Church people have two extremes: some regularly confess every week, they always have something to repent of, and they always have a huge informal confession. Others, on the contrary, rarely confess and have nothing to talk about - they can barely collect their sins for confession before communion. Which is more correct? And how does the frequency of confession relate to piety? Priest Oleg Tochinsky reflects .
Photo: Vladimir Chuprikov/fotki.yandex.ru
Is the frequency and regularity of confession something indicative? From my point of view, the question is not how often a person confesses, but what his confession will be like.
Let's look at the lives of the saints - for example, the life of Mary of Egypt is relevant for Lent. The saint confessed only twice in her entire life. Then, when she went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, after that incident that changed her life. And the second time - when she confessed and received communion from Abba Zosima. Nevertheless, we honor her as a saint, reverend and ascetic.
And let's look at the life of Tsar Ivan the Terrible. He went to confession quite often and led, at least outwardly, a deeply religious life. But this did not in any way prevent him from keeping his hands up to his elbows in blood and taking part in the death of the future saint, Metropolitan Philip of Moscow, who, on his orders, was killed by the guardsman Malyuta Skuratov. This is a well-known historical fact. That is, the outwardly pious king sinned mortal sins.
A sign of great spiritual danger
Now let's approach this issue from the practical side. This is not to say that frequent confession is something bad. However, it can cause charm. When a person often confesses, he may form the impression that since he confesses so often, he is approaching holiness and everything is “super” in his spiritual life. And those who rarely confess are not what they should be. This attitude is a sign of great spiritual danger.
– What if a person, on the contrary, thinks that everything is bad for him, since he has so many sins that he needs to confess all the time?
– This also has its own risk, because such people actually belittle Divine love and mercy, being in a state of despair and despondency. That is, a thought appears like “I am such a sinner that even the Lord cannot save me!” This is the other side of the issue.
But at the same time, rare confession can be harmful. Because when a person does not feel the need to repent, he comes to the thought: “What are my sins?!” Others sin more than me, but I confess to myself once a year, and that’s normal.” But these confessions once a year usually do not differ from one another and sound standard-traditional “in word-deed-thought”.
Thus, a person hardens so much in his thinking that he no longer sees any specific sins behind him. Because he rarely confesses, he does not analyze his own life. And due to the lack of analysis comes the formality of accepting the Sacrament of Confession as such.
Therefore, you need to stick to the golden mean and keep everything in moderation. Then confession and communion will be in moderation, and all this will be beneficial.
And confession is only confession when it is thoughtful and meaningful, and when during confession we reveal our sins to the Lord. And not, as often happens, that people come and talk in confession about those who tempt and provoke them.
Confession and Communion are non-adjacent sacraments
– Many priests say that during Lent you need to take communion every Sunday and generally recommend this frequency of communion as the norm of Christian life. And so the person confesses every week, but he has the feeling that he doesn’t seem to have accumulated many sins, and doesn’t feel any special need for confession.
– Traditionally, such a recommendation should be accompanied by an explanation that confession and communion are separate moments of liturgical life. This is the practice of many Eastern Churches, including the Greek, Constantinople, and Jerusalem. There is no mandatory confession before communion.
Where the Greek tradition predominates, confession and communion are non-adjacent sacraments. People confess as needed, and try to receive communion as often as possible - sometimes every Sunday.
And if the rector of a particular church blesses people to receive communion often, then confession there is not obligatory every time before communion. A person can confess through two or three communions.
The priest needs to approach this issue wisely. So that frequent confessions and communions do not develop into systematicity and habit. Because when this becomes a kind of mechanism, it turns out wrong in relation to the Sacrament itself.
– But it happens that you go to confession in the evening, and in the time before communion something happens that you don’t even know whether you can take communion after that or not. Not to mention how many sins you can accumulate in a week. There are probably no people who have nothing to repent of in seven days.
– When we stand at the liturgy before communion, the words “Draw near with the fear of God and faith.” If we have the fear of God in our souls, then naturally we approach the Chalice, realizing our unworthiness. We understand that you can confess in the morning during the liturgy itself, but by the time of communion you have already sinned.
Most often this is what happens. But at the same time, we go to communion because we go with the fear of God, in hope of God’s mercy and with the understanding that the Lord knows us, knows our intentions and hearts. And he sees that yes, despite all our weakness, we still try not to leave the shrine. Although we are unworthy, we make efforts to be closer to God. Therefore, this issue also needs to be carefully considered, without going to extremes.
Confession - how often should you confess?
Confession - how often should you confess?
Confession.
