Exaggerated repentance is a reverse form of pride. We are designed to acknowledge our imbalances, adjust for them and MOVE ON. Accepting forgiveness in every moment in which it is required, letting go of yesterday's failures, we move forward in healing... Our processes of healing will show us failures; we must see where we are going before we can adjust the course. However, the healing process does not define us! It is just the manner in which we awaken. It is vital to recognize the false pride of the sinner for what it is: a cop-out, an escape mechanism through which the fearful avoid responsibility -- and, as they eventually find out, salvation.
Humanity—in fact, the entire Earth community—currently exists in such dire circumstances that the most significant, viable, and potent solutions will seem like impossible dreams to most everyone (at first). But this is apparently the way it has always been in our universe. At the greatest moments of transformations—what Thomas Berry calls "moments of grace"—the "impossible" happens....
If you consider the data on such things as current wars, environmental destruction, political-economic corruption, social/racial divisions, and widespread psychological breakdowns, there seems to be little hope for humanity and, by extension, most other members of the biosphere. But if, alternatively, you look at the fact of miracles—moments of grace—throughout the known history of the universe, it will dawn on you that there is and always has been an intelligence or imagination at work much greater than our conscious minds. Given that we cannot rule out moments of grace acting through us in this century and the next, we have no alternative but to proceed as if we ourselves, collectively, can in fact make the difference...