The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Repentance Is Taking Care of Your Soul

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

Far from being negative or shame-filled, repentance is a deeply hopeful reorientation toward God. Jeff unpacks the biblical foundations of repentance and explains why it’s essential for preparing our hearts for the coming of Christ. Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit https://media.ascensionpress.com/?s=&page=2&category%5B0%5D=Ascension%20Podcasts&category%5B1%5D=The%20Jeff%20Cavins%20Show for full shownotes!

This podcast is brought to you by Ascension. To discover even more free Catholic podcasts, videos, and resources, to help you live your faith every day, visit ascensionpress.com. Welcome to the Jeff Kaven Show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together in living as activated disciples. This is show 460. To repent is taking care of your soul. Well, God bless you as we get ready for the biggest holiday of them all. Christmas coming up. My name's Jeff Kavans. Thank you for joining me today. You know, over the last number of weeks, we've been talking about a lot of different things. We've been talking about wisdom for Catholic entrepreneurs.

Do you play the comparison game? And then, of course, after Thanksgiving, when the turkey is gone dealing with the leftovers, and that's the leftovers of the relationships and how well you did with your relatives and friends over Thanksgiving. Today I want to talk about something that I think is so important during Advent and that is repentance. And repentance kind of gets a bad rap because we have this idea that it's just so negative, you know, and people are telling us what we're doing wrong and we've got to deal with it. But when you really look at repentance in the context of the gospel, In the context of salvation history, in the context of life, it is a very, very positive thing.

To turn from that which is destroying you, and ultimately James tells us will kill you, if sin has its way completely, its goal is complete destruction, to turn from that to God and to be restored and to experience refreshment, well, that's a very positive thing. And the way that we prepare for Jesus' birth is that we get our heart. hearts right before the Lord. So I would like to talk to you today about repentance, but in the context of taking care of your soul. Now, you don't hear that a lot. You know, to be honest with you, you hear about taking care of your body, taking care of your mind, get enough sleep, take your vitamins. UK, it's the vitamins. But you hear a lot about that. Run, exercise, make sure you have the proper

magnesium, potassium, zinc, you know, B, complex, and A, whatever, it goes on and on. There's a lot of talk about taking care of your body, but taking care of your soul in the same way that you would take care of your body. That is not discussed very much. And I know, I mean, I've been doing this for 48 years. And I know that people don't think of it that way sometimes. It's more like, yeah, I should probably do that. Go to confession, you know. But you get to. You get to. You get to. You get to take care of your soul. And if you take care of your soul, you're going to be a happier person. That's for sure. All right. If you want the show notes, you know. know how to get them probably, right? You just text my name, Jeff Kaven's, one word, and text it

to the number 3-3-777. That's 2-3s and 3-7s, 3-7-7. We'll get you on board. You'll get the show notes. All right. Well, you know, after last week's show, when the turkey is gone, the leftovers remain. Sometimes there is repentance that is required, and that is turning from your attitudes or what you've been thinking about someone or you're in a rut as far as a habit. Maybe this time of the year, you just sort of intuitively start drinking more, you know, and you get yourself into trouble. You get yourself into a bad place emotionally and in relationships. And, you know, there's a lot of things that have happened at Christmas parties with people

saying things that they would not have said had they not had those three drinks. So repentance is a part of the equipment in Advent going forward. Now, there is a real power that you possess in the ability to repent. And the word for this in Greek is metanoia. It's literally we talk about a change of mind followed by appropriate action, okay, this idea of metanoia. Now, true repentance really is a change of mind and regret and remorse that takes responsibility for sins and does not blame other people. And that's an important thing

to realize is that repentance is not about making up excuses, blaming other people. I wouldn't have done this if it is just simply taking responsibility for your words and for your actions. It's a change of mind followed by taking responsibility. So life for the Christian is not putting into practice a system of believing and then going on autopilot with your wishes and your vision. No, repentance is, and living the life of Jesus is taking responsibility for your soul. So it's not asking the Lord for forgiveness with an intent to sin again, which happens so often with people when they encounter the sacrament of reconciliation. It's like an insurance policy for people, knowing that I can always go to confession if I commit so-and-so type of sin.

Repentance is an honest, regretful acknowledgement of sin with commitment to change. Repentance leads us to cultivate godliness while eradicating habits that lead to sin. And that is a part of repentance. It's not just being sorry for your sin and confessing it to the Lord and appropriating his grace in your soul, but it's also the action and the attitude of eradicating habits that lead to sin, a near occasion of sin. It's like if you go down Broadway Boulevard in your town and that's where the problem seems to come in, go down First Avenue.

