A Discourse for the Monday of the First Week of Great Lent: Preparation for the Mystery of Confession (Part 2)

When we cast aside the distraction that blinds us, when we turn inward and begin to examine ourselves, comparing the state of our souls with what it ought to be according to the teaching of Holy Scripture, then we ourselves will recognize that small sins are not small, but grave and terrible, worthy of endless tears and repentance. Let us open Holy Scripture and see what we ought to be. The holy Apostle Paul says: “The first man is of the earth, made of dust; the second man is the Lord from heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, so shall we also bear the image of the heavenly man” (1 Cor. 15:47, 49). In receiving existence, in beginning to exist, we at the same time are clothed in the image of our forefather Adam, in his fallen image; we are conceived and born with a body subject to disease and decay, with a soul infected by sin; we are conceived and born, having the seed of sin planted in all our nature, having the poison of sin poured out in all the members of soul and body. “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me” (Ps. 50:7). In this way the whole human race was made and is made unprofitable, mortified by sin, which has infected us in our very root, in our forefather. In the recreation of us by redemption it was necessary to remove the root that continually communicated to all its branches the lethal contagion; it was necessary to replace it with a root that would communicate to us life, incorruptibility, holiness. A new forefather was needed for the human race, and He became “the Lord from heaven”. He willed to be according to the flesh the descendant of Adam, being conceived by the Virgin without seed and without passion. By earthly birth Adam and many men came before Jesus; but by birth from death and the grave, which is resurrection, Jesus preceded Adam and all men (Mt. 27:53). He became the Firstborn of mankind; He is the first man who ascended to heaven. There He sat at the right hand of God. Adam and other holy forefathers of Jesus according to the flesh became His descendants by birth in the Spirit in the age to come. He is the Father of the age to come, the Founder of the holy tribe of the chosen. So that we, who began to exist in the image of the old Adam, might pass from his rejected posterity into the blessed posterity of the New Adam, we must be born from above. “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit”, the New Adam, our Lord Jesus Christ, says to us, “he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (Jn. 3:5). We are born into a new, gracious life through “holy baptism”, by which we pass into the posterity of the Lord Jesus Christ and receive adoption as sons by the Father of the age to come, even as the Apostle said: “All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. You received the Spirit of adoption. Through Him we cry out: Abba, Father” (Gal. 3:27; Rom. 8:15). But to remain in this adoption, we must live not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit: “Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Rom. 8:14). On the contrary, “if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ” (Rom. 8:9). Does this mark of adoption dwell in us? Does the Spirit testify “to our spirit, that we are children of God” (Rom. 8:16)? By this mark the venerable desert Fathers examined and contemplated themselves; such examination plunged them into the abyss of repentance and weeping. Let us hear how the venerable Macarius of Egypt, justly called the Great, reasons about this: “As the body,” he says, “does not have its life from itself, but from without, that is, from the earth, and cannot live without external means: in the same way the soul, if it is not born again here into the land of the living, if it is not nourished there spiritually, and, progressing in the Lord, does not grow spiritually, if it does not clothe itself in the garment of heavenly beauty, taken from Divinity itself, cannot in any way live in joy and peace by itself. The Divine nature has within it the bread of life according to these words: ‘I am the bread of life’ (Jn. 6:35) and wine that gladdens the heart of man, and the oil of joy (Ps. 103:15, Ps. 44:8), and manifold nourishment of the Spirit, and heavenly garment of light proceeding from God Himself. In these consists the eternal life of the soul. Woe to the body when it is left alone in its single nature! It is destroyed and dies. Woe also to the soul when it is left to its single nature alone, trusts only in its own works, has no communion with God’s Spirit! It dies, not having been deemed worthy of eternal, Divine life… If you have become a throne for God, and the heavenly Rider has sat upon you; if your soul has become wholly a spiritual eye and wholly become light; if you have been nourished by the heavenly food of the Spirit and drunk the water of life, and clothed yourself in the garment of mystical light; if finally your inner man has acquired all these and is firmly assured of them, then truly you are already living eternal life, from this moment resting your soul with the Lord, truly you have acquired and received from the Lord the ability to live a true life. But if you see none of this in yourself, then weep, grieve and lament bitterly, as not yet having become a partaker of eternal and spiritual wealth, as not yet having acquired true life. Take care concerning your poverty and ask the Lord day and night, as one in grave, cruel poverty from sin. O, if only we cared and were concerned about our poverty! O, if only we did not live in heedlessness, as if abounding in spiritual riches and goods!” The striving to acquire true repentance was the compelling reason why the holy monks, sensing their poverty of spirit, withdrew into deep solitude, enclosed themselves in reclusoria, and hid themselves in caves and abysses of the earth. But such a vision of one’s own poverty, such a vision of the mortification of the soul by sin is granted to those who have made considerable progress in monastic struggle. It impels a man to make a decisive break from the world, to die to the world, so that he might wholly give himself to the seeking within himself of eternal life.

