Four Steps to Restore Harmony in Your Life: Repent, Repair, Reconcile, Rejoice

/ Tom Delaney, O.F.S., M.A. Theo., Cert. Catech.

This post is for Catholic parishioners and community members who want a step-by-step process of restoring harmony to their lives, especially after an event or series of events that caused moral stress or moral injury for themselves, others, or both. A four step process for restoring is proposed based on the homily of Pope Leo XIV on the occasion of the 2025 Jubilee of Prisoners, including sources in the Gospel.

During his recent homily on the occasion of the Jubilee of Prisoners, Pope Leo described that justice is always a “process of reparation and reconciliation” in which “for every fall one must be able to get back up” and that “no human being is defined only by his or her actions.”1 There is more than one way to be a prisoner, including being a prisoner to the moral stress and moral injury of past wrongs we have experienced in our life whether as perpetrator or victim.2 Pope Leo’s words have relevance and insight for us all because so man of us are prisoners in some way and to some extent, and freedom is a real possibility for anyone.

Justice is Not Just Right vs. Wrong — It’s Harmony in Your Life

“Justice” is a term that too often now is only understood as meaning something or someone is right or wrong, usually in a narrow moralistic and judgmental sense. In reality, and originally, the word is to be understood as a state of things being in the right place and in the right order for harmony to happen that results in the good for people. It’s a bigger idea than just right versus wrong, and helps us understand what it really takes to make justice as harmony happen in our lives, or to restore it when we’ve lost it. For that reason I am going to use the term “harmony” rather than justice, so that we can keep that deeper understanding of what justice is.

Four Steps for Restoring Harmony in Your Life

I think that when you do a close reading of Pope Leo’s homily, you can piece together something of a four-part process for restoring the harmony of justice in your life. Here it is as I see it …

