Please allow me to add to our Paternal Advices a troparion of the office of the Feast of the Epiphany, which impressed me a lot and goes like that:

«He who wears light like a garment, …. without fire he melts and purifies, and regenerates without crushing.»

Comment on:

«without fire he melts and purifies»:

When the goldsmith wants to clean and repair a golden item, he puts it on fire so that it may melt and be reconstructed after its impurities are expelled.

Christ, however, does not cleanse and reconstruct man “by melting him” with violence or punishment, but He is “regenerating him” by the grace of the Holy Spirit. In Baptism, man is cleansed of sin, not by violent destruction, but by divine Grace and mercy; he is immersed in the water and rises three times (in the name of the Holy Trinity), «dying» mystically – without biologically dying – and then he is risen as a new man.

Something similar follows:

«regenerates without crushing»:

Christ did not come to correct us by destroying us, but by regenerating us ontologically and mysticallly.

Similar things may be said of repentance: That spiritual change is not done in desperation or violent and stressful self-debilitation, but with full trust and confidence in the mercy of God.

Let this be done!