Aurora, just to give you context:
Penitence means to have remorse for your past conduct.
The word Selichot comes from the root of Selicha in Loshon HaKodesh (the language the Torah is written in) which means “sorry”.
So the penitential prayers that he is referring to are the Selichot prayers. Just he is using the anglicized version whereas we are referring to a transliterated word. I found that in my journey to yiddishkeit that the anglicized versions began to bother me since they did not really give any meaning behind the word they were referring to. Loshon Hakodesh is a very deep and rich language and I was able to transition into the prayers in Hebrew much more easily by using a transliterated version of the prayers once I was comfortable with saying them in English.
Don’t apologize for sidetracking the thread – it’s a oldie but will come back to it’s original point no matter, and I’m sure your journey will be filled with minor detours as you learn the destination to which you are heading and decide the course you want to take to get there. Hatzlacha.