Unfortunately, we really have a lot of things mixed up in our heads, and it seems to us that if a person cannot help but sin, he must confess almost every day. Frequent confession can be very useful at a certain stage of our life, especially when a person is just taking his first steps in faith, is just beginning to cross the threshold of the temple, and the space of a new life, almost unknown, opens up for him. He doesn’t know how to pray correctly, how to build his relationships with his neighbors, how to generally navigate this new life of his, so he makes mistakes all the time, all the time, it seems to him (and not only him), he does something wrong That.
Thus, frequent confession for those people whom we call neophytes is a very important and serious stage in their recognition of the Church and understanding of all the foundations of spiritual life. Such people enter the life of the Church, including through confession, through conversation with a priest. Where else can you talk so closely with a priest if not at confession? The main thing is that here they receive their main first Christian experience of understanding their mistakes, understanding how to build relationships with other people, with themselves. Such confession very often is a spiritual, confessional conversation more than repentance of sins. One might say - a catechetical confession.
But over time, when a person already understands a lot, knows a lot, and has gained some experience through trial and error, very frequent and detailed confession can become an obstacle for him. Not necessarily for everyone: some people feel quite normal with frequent confession. But for some it can become a barrier, because a person suddenly learns to think something like this: “If I live all the time, it means I sin all the time. If I sin all the time, then I have to confess all the time. If I don’t confess, how will I approach communion with my sins?” Here there is such, I would say, a syndrome of distrust in God, when a person thinks that for confessed sins he has been awarded the honor of receiving the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ.
Of course this is not true. The contrite spirit with which we come to communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ does not cancel our confession. But confession does not cancel a contrite spirit.
The fact is that a person cannot confess at confession in such a way as to take all his sins and state them. Impossible. Even if he takes and simply rewrites a book listing all the various sins and perversions that exist on Earth. This will not be a confession. This will be absolutely nothing other than a formal act of distrust in God, which in itself, of course, is not very good. The most terrible spiritual disease
People sometimes come to confession in the evening, then go to church in the morning, and then - ah! - at the Chalice itself they remember: “I forgot to confess this sin!” - and almost from the line for communion they run away to the priest, who continues the confession, in order to say what he forgot to say in confession. This is, of course, a problem.
Or they suddenly begin to babble at the Chalice: “Father, I forgot to say such and such in confession.” What does a person bring to communion? With love or with mistrust? If a person knows and trusts God, then he knows that God came into this world to save sinners. “From them I am first,” the priest says these words, and each of us says when he comes to confession. It is not the righteous who partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, but sinners, of whom each person who comes to the Chalice is the first, because he is a sinner. This means that he even goes to receive communion with sins.
He repents of these sins, laments over them; this contrition is the most important thing that gives a person the opportunity to partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. Otherwise, if a person confessed before communion and felt confident that now he would receive communion worthily, now he has the right to receive the Holy Mysteries of Christ, then I think that nothing could be worse and worse than this.
As soon as a person feels worthy, as soon as a person feels entitled to receive communion, the most terrible spiritual illness that can befall a Christian will occur. Therefore, in many countries, communion and confession are not a mandatory combination. Confession is performed at its own time and place, communion is celebrated during the Divine Liturgy.
Therefore, those who confessed, say, a week ago, two weeks ago, and their conscience is peaceful, their relations with their neighbors are good, and their conscience does not convict a person of any sins that would weigh on his soul like a terrible and unpleasant stain , he can, lamentingly, approach the Chalice... It is clear that each of us is sinful in many ways, each of us is imperfect. We realize that without God’s help, without God’s mercy we will not become different.
To list the sins that God knows about us - why do something that is already clear? I repent of the fact that I am a proud person, but I cannot repent of this every 15 minutes, although every minute I remain the same proud. When I come to confession to repent of the sin of pride, I sincerely repent of this sin, but I understand that, having moved away from confession, I did not become humble, I did not completely exhaust this sin. Therefore, it would be pointless for me to come every 5 minutes and say again: “Sinful, sinful, sinful.”
My sin is my work, my sin is my work on this sin. My sin is constant self-reproach, daily attention to what I brought to God for confession. But I can’t tell God about this every time, He already knows it. I will say this next time when this sin trips me up again and again shows me all my insignificance and all my isolation from God. I once again bear sincere repentance for this sin, but as long as I know that I am infected with this sin, until this sin forced me to turn away from God so much that I felt how strong this distance was, this sin may not be the subject of my constant confession, but must be the subject of my constant struggle.
