict, ‘Holy Father, why do I have to go to confession all the time? It is always the same sort of sins’,” Bishop Lowe recalled.

“The Holy Father laughed in responding to this child. He says, ‘Well, it is a bit like when Mum and Dad say to you, you have got to clean up your room. It is always the same kind of dust, isn’t it? But if you don’t keep cleaning it up, it starts to build up, and that is where germs get in and it doesn’t become good for your health’.

“That is exactly the same with those sins, those faults, those things within our hearts, that stop us being the person God is calling us to be.”

Bishop Lowe added, “And this Lenten season, we are invited to allow our hearts to be converted more to God.

“Can I encourage you this Lent to make that journey to Confession. And when you go, just don’t talk about the sins, but also talk about where your heart is, and how you want that heart to change.”

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