You know, it's changing your life and your habits so that you set yourself up in a better place to deal with temptation in your life. One of the, and I might mention this towards the end of the show today, but one of the best definitions, really, of repentance comes from the catechism, and it is a radical, I like this, it's a radical reorienting of your life to Jesus. It's a radical reorienting of your life to Jesus. Paragraph 1861 says mortal sin is a radical possibility of human freedom, as is love itself. It results in the loss of charity and the privation of sanctifying grace, that is, of the state of grace, if it is not redeemed by repentance and God's forgiveness. Well, then it will cause exclusion from Christ's kingdom and the eternal death of hell. for our freedom has the power to make choices forever with no turning back.

However, although we can judge that an act is in itself a grave offense, we must entrust judgment of persons to the justice and the mercy of God. Now, the reason that I mention that is that the canachism says that mortal sin is a radical possibility of human freedom. But what God gives you in repentance is a radical reason. reorientation of your life to God. Sure, mortal sin is a radical possibility of human freedom, but repentance is a radical reorienting of your life to God. And we've talked about it a lot on the show over the years, and that is that if you have venial sin that weakens your

relationship, yes, there is degrees of sin. A venial sin is not as serious as a mortal sin, which breaks your relationship with God. A venial sin can be forgiven just in receiving the Eucharist going to Mass. And certainly you can confess venial sin when you go to confession. But mortal sin is a different animal altogether. It's full knowledge of what you're doing. You give your will to it. It's grave matter.

And you commit it. And it breaks the relationship. And the only way to get it back is through the sacrament of reconciliation. It is to go to God with perfect repentance. you know, saying, I have sin, and I'm taking, I'm taking responsibility for it. So let's look now at a couple of scriptures here. Before I read that, I just feel like I need to say this. As I'm talking about repentance and taking care of your soul, even bringing up the topic,

I am quite convinced that the Holy Spirit is convicting you. It might be of some area, something you did, something you said, and you know, you know. know, you know those areas of your life that can cause problems and you need to take care of your soul. Now, Jesus said in Matthew 417, from that time, Jesus began to preach saying, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. So what is the kingdom? Well, the kingdom is where Jesus is ruling and reigning. And so Jesus said, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The avenue for Jesus to rule and reign in your life as king is through repentance, turning from what is killing you to what will give you life, reorienting your life to Jesus

in what you think, what you say, and what you do. And Acts 319 is one of my all-time favorites when we talk about repentance. It says in Acts 319, repent therefore and turn again that your sins may be blotted out. That's taking care of your soul here and continues on. Verse 19, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. You know, as we are in the midst of Advent right now, if you're listening to this in the future, we were back in Advent. And when we talk about Advent and the coming of the king, we get our hearts ready.

And we've had so many scriptures since the beginning of Advent that really focus. on repentance, getting our heart right before the Lord's coming, before the king comes. And so repentance is a part of a refreshing of your soul as you anticipate the coming of the king. You changed your mind. You change your attitude. You change what you do. You give this over to the Lord.

You ask him for forgiveness. He forgives you. And the result is refreshing. Now, I don't know of anybody that doesn't want to be refreshed. Say, hey, I got an opportunity for you to be really refreshed. I don't want any of that refreshing stuff. What? No, I'm saying I've got an opportunity for your soul to be refreshed.

You can be made new. You can feel light and optimistic about your future now. What do I have to do? Well, you've got to radically reorient your life to Jesus. Ah, that's too hard. Okay, live in your sin then, you know? and you'll get the results of it. It's very, very simple. Repent, that is, reorient your life radically to the Lord, and you'll experience the refreshing

that Acts 319 is talking about. You know who really experienced this was a prodigal son? The prodigal son in Luke 1517, he experienced it. There was a complete change of mind after he had lost everything. I like the way the scripture says it. He came to his senses, a new realization, repenting in the hog pen is what he did. He left dad, left his other brother, he received his inheritance, went away to a faraway country, and blew it, blew it. And you can only imagine what. And he blew the inheritance. And then all of a sudden he wakes up, you know, hits his side of his head, Oe vee, what have I done? I had it, I'll have it better back home as a servant than here with these pigs.

And he had to reorient his life. That's repentance. He had to reorient his life. He started to think about dad. He started thinking about going back. He came to his senses. He made up his mind. I'm getting out of this hog pen.

I'm changing my life. I'm going to give it back to my family, to my father. And he turned around and he went back home. And his father actually met him. on the way back. So let's continue to talk about this after the break, but I want to talk a little bit about what Isaiah says that fits into this so well,

and I think it'll be a benefit to you during this season of Advent. You're listening to the Jeff Kagan show. I'm my name's Father Mike Schmitz, and I'm excited to announce my latest project, a new Advent series coming out in the ascension app called Waiting Well. Here's the thing.

