Engaging w/ Elul August 15, 2013

What is complete repentance? [It is achieved by] a person who has the opportunity to repeat a past offense, and is able to commit it, but nevertheless refrains from doing so because of penitence, and not out of fear or failure of vigor.… If however, a person only repented in old age, at a time when he is no longer capable of doing what he had done—although this is not an elevated mode of repentance, it nevertheless avails him, and he is accepted as a penitent. 
– Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Repentance

~Rabbi Evon