Repent and Believe! Metanoia: The Fundamental Datum of Christian Existence

By Andrew M. Greenwell, Esq.
2/20/2013
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Metanoia is the sine qua non of the Christian life. You cannot be a Christian without it.

What is involved in metanoia is what might be called a spiritual paradigm shift, a spiritual revolution. We encounter the Lord Jesus, and He personally invites us to change as persons: metanoei! He calls us each and everyone by name. "I have redeemed you; I have called you by name: you are mine." (Is. 43:1) Live that way!

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CORPUS CHRISTI, TX (Catholic Online) - The first word which we shall focus on in our series Tres Linguae Sacrae (Three Sacred Languages) is Greek in origin. The Greek word is metanoia, a noun. In the New Testament, however, it is almost always found in verb form; in its most basic form it is found in an imperative, active sense, i.e., as a command, a warning, a tocsin, or a hue and cry.

The word is found, for example, on the lips of Jesus as He proclaims the coming of the Kingdom and begins his public ministry. It is the first, essential step to believing in the Gospel.

"Repent (metanoeite) and believe (pisteuete) in the Gospel." (Mark 1:15; cf. Matt. 4:17)

In his 1966 Apostolic Constitution Paenitemini, Pope Paul VI observed: "These words constitute, in a way, a compendium of the whole Christian life." They are the sum and substance of being Christian. This is the Gospel in a nutshell.

The same message is found on the lips of St. Peter, who, in one of the first sermons of the Church after the gift of the Holy Spirit, proclaims the same message as His Lord:

"Repent (metanoesate), therefore, and be converted (epistrepsate), that your sins may be wiped away." (Acts 3:19)

If repenting and believing in the Gospel is the "compendium of the whole Christian life" as Pope Paul VI put it, then it follows that the concept of metanoia is fundamental to the Christian believer. Recognizing the importance of this concept is why, in his book Credo for Today: What Christians Believe, Pope Benedict XVI called metanoia the "fundamental datum of Christian existence."

Metanoia is the sine qua non of the Christian life. You cannot be a Christian without it.

What, then, does the word mean? The verb metanoeo is a compound word formed by the joinder of the prefix meta, a preposition meaning "with" or "after," or even "beyond," and noieo, "I think." The verb metanoeo therefore means "I change my mind." Literally, then, metanoia is the state of thinking differently, a state where I have changed my mind, one occurring after some sort of encounter with reality.

It is apparent from the Scriptures, however, that the change involves more than the adoption of an attitude, a philosophy, or a manner of life because it involves an encounter with God in the Person of Jesus Christ. "We are Christian only if we encounter Christ," Pope Benedict XVI said in one of his audiences. "Only in this personal relationship with Christ, only in this encounter with the Risen One do we really become Christians." "The Gospel," John Paul II said succinctly in an address in Guatemala, "is somebody: it is Jesus Christ, the Lord."

Metanoia, at least in its Christian sense, is the change that occurs upon one's encounter with the person of Jesus and our affirmative response to his call. The change in us occurs because of our encounter with the Lord and his calling out to us radically to change and our saying, "yes."

Since it is clear from the context of the word's use in Scripture that more than mere "change of mind" is at issue, the English word most often used to translate the Greek is the verb repent, an intensive form of regret or sorrow for evil done accompanied with a resolution to change one's life and to do good.

However, the words "repent" or "be converted" or "do penance," while they might be the best we have in English, do not quite capture the fullness of meaning of the Greek word metanoia.

As Pope Benedict XVI observed in his book Credo for Today: What Christians Believe, the concept of metanoia as it is understood in Scripture is difficult to translate with one word.

"When one tries to translate the word metanoia, one immediately runs into difficulties: change of mind, reconsidering, remorse, repentance, turning back, conversion are available, but none of these words exhausts the contents of the original meaning, even though turning back and conversion indicate most clearly the radical character of what we are talking about: a process that affects one's whole life and affects life wholly, that is, definitively, in the ...

