Joel 2:12

22. But I wonder that some are so obstinate as to think that repentance is not to be granted to the lapsed, or to suppose that pardon is to be denied to the penitent, when it is written, “Remember whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works,” which certainly is said to him who evidently has fallen, and whom the Lord exhorts to rise up again by his works, because it is written, “Alms do deliver from death,” and not, assuredly, from that death which once the blood of Christ extinguished, and from which the saving grace of baptism and of our Redeemer has delivered us, but from that which subsequently creeps in through sins. …

29. I entreat you, beloved brethren, that each one should confess his own sin, while he who has sinned is still in this world, while his confession may be received, while the satisfaction and remission made by the priests are pleasing to the Lord. Let us turn to the Lord with our whole heart, and, expressing our repentance for our sin with true grief, let us entreat God’s mercy. Let our soul lie low before Him. Let our mourning atone to Him. Let all our hope lean upon Him. He Himself tells us in what manner we ought to ask. “Turn ye,” He says, “to me with all your heart, and at the same time with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts, and not your garments.” Let us return to the Lord with our whole heart. Let us appease His wrath and indignation with fastings, with weeping, with mourning, as He Himself admonishes us.

2. How hard hearted we are and how merciful God is! who even after our many sins urges us to seek salvation. Yet not even so are we willing to turn to better things. Hear the words of the Lord: “If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man’s and shall afterwards desire to return to him, will he at all receive her? Will he not loathe her rather? But thou hast played the harlot with many lovers: yet return again to me, saith the Lord.” In place of the last clause the true Hebrew text (which is not preserved in the Greek and Latin versions) gives the following: “thou hast forsaken me, yet return, and I will receive thee, saith the Lord.” Isaiah also speaking in the same sense uses almost the same words: “Return,” he cries, “O children of Israel, ye who think deep counsel and wicked. Return thou unto me and I will redeem thee. …

Of what avail, dearly-beloved, are religious fasts in winning the mercy of God , and in renewing the fortunes of human frailty, we know from the statements of the holy Prophets, who proclaim that justice of God , Whose vengeance the people of Israel had again and again incurred through their iniquities, cannot be appeased save by fasting. Thus it is that the Prophet Joel warns them, saying, “thus saith the Lord your God , turn ye to Me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning, and rend your hearts and not your garments, and turn ye to the Lord your God , for He is merciful and patient, and of great kindness, and very merciful,” and again, “sanctify a fast, proclaim a healing, assemble the people, sanctify the church.” And this exhortation must in our days also be obeyed, because these healing remedies must of necessity be proclaimed by us too, in order that in the obser …