PREPARATION FOR CONFESSION
Orthodox Christians of all times cleanse their souls from sin by passing through a special Sacrament established by Christ Himself -
Sacrament of Repentance.
To cleanse the soul in the Sacrament of Repentance it is necessary:
Awareness of one's sins and contrition of heart. Identifying the root causes of your sins. A sincere confession to a priest.
Repentant confession helps to begin Holy Communion - to worthily accept the Body and Blood of Christ. Union with Christ brings indescribable peace to the soul, love and reconciliation with everyone.
This is how, from time immemorial, the Church formed the spiritual structure of pious generations, peace, patience, and health.
The priest is given authority from God to “bind and solve” our sins. “I forgive and absolve your sins...” says the priest to those who come to confession and repent of their sins. Great relief is received by everyone who is worthy to wash away their sins in the Sacrament of Repentance and clear their conscience. What the earthly court forgave, the heavenly court also forgives. How one must hurry to cleanse the soul of sin, for no one knows what is in store for him tomorrow and how much earthly journey remains. Will we have time to cleanse ourselves through repentance? Will we have time to realize our sinfulness? Hurry up, Christian. Remember: “Nothing unclean enters the Kingdom of Heaven.” Numerous testimonies of resuscitated patients who returned “from the other world” in our time indicate that we will all have to answer for every little thing.
The doors of repentance are open to everyone, but will we have time to pass through them? The most difficult person to realize his impurity is a proud person. Such people do not see their sin and remain in constant self-delusion and exaltation of the mind. They are satisfied with themselves and rarely look into the depths of their conscience. But conscience is difficult to deceive. This is the voice of God Himself, convicting us.
Every living being is given free will. How will we manage it? Will our actions and intentions bring us closer to God? Our good deeds - did we do them with a pure heart and love? The Lord always sees your heart, Christian. What is there - humility or proud exaltation, patience or irritation?
Are our actions pleasing to God? No one knows. Nobody knows what the final answer will be. No one knows which angel will come for us to lead us to the Supreme Court. Will there be white or black wings behind his back?
Remember, Christian: the thief who hung next to Christ on the cross repented with humility and entered heaven after the Lord. The Lord forgave and accepted him. Judas Iscariot was a disciple of Christ, but he betrayed the Teacher and, without repenting, went to hell out of his pride. God works in mysterious ways.
Believe, Christian, the Lord strengthens everyone who comes to Him with repentance. The Lord helps us to resist sin and not repeat it.
In the sacrament of holy Repentance we are given the opportunity to lay aside the heavy burden of sin, to break the chains of sin, to see the “fallen and broken tabernacle” of our soul renewed and bright. How often should one resort to this saving sacrament? As often as possible, at least in each of the four posts.
Usually people who are inexperienced in spiritual life do not see the multitude of their sins, do not feel their severity, or disgust for them. They say: “I didn’t do anything special,” “I only have minor sins, like everyone else,” “I didn’t steal, I didn’t kill,” - this is how many often begin confession. But our holy fathers and teachers, who left us prayers of repentance, considered themselves the first of sinners, and with sincere conviction they cried out to Christ: “No one has sinned on earth from time immemorial, as I, the accursed and the prodigal, have sinned!” The brighter the light of Christ illuminates the heart, the more clearly all shortcomings, ulcers and spiritual wounds are recognized. And vice versa: people immersed in the darkness of sin do not see anything in their hearts, and if they do, they are not horrified, since they have nothing to compare with, for Christ is closed for them by the veil of sins. Therefore, in order to overcome our spiritual laziness and insensitivity, the Holy Church has established preparatory days for the Sacrament of Repentance - fasting.
The period of fasting can last from three days to a week, unless there is special advice or instructions from the confessor. At this time, one should observe fasting, keep oneself from sinful deeds, thoughts and feelings, and generally lead a life of abstinence, repentance, dissolved in deeds of love and Christian charity. During the period of fasting, you need to attend church services as often as possible, be more attentive to prayer at home than usual, devote time to reading the works of the holy fathers, the lives of saints, self-deepening and self-examination.
Understanding the moral state of your soul, you must try to distinguish basic sins from their derivatives, roots from leaves and fruits. One should also beware of falling into petty suspicion of every movement of the heart, losing the sense of what is important and unimportant, and getting confused in trifles. The penitent must bring to confession not only a list of sins, but, most importantly, a feeling of repentance; not a detailed account of his life, but a broken heart.
Knowing your sins does not mean repenting of them. But what should we do if our heart, dried up from the sinful flame, is not watered by the life-giving waters of tears? What if spiritual weakness and “infirmity of the flesh” are so great that we are not capable of sincere repentance? But this cannot be a reason to postpone confession in anticipation of a feeling of repentance. The Lord accepts confession - sincere and conscientious - even if it is not accompanied by a strong feeling of repentance. You just need to confess this sin - stony insensitivity - courageously and openly, without hypocrisy. God can touch the heart during confession itself - soften it, refine spiritual vision, awaken a feeling of repentance.
The condition that we must certainly meet in order for our repentance to be accepted by the Lord is forgiveness of the sins of our neighbors and reconciliation with everyone.
