Repentance and Healing!

Thursday, September 25, 2025

Hag 1:1-8; Lk 9:7-9

Today’s Gospel highlights the formation of conscience through a critical analysis of Herod’s guilt. 

Conscience is the inner forum where we detect the voice of God and respond to its promptings. However, if and when our hearts are hardened through our sinful behaviour, we will find it difficult to connect with God, who dwells in us. 

Reading the episode on Herod, we understand that though he suffers from a guilty conscience, he does little to course-correct himself. As a result, when he overlooks the care of conscience, he continues to wallow in internal unrest and suffering. 

Herod was able to silence John the Baptist, but not his conscience. Even when the inner turmoil was raging and violent, his hardened heart was not moved to repentance. This was why he continued to suffer what he could have easily avoided. Herod’s guilt was unresolved. 

Nevertheless, towards the end, we read that Herod ‘desired to see Jesus.’ But why? I believe it is to make sure that it [Jesus] was not John whom he beheaded. The unresolved guilt of Herod only makes him paranoid and not repentant. 

Herod’s psychology of guilt offers a moral lesson for us. While ‘guilt’ is a secular term, Christians talk of a guilty conscience whose function is also spiritual. Conscience, which is the inner voice of God in every person, indicates not only what is wrong but also what is right. The indwelling presence of God gives us the inner strength to walk in the path of God.

Guilt arises when we begin to overlook the guiding inner voice. It intensifies when we make our disobedience habitual. It throws us off balance when we behave as if there exists no forgiveness from God. 

Learning from Herod, we must ask ourselves what we choose between despair and forgiveness.

When we pay heed to God, we opt for repentance. We choose forgiveness if we want healing. 

Let us pray that we may form our consciences rightly to listen to God and walk in His way.

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar