The answer
A metanoia performed without humility and love becomes a sort of mockery. So did the Roman soldiers bow before Jesus in the house of the governor in order to mock Him (Matt. 27:29). Thus, St. Isaac the Syrian calls us to perform our metanoias with humility and love, saying: “Let your prostration be low before all men and be the first to salute; then you will be honoured more than he who brings gold from Ophir.”321
Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty
Notes
321 St. Isaac of Nineveh, Mystic Treatises by Isaac of Nineveh, trans., A. J. Wensinck (Amsterdam: Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, 1923) 5 (76): p. 52.