  • REPENT: The word means “think again.” In his homily Pope Leo described “working on one’s own feelings and thoughts” so as to restart and change for the better how we see and understand our lives and the events in our lives. This change for the better is called a “conversion” and brings with it hope and joy. Pope Leo explained, “The Jubilee, as we know, with its biblical origin, was a year of grace in which everyone was offered the possibility of restarting in many different ways.” He pointed to John the Baptist as an example of the invitation to repent, to symbolically “cross the river once again” in our journey to the Promised Land. Pope Leo also reminded that  “embarking on paths of conversion, and the temptation to give up or to no longer forgive,” requires “infinite patience with oneself.” That’s an important thing to always keep in mind during this step. To help, Pope Leo counsels us to always remember that only one thing is important: the promise of Jesus Christ that no one is to be lost (cf. John 6:39) and that all are to “be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4).3 Pope Leo declared, “Let no one be lost! Let all be saved! This is what our God wants, this is his Kingdom, and this is the goal of his actions in the world.” Our Church offers excellent tools and process for reviewing our lives, including the Examination of Conscience, and the Jesuit practice of Examen.
  • REPAIR: There are things that come along with experiencing wrongdoing either to ourselves or to others. Pope Leo listed “the weight of the past, the wounds to be healed in body and heart, the disappointments.” Repair means lifting the mental, emotional, and spiritual burden of past wrongs. Repair also means healing ourselves of negative embodied emotions and the disappointments within ourselves and others that happen with moral stress and moral injury. Forgiveness is the process of repair that research has demonstrated provides psychological benefits.4,5 Pope Leo mentions forgiveness as a human capacity that can bring forth flourishing “from the ‘hard ground’ of sin and suffering.” Research affirms the connection of forgiveness to human flourishing.6 Pope Leo’s advice is worth repeating here: we need “the patience that is needed with oneself and with others when “… [there is] temptation to give up or to no longer forgive.” Person-to-person forgiveness has been researched and used to develop guided processes and tools for effective and long-lasting forgiveness (e.g. Live and Forgive).7,8,9,10 In addition, our Church incorporates divine forgiveness in the Sacrament of Penance.
  • RECONCILE: In repentance, we started our journey toward a Promised Land for our life. Pope Leo explained that reconciliation happens as “a heart reconciled with God and with our brothers and sisters.” Reconciliation is also an end to the struggle with injustice, accusations, and condemnations, as in the Gospel story of the accused and condemned adulterous woman: “When the accusers left, only the poor woman and mercy remained. And to her the Lord said: go and sin no more” (John 8:10-11 and Sermo 302, 14).11,12 When the heart is reconciled with God, in the words of Pope Leo, “We know that even in the face of the greatest challenges, we are not alone: the Lord is near (cf. Philippians 4:5), he walks with us, and with him at our side, something beautiful and joyful will always happen.”13 A helpful practical exercise for this step is prayer, because it acknowledges God’s abiding presence with us, especially as a friend (John 15:15)14 Originally inspired by Franciscan mystic Francisco de Osuna, Spanish mystic St. Teresa of Avila explained, “Mental prayer is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves us.”15 As Pope Leo said, “with him at our side, something beautiful and joyful will always happen,” and that brings us to our next step.
  • REJOICE: Pope Leo explained the call to conversion is a source of hope and joy. We can see this hope and joy through conversion in the story of the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well (John 4:42), who eagerly tells Jesus of her own hope: “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Anointed; when he comes, he will tell us everything.”16 Jesus responds to her hope by simply affirming that he is the awaited Anointed one, saying simply: “I am he, the one who is speaking with you.” In that moment the woman is filled with joy, in that the Anointed one came in person, and personally, to be “with you.” This is the cause to rejoice: to be with the Savior on a personal level, “with you” and especially fully knowing you and loving you in that full knowledge of you. As the story goes, “The woman left her water jar and went into the town and said to the people, “Come see a man who told me everything I have done!'” There is joy especially in reconciliation, in things being back to their right place, restored, or (even better) renewed! We can look to the story of Mary of Magdala and encountering the risen Jesus Christ, proclaiming simply and with complete joy: “I have seen the Lord” (John 20:11-18).17 Taken together, we too can declare “Come see a man who who knows everything about me! I have seen the Lord!” Taking joy in our relationship with Jesus Christ is its own practical exercise, and we can put it into our life every day by devoting at least a minute or two to focus on it regularly. You don’t need special words because God already knows what is in your heart, but if words would help, you could devote just a little time every day to praying the Magnificat and “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.” 

Weekly and Daily Practices to Restore Harmony in Your Life

In our world and times, it takes deliberate efforts to restore and protect harmony for ourselves. In the four-step process we just walked through, there are a number of practices for restoring and protecting harmony in your life. When put into regular practice, even daily practice if possible, they will keep harmony in your heart. These practices are so important that they are worth listing again:

Regular attendance of mass is a way to integrate all four of these for restoring harmony to your life.

Parish and Community Life Helps You Restore Harmony

Always remember that this is not a “go it alone” deal. Your parish or community is a collective effort to restore harmony through active practice of the Catholic faith. Your parish pastor or community minister is also a person who can accompany you through this process, keeping you encouraged, and helping you troubleshoot the tight spots — use them! Most of all, trust that God is not only inviting you to living a process of harmony in your life, but is actively drawing you all of the time, like a gentle current in the water. Sometimes restoring harmony is more about allowing God’s current to draw you than anything else. Remember too that harmony and peace has even already been given to you, as Jesus said (John 14:27):

Peace I leave with you;
my peace I give to you.
Not as the world gives do I give it to you.
Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.

Please share these words with someone who needs them today.