Let us turn to another mark by which self-examination is more accessible to our beginning. The Lord said in the holy Gospel: “If you love me, you will keep my word… He who does not love me does not keep my words” (Jn. 14:23–24). “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love” (Jn. 15:10). He who keeps Christ’s commandments is Christ’s; he who does not keep them does not belong to Christ. Examination of our conscience, of our spiritual condition according to the evangelical commandments, is very convenient, most salutary to the soul, entirely reliable. By way of example, let us see: have we fulfilled certain of Christ’s commandments set forth in the fifth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel? Have we not been angry without cause at our neighbor? Have we not had, do we still not have disputes with anyone? Does not resentment dwell in us? Have we not spoken words of reproach and mockery? Have we refrained from lustful looks, feelings, and thoughts? Have we not repaid evil for evil? Have we been so meek as not to resist evil? Have we loved our enemies? Have we blessed those who cursed us? Have we done good to those who hated us? Have we prayed for those who brought us harm? Certainly, these few questions alone will perplex and convict our conscience. What then might happen in further and more detailed examination? Our eyes will be opened to our sins; the feeling of continual sorrow for our unworthiness will be planted in our hearts; we shall learn to grieve for those transgressions which in our blindness seemed small to us, but in reality deprive us of adoption into God and of blessed eternity. Both of these were testified to by the Lord Himself. Having commanded love of enemies, He also proclaimed the reason why this love is necessary for us: “that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven” (Mt. 5:45). The violation of the least evangelical commandment is accompanied by a sorrowful consequence: “Whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments”, the Lord said, “and teaches others to do so, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 5:19), that is, will not be a partaker of it. Complete disregard for evangelical commandments, as though they were moral teaching that one need not follow, brings about decisive ruin. No ascetic struggle can replace the fulfillment of commandments! Not even miracles can replace them! “Many will say to me on that day: Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and perform many mighty deeds in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you: depart from me, you workers of lawlessness” (Mt. 7:22–23). A soul built up not on the fulfillment of commandments but on ascetic struggle alone is unstable and vain; it cannot withstand either afflictions from men or temptations from demons; it is devoid of light, full of darkness and self-deception. “Everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on a rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall” (Mt. 7:24–27).

Part Two.

Repentance is necessary for all! Let each one use the precious time granted by the mercy of the Lord! Let each one immerse himself in blessed repentance! In particular, let us occupy ourselves with it throughout the current week, which we have set apart and designated for preparing ourselves for the sacrament of confession and the sacrament of communion that follows. Let us make this preparation with all possible attentiveness. Let us not sacrifice this week to heedless distraction: we have already sacrificed enough to it! We have spent enough time on our own destruction! Now let us occupy ourselves with our salvation! Let us often open the book of our conscience; let us look closely at our sinful stains; let us prepare them for washing by confession. Do not spare your sins! Do not consider any misdeed insignificant or excusable; do not acknowledge as innocent any habits and practices condemned by Scripture. Accuse yourself so that you may receive abundant justification from God. Resolve to lay bare your wounds frankly before your spiritual father! Do not leave in your heart a secret friendship, a secret bond with sin, concealing it and putting off revealing it until a future time! Otherwise your repentance will be false, hypocritical, and there will remain in your soul a cause for continuing a sinful life. Unconfessed sins are easily repeated, as if committed in impenetrable darkness. With resolve, come to hate sin! Betray it by revealing it—and it will flee from you; expose it as an enemy—and you will receive strength from above to resist it and overcome it.