The stats show that we spend up to several years of our lives waiting. Waiting in line, waiting at red light, waiting while friends and family get ready. We're just constantly waiting. And instead of embracing those times of waiting, what do we do? We worry, we get anxious, and maybe most of all, we check out, and we just get lost in scrolling on our phones. But there is a spiritual importance to waiting that we cannot miss. In fact, waiting is so important that God gives us entire seasons of waiting, Lent and Advent,

as a way to help shape us and help us realize where in our lives we're still waiting to let Jesus in. In order to be truly open to God in this way, we have to learn to embrace times of waiting. Most of all, we have to acknowledge, accept, and then live out the deep truth that this moment and every moment of our lives

actually matters. If this resonates with you, if you feel something stirring deep down in your soul, then join me this advent for Waiting Well, exclusively in the Ascension app. You can download the free prayer plan by signing up for the wait list in the Ascension app on your mobile device or by visiting ascensionpress.com slash Father Mike Advent. What are you waiting for?

See what I did there? God bless. Welcome back. Talking about to repent is taking care of your soul. How much time in the last year have you invested in taking care of your body? How much time do you think? Do you belong to a club? Do you run? Do you walk? Do you take vitamins in the UK? Do you get proper rest? What about your soul? What are you doing to take care of your soul? Say, I go to church. Great. But what do you do about repairing the spiritual free radicals in your life? You know, do you have spiritual antioxidants to take care of that? Well, repentance is that road to radically reorient your life to. God, changing your mind. So, interesting. Isaiah chapter 30 and verse 15 says, in returning and rest, you shall be saved. In quietness and in trust shall be your strength.

So you can find rest and strength related to repentance because listen to it again. And sometimes, you know, we read these scriptures. We read them, kind of get an idea, and then we forget about it. But listen to the beginning of what I just read to you in Isaiah 3015. In returning and rest, that's repentance. In returning and rest, you shall be saved. In quietness and in trust shall be your strength. I would propose to you that the person that is strong is the person who walks in repentance

and they rest in the work of the Lord. person, my friend, is strong. And you can find rest and strength in repentance. Now, there's, for example, I want to use this as an example. I had a discussion with a guy. I think it was, it must have been like three, four years ago. I was talking to a guy who runs a ministry for AA, Alcoholics Anonymous. And he himself is an alcoholic and has been sober for quite some time. And I was talking to him about his work and the work that he does and the people he meets with. And he's available 24-7 to talk to anybody about their alcohol problem. And he had mentioned that alcohol is just tearing lives apart, tearing families apart, the very fabric of

society. And he said something that was very interesting. I don't know if this is part of the AA program, you know. I've never been there. I'm not really much of a drinker at all. He was talking about this. He said that when he talks to people, maybe that he gets the call at two in the morning, three in the morning. Someone says, I need you. I'm about to, I'm about to drink. Or I started, but I stopped, and I need to talk to someone. He will go to them in the middle of the night. It doesn't matter when, where, and he will, he will engage you. And one of the things he said he asks them, and if this is part of the AA program, let me know. You can say, send me an email, The Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com.

I'd be curious. But he said this. He asked the question, and I'll use the name, John Q. Public. That's who he's talking to, okay? He's talking to John Q. Public. And John Q. Public calls him up and says, so-and-so, I'm just, I'm really beside myself. I think I'm going to drink. Or I started to.

And I want to stop, please. Help, intervene. Be my friend. He says, he asks them, what floor do you want? to get off at. Now what he's referring to is an elevator. And they're on the 50th floor and all of a sudden they realize they're on a free fall. This thing isn't going to end well. And sin never does. But what are you going to do? What are you going to do? You started on floor 50 and now it's going down to 45, 40, 37, 34, 31, 28. What floor do you? What floor do you?

you want to get off at? You're going down fast, my friend. And most people say, I want to get off now. Okay, then. Now's the time. Repent. Stop. Turn your life over to God. Repent. Radically reorient yourself to Christ. Reach out. That's the right thing to do. Put a stop to this. You do not want to hit rock bottom we say well i know a lot of people hit rock bottom or then there's nowhere to look except up and that's where they are listen you don't want to do that why go all the way down to floor one when you can get off at floor 44 you know i mean really you really want that pain you want others to watch you do that you want others to experience the the suffering that is related to a family member that it's dealing with alcohol or drug addiction or gambling

whatever it is. You're at the track. You've been spending family money going over there at lunch or online. What floor do you want to get off at? Financially, do you want to get off at the point where now you're bankrupt? So confession with no intent to really change is dangerous. If you can't just say, okay, I'm sorry. And then press the button again and start free falling. Confession with no intent to really change is dangerous. It's presumption. Confession was never meant to be a temporary safety net. With this attitude, you're in danger of losing the ability to make a good confession. You are losing the sensitivity to God. Trust me, it will go away and things will not bother you anymore, and you will hit the bottom floor. What floor do you want to get off at?

