Christians are called upon to be honest with God, and most of all honest with ourselves. We are called to account, to face what needs to be faced, to confront that which we have avoided and from which we shrink.

To show humility, acceptance of the errors we have made, the sins we have committed, the debts that we owe.

The feast of St Patrick is a day on which the thoughts of many turn to Ireland, perhaps especially for those with family ties and links to this land – the isle of saints and scholars – a place of great beauty, so many wonderful people, and a place of many tears.

And for me raised in England, of Irish ancestry, now living back in Ireland – it brings to mind a disconnect between those two countries, that remains to this day, because of past unacknowledged and unrepented sins. I speak of an Gorta Mór or the ‘Great Hunger’ – known incorrectly and reprehensibly in the UK as the ‘potato famine’.

The need for repentance is as true for nations as it is for individuals, because old sins cast very long shadows, shadows that can overcast and hide much that is good, because sins that are unacknowledged and unrepented do not heal, they only fester – as much, if not more, for the perpetrator as the victim.