Make a firm resolution within yourself to live a life pleasing to God and to bring repentance immediately for those stumbles that befall you, whether through weakness or through the cunning of the enemy or through concurrence of circumstances. “Not to fall is the property of Angels alone; it is the property of men to fall and, having fallen, to rise; to remain in a fall is the property of demons alone.” Resolve to be a faithful servant of Christ for all the days of your life! A faithful servant fulfills his master’s will with exactness; when he errs in something, he at once repents, grieves, asks forgiveness, and makes amends for his transgression by correction. Abhor the deeds, the life, and the nature of a traitor! Do not befriend the enemies of your God, your Creator, your Redeemer! Do not betray Him for silver, nor for ambition, nor for gluttony, nor for unchastity!..

Use this week to examine your past conduct. Sketch for yourself the form of amendment: consider what vices you must abandon, what virtues you must plant in body and soul. Do not do this just once in the course of the week; each day think about this several times; what you forget today, you will remember tomorrow. The Lord Himself, seeing your zeal, will send you good thoughts and open your eyes to your shortcomings. The more you plunge yourself into examination of yourself, the more satisfactory will be your confession and repentance, the more keenly and abundantly will renewal be poured into your soul, granted through the confession of sins.

“In a well-fed belly there is no understanding of God’s mysteries.” Wishing to devote this week to spiritual occupations and reflections, let us refrain from satiety, from all excess, and if possible, even from satisfaction in food and drink. Let us show in our bodies that we are followers of the Lord who was crucified for us! Let us tire our flesh by standing through church services. When it, feeling fatigue and exhaustion, begs for rest, say to it in exhortation: “I remember the Lord who suffered for me, and I wish that you, my flesh, might share, even in the smallest way, in those sufferings that the most holy flesh of Christ felt when it was crucified on the tree of the cross. Your pleasures are destructive to both you and my soul: by them carnal mindedness is aroused, love for the vain world and for temporal earthly life; by them spiritual movements are suppressed, remembrance of death and eternity; by them the passions are strengthened; by them faith in Christ itself is weakened. Strictness toward you brings incalculable benefit: it purifies the mind, quickens the soul, makes you yourself, mortal flesh, light and capable of spiritual struggles and spiritual feeling. The martyrs brought their blood to the foot of the cross of Christ; the holy desert fathers brought much laborious struggle, if not equal to, then similar to martyrdom. I too will bring to Him—though small affliction of my body! By afflicting my flesh I will somewhat resemble the Lord crucified for me! By afflicting my flesh I will somewhat punish myself for satisfying the carnal desires of the flesh! By afflicting my flesh I will show in deed that I am angry with myself for the misdeeds I have committed, that I condemn myself, and sincerely wish and seek amendment! You yourself, my flesh, oppressed by fasting, vigils, and standing in church, intercede for yourself and for my soul for abundant forgiveness.”

If during this week we indulge in excess, if we are drawn to satisfy the capricious desires of the body, can we expect that we will examine ourselves as we should, that we will bring unfeigned repentance? Can we believe that we will abandon vices, be established in virtue, when we perform the work of turning from sin to God with double-mindedness, coldness, and heedlessness? No! Coldness and heedlessness reveal a wavering, deceitful will. Let us fear the words of the Lord: “I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am about to spit you out of my mouth” (Rev. 3:16). Let us be zealous!

