Prayer is easier than we think. we want to think it is too hard or too high and holy for us, because that gives us an excuse for not doing it. This is false humility. We can all do it, even the most sinful, shallow, silly, and stupid of us.

No one can be saved, and attain eternal joy, without all of the following: (1) a morally honest acceptance of the demands of virtue, (2) a serious effort to practice it, (3) an intellectually honest confession of failure, (4) repentance, and (5) at least an implicit faith and hope in God as Savior.

He offers total mercy and forgiveness to all who will accept it by trusting Him and repenting of their sins, but He does not, and cannot, give forgiveness to those who will not receive His gift. Gifts are freely given and freely received. Heaven cannot be forced on a creature with free will.

St. Thomas thus detects a primary source of presumption in seeking genuinely good things, like human happiness on earth, as if we did not need divine grace to attain them; and in the hope that we can obtain God's pardon and mercy without our confessing and repenting of sin.

Sin is to faith what infidelity is to marriage.

Therefore if we lack the feeling of repentance but nevertheless want to repent; if we choose repentance with the will; we are then repenting, since repentance is that choice of the will.

I have trouble admitting I'm wrong.

I apologize when I'm wrong.

We are forgiven, that we may be like Him who forgives us.

The divine order then is first pardon, then holiness; first peace with God, and then conformity to the image of that God with whom we have been brought to be at peace.

Thank you, Lord, for never turning me away. For never getting scared, for never lashing out when I hurt you, for always being there with arms wide open, ready to take me back.

When we sin or make a mistake, we try to learn from it. We don't hold on to it and nurse our feelings of unworthiness.