More On Repentance...

Yesterday I wrote briefly about the connection between repentance and healing, relating mostly my own thoughts about it, and ending with a prayer of Hildegard von Bingen's.  

I want to elaborate a little more on this theme, but specifically, what Hildegard von Bingen says about it.  I'm reading Walburga Storch's booklet, Prayers of Hildegard of Bingen, at the moment, and in the introduction, Storch outlines Hildegard's basic view of repentance and healing.

God's stance towards us is one of conciliatory healing: "'For I will unconditionally receive at once, and deliver into freedom the one who has sinned'", says Jesus to us, according to Hildegard.  Jesus actually offers to suffer with us in our brokenness, seeing it as the way to obtain union with God: "'Show me the wounds of your heart.  I want to suffer with you in your wounds and in doing so give you communion with the Father.'"  Jesus' willingness to suffer alongside us displays God's vulnerability; not a distant vulnerability, but one that's epitomized most clearly in Christ's own suffering on the cross.  His suffering forever reveals God's stance towards us as one of reconciliation.  Repentance is therefore at the forefront of Hildegard's theology of both, physical and spiritual healing.  Storch continues, "Without it, every kind of healing only treats the symptoms."

Furthermore, God's reconciling stance towards us shows that far from wanting to throw guilt and fear at us, God wishes to free us from both!  The implications are not only personal, but cosmic: "Repentance is not only a healing power, but the structure of the entire world rests upon its pillars.  It intervenes in the processes of life, moving and changing history and the cosmos, for with it 'we touch the stars.'  Through repentance God brings home creation poisoned by the error of humanity."

The missing link that completes Hildegard's theology is the human link.  We know God's redemptive role, but what is ours?  Our role is honesty.  God's healing work is only as effective as our willingness is to receive healing.  When we openly admit our errors, we show ourselves to be willing participants in the healing process.  When we come to God in repentance, we are made well not so much because we are the smarter or wiser for confessing our wrongdoing, but because we showed ourselves to be willing participants in moving towards God.