In all good undertakings we need the help of God: all the more do we need it for casting off the yoke of sin and entering on the right and holy paths. God’s help is obtained through fervent and attentive prayer. The holy Fathers teach us to pray that we might be granted to see our sins, that a good and saving thought of confessing our sins might be sent to us from above. Both are a gift of God! More precisely, all the actions that make up blessed repentance necessarily require God’s assistance. Beseech the Lord God that He grant you to spend this week with reverence and attentiveness, that He grant you to examine yourself and see your transgressions. Beseech the Lord that He place enmity between you and the seed of the serpent, which is sin; beseech Him that He inspire you with courage in the struggle against yourself, against your corrupted nature, against the death that dwells in you. Beseech the Lord that He Himself fight for you and thus always grant you victory: the Lord cannot help but be victorious. If we are overcome, this means we fight alone, that the Lord does not descend to fight alongside us against the aliens. He does not descend either because our will is divided, or because we deserve to be abandoned for our heedlessness, for our coldness toward Him, for our attachment to the world and its sweetness. Beseech the Lord that He help you to tell all your sins to your spiritual father with complete sincerity, casting aside harmful shame, and to hear the absolution from his lips with living faith, as from the lips of God. Finally, beseech the Lord that after being cleansed by repentance, you never return to the bog of sin, to the stench of sin, to the prison and hell, but begin a life pleasing to God, attentive—the path by which every sojourner and stranger on earth can attain eternal, blessed peace. Ask for all the above through prayer: “Without me you can do nothing”, the Lord said, “for apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn. 15:5).

Above all, pray that you be granted “a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart” (Ps. 50:19), streams of tears for washing away the filth of sin. When the heart is pierced by saving sorrow for transgressions, life-giving tears flow from the eyes. They renew on the soul and body the action of baptismal waters, and are themselves called baptism. Baptismal waters wash away ancestral sin, and in those baptized in adulthood also their own sins committed before baptism; tears wash away sins committed after baptism. Pray for the obtaining of these waters; prove your desire to acquire them by striving for them. Prepare yourself for confession and holy communion by tears! Wash, soften, and quicken with them the field of your heart; clarify in them the Divine image, renew the likeness darkened and defaced by improper features and dirty colors. He who received the tears of the harlot and released her from the bonds of sin will release your chains as well. He who shed His sacred tears over Jerusalem, which stubbornly rejected the salvation that came to it from God and blindly hastened toward destruction, will rejoice in your tears, which you shed desiring to attain salvation. He who shed His holy tears at the news of the death of His friend Lazarus, who raised Lazarus, a corpse of four days already stinking, will mercifully look upon your tears and raise from the death of sin your soul, even though it be wrapped about on all sides with burial shrouds, even though it already stinks from ingrained, long-standing sinful habits, even though a heavy stone of hardness of heart and insensibility be rolled against the entrance to your heart. He will command the stone to be rolled away, will loose your thoughts and feelings bound by death—that you may walk in spiritual progress and dispassion.

You are preparing for an important sacrament—for one of the seven chief sacraments of the Church—for holy confession! You intend to be baptized a second baptism according to Christian mystery! You come to a spiritual infirmary: do not leave uncured. A wonderful and extraordinary judgment awaits you: at it your transgressions will be weighed and evaluated, and instead of the punishments that you have deserved, justification, purity, and holiness are given to you. “Come, let us reason together, says the Lord”, calling you to this judgment, “though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Is. 1:18). The punishments due to you were borne by God become man, and He grants you, by His infinite goodness, His holiness, requiring of you only acknowledgment of your transgressions: it is impossible to forgive one who does not acknowledge, who by his non-acknowledgment expresses that he does not recognize himself as guilty, does not need forgiveness, and rejects it.

Immerse yourself in reverent and pious contemplation of the sacrament, truly a great and wonderful sacrament! Immerse yourself in contemplation of God’s infinite love for fallen mankind! “God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent His only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. This is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. Much more then, now that we have been justified by His blood, will we be saved through Him from the wrath of God” (Rom. 5:8, 9). And we are saved from wrath by repentance, which corrects all our transgressions, sustains us during all our earthly pilgrimage, draws us out of any abyss of sin, however deep it may be. The power and action of repentance remain inexhaustible until the end of our life. Though one fall every day, though he commit all injustices and all lawlessnesses, repentance receives him in its embrace to cleanse, heal, and make him righteous and holy. It only becomes ineffective when with foolish stubbornness and desperate blindness its all-powerful help is rejected.