Now, Paul wrote to the Romans in chapter 23 and verse 4, he said, Or do you presume upon the riches of his kingdom and forbearance and patience? Do you not know that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? So Paul's asking the same question. He's asking the same question. Or do you presume upon the riches of his kingdom and forbearance and patience? My friend, you know, I love you. But I got to tell you, presumption is very dangerous, very dangerous.

He also wrote to the Corinthians in 2nd Corinthians 7.9, and he said, As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief so that you suffered no loss through us. Isn't that beautiful? Now I return to what I started with, and that is this interior repentance. And it is actually paragraph 1431 in the catechism. I'll put it in the show notes for you. Don't worry about it.

But it says this, and this is what I started with, interior repentance is a radical reorientation of your whole life, a return, a conversion to God with all your heart, an end of sin, a turning away from evil with repugnance. towards the evil actions that we have committed. At the same time, it entails the desire and resolution to change one's life with hope and God's mercy and trust in the help of His grace. The conversion of heart is accompanied by a salutary pain and sadness, which the fathers called the affliction of spirit and repentance of heart. Just beautiful. would underline that in my catechism in my brand new white ascension catechism i would underline

that paragraph 1431 it's one of uh one of my thousand favorites in the catechism there's so many things and then the next paragraph goes on with this it says the human heart is heavy and hardened god must give man a new heart conversion is first of all a work of the grace of god who makes our hearts returned to him. Ah, that's good. I have so much here, so many wonderful things here that we could talk about if we had all day. But let me just kind of wrap it up with this. I don't believe that you're listening to this by accident. Okay. Whatever's going on in your life right now, God wants to deal with it. God wants to deal with you. But he can't deal with you if you don't give him his will. Give him your will. You have to give him your will.

and you have to give them your heart, and you have to repent. I'm not talking about just changing your mind. I'm not talking about a brief intermission in your sin. I'm talking about something that is radical. The word radical has to do with the word roots. A radical reorientation of your life to God means that at the very root of who you are and the cause of what's happening here,

there's going to be a big change. You're not going to, as the great Quaker missionary once said, hack it. He says a thousand hack at the branches to everyone who hacks at the root. We want to go for the root. And that's a radical reorientation to God. That's radical repentance. We don't put a band-aid on it. We're not going to wait till I'll cover that, go to confession. I'll be fine for a few days. That's presumption. Presumption will end up biting you. It really will. It really will. You see, when you mess with sin, you're messing with something that is strong, something that's powerful, clever, knows you well, knows your habits, knows your social media,

knows everything about you. But the thing about this is that Jesus is stronger than all of that. The trap is intended for someone who doesn't know it's a trap. It's intended to be stronger than the one it's intended for. You. And if you're trapped, the only way you can get out is to have someone stronger and wiser, and that's Jesus. and that's why he gave you repentance.

So I'm going to be as bold as to say today, in order to get ready for Advent and get ready for the coming of Jesus, if you are messing with sin in your life right now, you need to repent. You need to repent. And again, I've said this before. People say, man, that's strong talk, Jeff.

Are you judging me, Jeff? Again, I'll say it. No, I'm not. I'm not judging you. I'm warning you. I'm warning you. Don't mess with sin. That's the good news for today.

So I know you can do it. I do. I do. I know you can do it. And I know that the grace of God, the mercy of God, the faith given to you, the charity given to you a baptism, you're equipped. You're well equipped to deal with this. You just have to make up your mind that you're going to do it.

And you're going to leave it behind as you prepare for the coming of the king. Should we pray? In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord, I lift up my friend to you today, and I ask you to bless them. I ask you, Lord, to bless them so deeply to give them in their heart that conviction that they should be right with you and want to be right with you. And the fortitude going forward to repent, radically reorient their life to deal with the near occasion of sin, change the things that are leading to this problem, and fill them with the power of the Holy Spirit to get this done. Lord, we love you and we thank you. They're all.

all that you have given us to live this life, sacraments, Bible, the Saints, Church, Blessed Mother, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we thank you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. I love you. I really do. Pray for me and I'll pray for you as we journey on to Christmas. God bless. Thank you.