Notes

  1. Leo XIV. (2025, December 14). Homily: Holy Mass on the occasion of the Jubilee of Prisoners. The Holy See. https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/homilies/2025/documents/20251214-giubileo-detenuti.htmlVatican.
  2. VanderWeele, T. J., Wortham, J. S., Carey, L. B., Case, B. W., Cowden, R. G., Duffee, C., Jackson-Meyer, K., Lu, F., Mattson, S. A., Padgett, R. N., Peteet, J. R., Rutledge, J., Symons, X., & Koenig, H. G. (2025). Moral trauma, moral distress, moral injury, and moral injury disorder: Definitions and assessments. Frontiers in Psychology, 16. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1422441. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1422441/full.
  3. See the cited Gospel pericopes in in United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. (n.d.). New American Bible, Revised Edition. USCCB. https://bible.usccb.org/.
  4. VanderWeele, T. J. (2024, April 20). The power of forgiveness. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/human-flourishing/202303/the-power-of-forgiveness.
  5. Long, K. N. G., Worthington, E. L., VanderWeele, T. J., O’Connor, L. E., Chen, Y., & Hook, J. N. (2020). Forgiveness of others and subsequent health and well-being in mid-life: A longitudinal study on female nurses. BMC Psychology, 8, 104. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-020-00470-w).
  6. Toussaint, L., Worthington, E. L. Jr., Webb, J. R., Wilson, C., & Williams, D. R. (2023). Forgiveness in human flourishing. In M. Las Heras, M. Grau Grau, & Y. Rofcanin (Eds.), Human flourishing (pp. 117–131). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09786-7_8, https://hsph.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Toussaint-et-al.-Forgiveness-in-Human-Flourishing-2023.pdf.
  7. Ho, M. Y., Worthington, E. L., Jr.,  Cowden, R. G., Bechara, A. O., Chen, Z. J., Gunatirin, E. Y., Joynt, S., Khalanskyi, V. V., Korzhov, H., Kurniati, N. M. T., Rodriguez, N., Salnykova, A., Shtanko, L., Tymchenko, S., Voytenko, V. L., Zulkaida, A., Mathur, M. B., & VanderWeele, T. J. (2024). International REACH forgiveness intervention: A multisite randomised controlled trial. BMJ Public Health, 2, e000072. DOI: 10.1136/bmjph-2023-000072.
  8. Human Flourishing Program. (2025). REACH workbook for churches (Final April 28, 2025) [Workbook]. Harvard University. https://hfh.fas.harvard.edu/sites/g/files/omnuum8886/files/2025-04/HFH_REACH%20WB%20for%20Churches_Digital_1-Page_Spreads_Final_April_28_2025_136_Pages_0.pdf.
  9. Tyler VanderWeele. 2020. “Activities for Flourishing: An Evidence-Based Guide”. Journal of Positive Psychology & Wellbeing, 4, 1, Pp. 79 –91. https://journalppw.com/index.php/jppw/article/view/68.
  10. Human Flourishing Program. (n.d.). How to flourish: Practical activities supported by scientific research. Harvard University. https://hfh.fas.harvard.edu/how-to-flourish.
  11. See John 8:10 in United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. (n.d.). New American Bible, Revised Edition. USCCB. https://bible.usccb.org/.
  12. Augustine, of Hippo. (1994). Sermons 273–305A on the Saints (E. Hill & J. E. Rotelle, Eds. & Transl.; Vol. III/8). New City Press. https://wesleyscholar.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Augustine-Sermons-273-305.pdf.
  13. See Philippians 4:5 in United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. (n.d.). New American Bible, Revised Edition. USCCB. https://bible.usccb.org/.
  14. See John 15:15 in United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. (n.d.). New American Bible, Revised Edition. USCCB. https://bible.usccb.org/.
  15. Teresa of Ávila. (1987). The book of her life (K. Kavanaugh & O. Rodriguez, Trans.). ICS Publications. (Original work published 1562).
  16. See John 4:4-42 in United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. (n.d.). New American Bible, Revised Edition. USCCB. https://bible.usccb.org/.
  17. See John 20:11-18 in United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. (n.d.). New American Bible, Revised Edition. USCCB. https://bible.usccb.org/.
  18. See John 14:27 in United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. (n.d.). New American Bible, Revised Edition. USCCB. https://bible.usccb.org/.

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