And marvel also at this in this sacrament: that its minister is appointed not an immaculate Angel, awesome in his very holiness, but a man like us, clothed in the common weaknesses of our race, no less in need of repentance than you, serving as the visible instrument of grace in the washing away of your sins and having the necessary need for the ministry of another in washing away his own transgressions. At the time when you fall prostrate before the sacred image of Christ to confess your transgressions to your spiritual father, he will humbly say to you according to the testament of the holy Church: “I am only a witness, bearing witness before the Lord all that you tell me.” God’s goodness surrounds you on all sides for salvation, surrounds and encompasses you with the conveniences of approaching and drawing near to God.

Conclusion.

Such reflections are necessary for proper preparation for the sacrament of confession. Straighten the perverse paths of your mind and heart, cleanse them of all deceitfulness and hypocrisy. Otherwise, you will only increase your sins: to your former sins you will add a sin incomparably more grave. It frightens me to say with certainty what this sin consists in! But for your salvation I will say; I will say so that each of you, hearing how grave and terrible this sin is, might fear and avoid the jaws of hell. Have you fallen into judgment, gluttony, or anger? Have you fallen into fornication? You have sinned as a man. But if you approach the sacrament of repentance with heedlessness, with deceitfulness, with concealment, then you will commit a Satanic undertaking, you will mock the Almighty and All-seeing God, who created you and recreated you, who gave you the grace of repentance so that by its help you might remain in the haven and state of recreation, who will finally judge you and examine how you have used His unspeakable gifts. The holy Church, in the order of confession, places on the lips of the spiritual father, for the admonition of the penitent, the following significant words: “Behold, child, Christ stands invisibly, receiving your confession. Do not be ashamed, nor be afraid, and do not conceal anything from me, but without hesitation tell me all that you have done, that you might receive forgiveness from our Lord Jesus Christ. But if you hide anything from me, you have a double sin.”

Do not agree with the evil thought which will suggest to you: “How can you tell a spiritual father such a vile and base transgression? Conceal it now, and you will tell it at the next confession, when sufficient time has passed, and it will be less shameful to speak of your sin as though it were a long-ago and barely remembered matter.” Recognize the voice of the ancient serpent, coming in the form of a thief, to steal from you good thoughts, to kill you by evil cunning and to destroy you (Jn 10:10) by robbing you of the salvation offered to you by the Lord freely (Rom 3:24) in repentance. The sound of this voice is similar to that which once penetrated paradise, extracting our forefathers from it. Son of Adam! Now it strives to penetrate your soul to prevent you from entering paradise. Turn away from it, do not listen to it, do not taste the poison, deadly to your soul.

Filled with meek faith, courageous self-denial, humble simplicity and sincerity, approach the holy sacrament of confession. Believe that for the all-powerful Physician-Lord all wounds, both small and great, are equally insignificant and equally easy to heal. The all-powerful Word heals, raises, brings into paradise by a single word. Labors are unnecessary for the Creator. He utters His will—and every creature, visible and invisible, hastens obediently to fulfill the Creative command! This will is uttered—and our transgressions, written by us and by our enemies on eternal records, are blotted out.

With faith, self-denial is not difficult! Reject false, destructive shame; reject this keeper of sins; reject its mother—pride. Accuse yourself, condemn yourself! Bow your head in brokenness of spirit, in tears and weeping; unfold your sins in detail before God in the presence of your spiritual father—and the grace of the Holy Spirit will overshadow you through the ministry of the servants of God’s mystery, bringing into the house of your soul the forgiveness of sins and, in exchange for them, righteousness from God with eternal salvation, so that you may be blessed and glorify the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Sergieva Pustyn, 1845.

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According to the interpretation of the blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria.

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The Euchologion (Sacramentary). The Order of Confession.

The Euchologion (Sacramentary). The Order of Confession.