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1 - 3 of 3 Comments

Andrew M. Greenwell
3 months ago
@DLL Thank-you for your comments and your kind words. Let us turn more firmly and more completely--holding nothing back--to Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, the God made tangible for us, this Lent.
DLL
3 months ago
Christ is ! and I believe! Why is it important to believe the Gospel? Because only in Christ is supreme goodness personified perfectly. As humans we know evil. Evil is a way of life. We try to make sense of and justify evil. Evil cannot be justified. We try to graphically display evil in our movies with all of the spectacular horrific special effects that are a diabolical sense of evil. We do this quite convincingly and so much so that it is hard to tell if it is real or not. Scary we say applauding the effort as an academy award presentation. Evil is like looking into a funhouse mirror. One never gets a true image of them self that way. Christ says that we being evil know how to give good things to our children. That is true. With our children however much we love them,we make big-time mistakes when mothering or fathering them. But only in Christ can we get a true perspective of ourselves. Christ is the perfect mirror of man. Christ is the mirror of pure goodness. Obedience to God is to be good. That is what the cross is about. This is the goodness of one who has done a sacrificial life battle with evil,so that we can see ourselves as God created us to be. We are meant to be just as Christ is,as Christ commanded us to be,perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect. Heaven itself is perfection and all there are perfect. How does one attain perfection? Believe the Gospel,conversion is metanoia,believe and allow one to see one self as God created us,recreated through redemption,as a mirror of perfection. The funhouse mirror is the mirror of everyday life and it presents everyone as some kind of a hopeless goof,always erroneous and quite frankly kind of stupid,but in an amusing and complicated kind of a way that makes everyone as some sort of a kind,of amusing entertainment. Even in entertainment,a film such as The Passion of the Christ,is considered too violent and graphic. Kalifornia with Brad Pitt is applauded and is academy award material. Both are about murder and being murdered. Which one has the more enduring theme? The one where there is the Easter event 3 days afterward. Which character is ridiculed more? The Christ. Is! The Brad Pitt character is a poor abused pathetic person with no conscience and no ability to repent of his crimes,as he has become so mentally ill,he simply cannot. Is not the Brad Pitt the character that Christ cast the demons out of? Is not that pathetic nature not our very,everyday,fun like,mirror nature? The un-repentant is this funhouse mirror image of all of humankind. Repent and believe the Gospel! Yes repent and be well! Be made whole! In the image of God he created them male and female to be fruitful and to multiply and to renew the face of the earth. Evil is the consuming fire that destroys the unrepentant. Faith is a consuming fire that burns away the chaff of sin and renews and polishes each and every human soul so it sparkles once again. Sparkle with the light of love,the perfect love of God,believe and go to serve God and in so doing,we can serve each other unselfishly,in respect for life and the life giving force that is God. Oh God "Thy Kingdom come,Thine will be done,on earth,as it is in Heaven." Evil is not he source of contemplation,the Gospel of Love is! The Bible is a love story not science or even Philosophy,it addresses the capacity to love one another as God has loved us. No greater love is this than the gift of God's only begotten and perfect Son. Christ is the way,the truth and the life. Christ is love. In the power of the Holy Spirit is the power to unite all in the love of God because of the sacrificial love of Christ. Easter is the resurrection of the power to love God perfectly as well as each other. Easter is the path to Heaven. Evil is the wage for sin,simply that is death. Is in death really the so called better place everyone goes to? Is oblivion peace? Is not believing in the Gospel,not the perfect sense of being completely oblivious,frivolous, amusingly kind of stupid? Is it not more wise to believe the Gospel of Love? Contemplative thought is a desire to find loving solutions to life's difficulties not evil or violent ones! Lent is the time to repent. Penance is the fruit of faith,as penance is the way to God. Mr. Greenwell you write in a way that inspires our thinking. This is the way you inspire thinking in me. God is with you when you write. Thank you and God bless you. Your articles do inspire our responses.
OttoWaldengarver
3 months ago
"This courage to make the break is called, in biblical language, metanoia."

I'm reminded of M. Scott Peck's comment in People of the Lie, that an evil person is one who is unwilling to undergo the pain of change...

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