A lot of people are asking what is going on in these days of the coronavirus and quarantine and social

distancing and all the things that are going on around us. And as a number of people have been

emailing me about it and I've been in discussion with people about it, there seems to be a kind

of emerging consensus, I suppose you can say,

that God is calling us to repentance. He's calling us to conversion. That's the theme that

continues to come up again and again when people speak to me about this. So when we think about

repentance, you might think, first of all, of the need to be sorrowful for your sins and to live differently.

And that's certainly a good definition.

It's a beginning definition.

But there's more to it than that.

In the scriptures, the term is metanoia in Greek.

So we're in a season of metanoia.

What does that mean, though?

The Greek term literally means a transformation of the mind, a change of mind.

We need in our day to have a transformation of our minds.

That's what people are feeling called to more and more.

But what does that consist of, I mean over and above being sorrowful for your sins and aiming to live

differently? Well, this is a good opportunity to raise a certain objection that's somewhat common, commonly

raised against Thomas Aquinas and his theology, or more generally against theology in the

Western Church.

And it's an objection that comes from some of the followers of St. Gregory Palamas and the eastern side of the church.

And what they say is that the Western Church has largely lost the sense of the mind,

...