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Summary
- The shortest prayer of repentance in the Bible is the tax collector’s “God be merciful to me a sinner” (Luke 18:13); Psalm 51, numbered 50 in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles, is headed “When Nathan the prophet came to him.”
- Traditional prayers quoted: the 1928 Book of Common Prayer’s General Confession and Ash Wednesday collect, the Catholic Act of Contrition (1888 Manual of Prayers) and the Orthodox Lenten Prayer of St Ephraim the Syrian (Hapgood, 1906).
- Short prayers cover a recurring sin, hurting someone, restitution, not feeling forgiven, falling again and a cold heart, with a prayer for someone else’s repentance.
- Scripture presents repentance as turning (Ezekiel 18:32; Acts 3:19) and separates godly sorrow from worldly sorrow (2 Corinthians 7:10).
- Churches differ on confession: Catholics confess serious sins to a priest (Catechism 1456), Orthodox confess before a priest as “but a witness,” and the Westminster Confession requires private confession to God.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotations are from the King James Version (1611), text of Project Gutenberg eBook no. 10 (2 Samuel 12:13; 2 Chronicles 7:14; Psalm 51:1–4, 10–12, 17; 103:12; Proverbs 24:16; Ezekiel 18:32; Matthew 3:8; 5:24; Luke 15:7, 17–20; 18:13–14; 19:8; 22:62; John 21:17; Acts 3:19; Romans 2:4; 1 Corinthians 10:13; 2 Corinthians 7:10; James 5:16; 1 John 1:9). https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10
- Psalm 50:2 (heading), Douay-Rheims Bible, Project Gutenberg eBook no. 1581. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1581
- The Book of Common Prayer (Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S.A.), Standard Book of 1928. Morning Prayer, A General Confession, p. 6; Ash Wednesday, The Collect, p. 124. PDF facsimile: https://www.artisticdailyprayers.org/uploads/3/0/1/6/30164961/bcp1928std.pdf
- A Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Catholic Laity, prepared and published by order of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore. New York: Catholic Publication Society, 1888. Morning Prayers, “An Act of Contrition,” p. 54. https://archive.org/details/AManualOfPrayers1888
- Hapgood, Isabel Florence, trans. Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic (Greco-Russian) Church. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1906. The First Hour, Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian, p. 41; The Rite of Confession, pp. 287, 289. https://www.ponomar.net/data/hapgood.pdf
- Labourt, Jérôme. “St. Ephraem.” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 5. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05498a.htm
- The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), chapter 15, “Of Repentance unto Life.” https://thewestminsterstandard.org/the-westminster-confession/
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997. Paragraphs 1451 and 1456. https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_two/section_two/chapter_two/article_4/vii_the_acts_of_the_penitent.html
