Before Confession

Metropolitan Ioannikii (Rudnev) of Kiev and Galich (+1900)

 

 

“I am He, I am He that blots out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and thy sins, and I will not remember them. But do thou remember, and let us be judged: declare thou thy transgressions first, that thou mayest be justified” (Is. 43:25–26).

 

Thus did the Lord once comfort His chosen people through His Prophet, foretelling to them the salvation which was to be revealed in its time. So also now, after the accomplishment of the work of redemption, He comforts through His Holy Church every truly repentant sinner who is troubled by conscience—not only by the promise of the forgiveness of sins, but by their actual blotting out. In thy sins thou hast stood before Me, He says to each of us, and in thine iniquities, I am He, I am He that blots out thy transgressions and thy sins, and I will not remember them.

The promises of God, brethren, according to the word of the Apostle, are yea… and amen (2 Cor. 1:20), immutable and unchangeable. The Lord promised to blot out our iniquities, and He indeed blots them out; He even promised not to remember our sins, and He does not remember them, neither in this age nor in the age to come, provided only that we on our part fulfill the condition that is required of us.

What condition? But do thou remember… declare thou thy transgressions first. If, according to the commandment of the Holy Church, every Christian, when going to sleep, ought daily to review in his mind all that he has done during the day, then all the more is this necessary for those preparing to approach the sacrament of holy confession and the communion of the life-giving Body and Blood of Christ.

Thus, a sinner preparing for confession, if you truly desire to bring sincere, wholehearted repentance for your sins and to receive forgiveness in them, first of all remember before your conscience your sins, and then declare them before the minister of God—and you shall be justified.

What exactly—what deeds of his—must the repentant sinner review and recall within himself? To this each one’s own conscience can best answer. However, in order somewhat to facilitate this labor for those unaccustomed to such self-examination, one may indicate certain general aspects from which one may consider one’s deeds.

Remember, first of all, everything that has been done by you against the law of God, beginning from the first glimmer of consciousness in childhood up to the present time. Remember all the reprehensible actions of your childhood, in which there was manifested the first germ of the perverse direction of your will, but which both you yourself, and often those around you, concealed under the criminal name of childish pranks; remember further all the turbulent impulses of your youth, when you squandered your strength in vain, as though not knowing when and how to exhaust it; remember all the vicious deeds of mature manhood, more, it would seem, calm and more deliberate, but for that very reason also more criminal—and all the lawless acts of decrepit old age, committed no longer from some momentary impulse, but from an acquired and rooted habit. Take care that all this, scarcely glimmering in your memory, should stand before you vividly, as though just now done by you, so that you may see all this as though in one whole picture—and then you, perhaps, will be horrified at yourself and from the depths of your soul will cry out with the publican’s repentant voice: O God, be merciful to me, a sinner!

But this is only one part of our sinful deeds. Recall not only that which has been done by you against the law, but also that which has been omitted or not done according to the requirement of the law. Remember how many times you did not care for the riches of the goodness of God, and of His gentleness, and longsuffering, which were leading you to repentance; how many times you resisted the call of the grace of God, which with love was seeking your salvation; how many occasions for virtue, given by the mercy and love of the Lord, were neglected by you; how many natural and grace-filled gifts you buried in the earth without profit, like a slothful and ungrateful servant; or, what is yet more criminal, how many of them you squandered in vain, like the prodigal son mentioned in the Gospel parable, with this only important but disadvantageous difference for you—that you did not come to yourself and did not repent of this before the Heavenly Father! Recall all this, partly forgotten by you through inattention and negligence, partly not considered as sin through habit and hardening—and you will involuntarily sigh from the depths of your soul and cry out with the repentant King-Prophet: Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy great mercy!

Remember, finally, also those transgressions of your neighbors of which you were the nearest or more remote cause. Remember those idle, and sometimes even corrupt or blasphemous words of yours, which seemed to vanish into the air as they were spoken, but which invisibly for you left an impression in the heart of another who heard them. Recall all those who, by your bad example, were either provoked to judge you or—what is even worse—having been scandalized by it, were drawn to imitate you. Recall all those occasions when you could have turned a sinner from the path of impiety but neglected them; when your counsel could have brought your neighbor essential benefit, but you did not wish to give it; when your assistance could have preserved poverty and destitution from vice and crime, but you did not wish to deny yourself your superfluous desires; in a word, all those cases in which you were, directly or remotely, the cause of the ruin of others—and you will involuntarily cry out: My God! What a multitude of grievous things I have done! I have sinned, O Lord, I have sinned more than the number of the sand of the sea. My iniquities are multiplied, and I am not worthy to look up and behold the height of heaven because of the multitude of my unrighteousnesses (Prayer of Manasseh).

From the review of the external history of your life turn to the review of the inner life of your soul and examine impartially of what it is for the most part composed. Is your soul occupied with the one thing needful, or does it seek many thoughts that buffet and disturb it alternately throughout life? Does there not nest in your heart something directly sinful, hidden from others, and sometimes not entirely evident even to yourself? And from your past life remember how many times your soul was sick with unrighteousness, conceived illness and brought forth iniquities, although by external circumstances it could not manifest them outwardly; remember all the criminal desires and sinful lusts of your soul, by which it took delight inwardly, though it did not bring them into action; remember those not always entirely pure, and sometimes even directly impure, self-seeking and self-loving motives and aims, which either restrained you from sinful actions or prompted you to one or another virtue.

One cannot but acknowledge that such self-examination is very difficult. When, having freed oneself from all distractions, one enters into oneself, reviews impartially all one’s deeds and presents one’s whole life as though in one entire picture, then one becomes loathsome in one’s own eyes; the soul involuntarily recoils from its own image and would wish forever to close from itself the picture of its own life. But let no one, brethren, be frightened by such difficulty! This is a sickness of the soul, but a sickness not unto death, but unto life. This anguish of the soul at the sight of its sinful actions is the pledge of our healing: for it gives birth to sorrow according to God, which works repentance unto salvation not to be repented of (2 Cor. 7:10). After this it remains only with sincere contrition to confess all one’s transgressions before the spiritual father, to make use of his counsels—and the grace of God, given in the sacrament, will blot out all our sins, will destroy all our unrighteousnesses, and they will not be remembered any more, neither in this age nor in the age to come. Let not the weight of sinful deeds or the long-standing nature of the diseases of the soul trouble anyone: for there is no sin so grievous as to overcome the love of mankind of God, nor any disease so inveterate that the heavenly Physician of our souls could not heal it. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins,” says the beloved disciple of Christ. “His Blood cleanses us from every sin” (1 Jn. 1:7–9). Amen.

 

Russian source: Пять слов о покаянии высокопреосвященнейшего Иоанникия митрополита Киевского, published by the journal “Missionary Review,” Printing House of V. V. Komarov, St. Petersburg, 1899.