Repentance is at the heart of our Advent preparation to welcome Christ into our lives, where we hope he will shape and rule our hearts.

My own experience of repentance tells me that it is life-altering. My repentance has caused me to place less importance on the ways I've defined differences in people. Those differences, because of my repentance, have become less important to me. My repentance has helped me begin to see all my neighbors as God's children, as sacred creatures whom Jesus came to save and set free. My repentance has brought me to a point where I care less about being right and more about doing right. I find myself caring less about differences of opinion between myself and other people and more about what I and other people do with our lives. The more I practice repentance, the less I care about a person's political affiliation and the more I care about the fruit produced by that person's life.

The more I practice repentance in my own life, the more I try to see the world from ...