Renew and restore

Meaning

Renewal first names the hoped-for restoration of what is imperfect, deficient and corrupted in creation. The opening verbs distinguish renewing, supplying a lack and bringing back into good order. In the closing theological comparison, correction and restitution concern four spiritual defects: pride and ambition correspond to harmful sublimation and premature redness, while despair and impatient murmuring correspond to the third and fourth material errors. Timely help matters. Absolution through the releasing key is followed by nourishment in the Supper; the office also binds the persistently impenitent rather than releasing everyone indiscriminately. These two means are entrusted to the Church, and the warning that the Supper is poison to the unworthy belongs to the author’s sacramental argument, not a chemical claim. The English keeps “restoration” beside “correction” rather than making renewal an entirely new creation without continuity. Material and spiritual restoration are compared, not equated: the first is a claimed natural benefit, the second an ecclesially administered account of repentance, nourishment and enduring blessedness.