I have been reading the Psalms over and over again. Five a day, I think for about a year now. I think this is why a certain void became apparent to me the other day. The void is where the instinct of Christendom - and of the Old Testament Prophets - would put 'repentance'. Nobody in the commentariat - even the conservative-leaning Catholic commentariat which is where I tend to putter about nowadays seems to be saying, when something bad happens: 'We have offended God by our sins. We need to repent in sackcloth and ashes.' I have vague memories, back in September 2001, of some prominent Evangelical figure saying 'maybe we shouldn't be killing so many babies' and being leapt on as an insensitive fanatic by practically everyone - but since then, I can't really think of an instance. Our sins cry out to Heaven for vengeance. We know this. When our enemies are chopping off our heads or raining bombs down on us, besides fighting them off or fleeing for cover, we ought to be thinking of all the things we deserve to be punished for, and resolving not to do them again. The sense of divine mercy grows stronger to me all the time - I really do pray, when I pray the Fatima prayer, 'lead all souls to Heaven' - but so does the sense of divine Justice. All have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God.
Parenthetically, Blogger has a little notice on my interface saying that a post has been 'unpublished' for violating community guidelines, but the only one I can find that has been unpublished is the one without any content and the title 'This post redacted by the Ministry of Nice'. I will have a careful look around to see if I can find another and check the community guidelines to see if there really is a guideline forbidding reference to the Ministry of Nice...