The same applies to everyday sins. Let's say it is very difficult for a person to live a whole day without judging anyone. Or live the whole day without saying a single unnecessary, idle word. The fact that we constantly name these sins in confession will not change anything. If every day in the evening, going to bed, we check our conscience, not just read this memorized prayer, the last one in the evening rule, where money-grubbing, covetousness and any other incomprehensible “possession” is imputed to us as sin, but simply Let us truly examine our conscience and understand that today again was a setback in our life, that today again we did not keep at the height of our Christian calling, then we will bring repentance to God, this will be our spiritual work, this will be exactly the doing that is from us The Lord awaits.
But if we list this sin every time we come to confession, but do absolutely nothing, then this confession turns out to be very doubtful. There is no heavenly accounting
Every Christian can approach the frequency of confession based on the realities of his spiritual life. But it’s strange to think of God as a prosecutor, to believe that there is some kind of heavenly accounting that takes all our confessed sins as offset and erases them from some ledger when we come to confession. That’s why we are afraid, what if we forgot, what if we didn’t say something, and what if it won’t be erased with an eraser?
Well, they forgot and forgot. It's OK. We hardly know our sins at all. Whenever we become spiritually alive, we suddenly see ourselves as we have not seen ourselves before. Sometimes a person, having lived for many years in the Church, says to the priest: “Father, it seems to me that I was better before, I have never committed such sins as now.”
Does this mean he was better? Of course not. It’s just that then, many years ago, he didn’t see himself at all, didn’t know who he was. And over time, the Lord revealed his essence to man, and then not completely, but only to the very extent to which man is capable of this. Because if at the beginning of our spiritual life the Lord had shown us all our inability for this life, all our weakness, all our inner ugliness, then perhaps we would have despaired of this so much that we would not have wanted to go anywhere further. Therefore, the Lord, by His mercy, even reveals our sins gradually, knowing how sinful we are. But at the same time he allows us to receive communion. Confession is not training
I don’t think confession is something a person trains himself to do. We have spiritual exercises in which we, in a sense, train ourselves, tune ourselves up - this is, for example, fasting. Its regularity is stated in the fact that during fasting a person tries to organize his life. Another spiritual “training” can include a prayer rule, which also really helps a person to organize his life.
But if the sacrament is considered from this point of view, then it is a disaster. You cannot take communion regularly for the sake of regularity of communion. Regular communion is not exercise, not physical education. This does not mean that since I have not taken communion, I have lost something and must take communion in order to accumulate some kind of spiritual potential. It's not like that at all.
A person takes communion because he cannot live without it. He has a thirst to receive communion, he has a desire to be with God, he has a true and sincere desire to open himself to God and become different, uniting with God... And the sacraments of the Church cannot become some kind of physical training for us. They are not given for this; after all, they are not exercises, but life.
The meeting of friends and relatives does not happen because friends must meet regularly, otherwise they will not be friends. Friends meet because they are very attracted to each other. It is unlikely that friendship will be useful if, say, people set themselves the task: “We are friends, therefore, in order for our friendship to grow stronger, we must meet every Sunday.” This is absurd.
The same can be said about the sacraments. “If I want to confess correctly and develop a real feeling of repentance in myself, I must confess every week,” sounds absurd. Like this: “If I want to become a saint and be with God always, I must take communion every Sunday.” Just ridiculous.
Moreover, it seems to me that there is some kind of substitution in this, because everything is not in its place. A person confesses because his heart hurts, because his soul suffers from pain, because he has sinned and he is ashamed, he wants to cleanse his heart. A person receives communion not because the regularity of communion makes him a Christian, but because he strives to be with God, because he cannot help but receive communion. Quality and frequency of confession
The quality of confession does not depend on the frequency of confession. Of course, there are people who go to confession once a year, take communion once a year - and do this without understanding why. Because it’s the way it’s supposed to be and somehow it has to be, the time has come. Therefore, they, of course, do not have some skill in confession, or understanding of its essence. Therefore, as I already said, in order to enter church life and learn something, of course, at first you need regular confession.
But regular confession does not mean once a week. The regularity of confession can be different: 10 times a year, once a month... When a person builds his life spiritually, he feels that he needs to confess.
It’s like priests: they each set a certain regularity for their confession. I even think that there is not even any regularity here, except that the priest himself feels the moment when he needs to confess. There is a certain internal obstacle to communion, there is an internal obstacle to prayer, the understanding comes that life is beginning to fall apart, and you need to go to confession.
In general, a person must live like this in order to feel this. When a person does not have a sense of life, when a person measures everything by a certain external element, external actions, then, of course, he will be surprised: “How is it possible to receive communion without confession? Like this? This is some kind of horror!
O. Alexy Umninsky