Repentance cannot be complete without verbal confession of sins. Sins can only be forgiven in the church Sacrament of Repentance, performed by a priest. Confession is a feat, self-compulsion. During confession, you do not need to wait for questions from the priest, but make an effort yourself. Sins must be named accurately, without obscuring the ugliness of sin with general expressions. It is very difficult, when confessing, to avoid the temptation of self-justification, to refuse attempts to explain to the confessor “mitigating circumstances”, and from references to third parties who allegedly led us into sin. All these are signs of pride, lack of deep repentance, and continued stumbling into sin. Confession is not a conversation about one’s shortcomings, doubts, it is not a simple informing the confessor about oneself, although spiritual conversation is also very important and should take place in the life of a Christian, but confession is different, it is a sacrament, and not just a pious custom. Confession is an ardent repentance of the heart, a thirst for purification, this is the second baptism. In repentance we die to sin and are raised to righteousness, holiness.
Having repented, we must strengthen ourselves internally in the determination not to return to the confessed sin. The sign of perfect repentance is a feeling of lightness, purity, inexplicable joy, when sin seems as difficult and impossible as this joy was just distant.
Example of a general confession
Here is one of the options for listing sins in general confession. They are named in the following order: sins against God, sins against one's neighbor, sins against oneself. This list is presented not for copying, for subsequent confession before a priest, but to remind the repentant person of the multiple wounds of the soul that can be healed with sincere repentance before God.
“I confess to the Lord God, glorified in the Holy Trinity, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, all my sins from my youth to the present time, committed by me in deed, word, thought and all my feelings, voluntarily or involuntarily.
I consider myself unworthy of forgiveness from God, but I do not give in to despair, I place all my hope in God’s mercy and sincerely wish to correct my life.
I sinned by lack of faith, by doubting what the faith of Christ teaches us. I sinned by indifference to faith, unwillingness to understand it and be convinced of it. He sinned with blasphemy - frivolously ridiculing the truths of the faith, words of prayer and the Gospel, church rituals, as well as the shepherds of the Church and pious people, calling zeal for prayer, fasting and alms hypocrisy.
I sinned even more: with contemptuous and impudent judgments about faith, about the laws and institutions of the church, for example, about fasting and worship, about the veneration of holy icons and relics, about miraculous manifestations of God’s mercy or God’s wrath.
He sinned by deviating from the Church, considering it unnecessary for himself, considering himself capable of a good life, of achieving salvation without the help of the Church. Meanwhile, one must go to God not alone, but with brothers and sisters in faith, in a union of love, in the Church and with the Church: only where there is love, there is God; To whom the Church is not a Mother, God is not a Father.
I sinned by renouncing faith or hiding faith out of fear, out of profit or out of shame in front of people, I did not heed the words of the Lord Jesus Christ: Whoever denies Me before people, I will also deny him before My Heavenly Father; Whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels (Matthew 10:33; Mark 8:38).
I sinned by not relying on God, relying more on myself or on other people, and sometimes on untruth, deception, cunning, deceit.
In happiness I sinned with ingratitude to God, the giver of happiness, and in misfortune with despondency, cowardice, murmuring against God, anger at Him, blasphemous and impudent thoughts about God’s Providence, despair, the desire for death for myself and my loved ones.
I sinned by loving earthly goods more than the Creator, whom I should love most of all—with all my soul, with all my heart, with all my mind.
I sinned by forgetting God and not feeling the fear of God; I forgot that God sees and knows everything, not only deeds and words, but also our secret thoughts, feelings and desires, and that God will judge us by death and at His Last Judgment; That’s why I sinned uncontrollably and boldly, as if for me there would be no death, no Judgment, no righteous punishment from God.
I sinned with superstitions, unreasonable trust in dreams, omens, and fortune telling (for example, on cards).
I sinned in prayer by laziness, I skipped morning and evening prayer, before and after eating, at the beginning and end of every task.
I sinned in prayer by haste, absent-mindedness, coldness and callousness, hypocrisy, I tried to seem to people more pious than I really was.
I sinned by having an unpeaceful mood during prayer: I prayed in a state of irritation, anger, ill-will, condemnation, murmuring, and disobedience to God’s Providence. I sinned by carelessly and incorrectly performing the sign of the cross - from haste and inattention or from a bad habit.
He sinned by not attending divine services on holidays and Sundays, by not paying attention to what is read, sung and performed in church during the service, by not performing or reluctantly performing church rituals (bows, kissing the cross, the Gospel, icons).
He sinned by irreverent, indecent behavior in the temple - worldly and loud conversations, laughter, arguments, quarrels, cursing, pushing and oppressing other pilgrims.
I sinned by frivolously mentioning the name of God in conversations - by swearing and swearing without extreme necessity or even in a lie, as well as by not fulfilling what I promised to do good to someone with an oath.
I sinned by carelessly handling sacred objects - the cross, the Gospel, icons, holy water, prosphora.
I sinned by not observing holidays, fasts and fasting days, by not observing spiritual fasting, that is, I did not try to free myself with God’s help from my shortcomings, bad and idle habits, I did not try to correct my character, I did not force myself to diligently fulfill God’s commandments.
My sins are countless, both against my neighbors and in relation to my duties towards myself. Instead of love for others, selfishness with all its destructive fruits prevails in my life.
I sinned with pride, conceit, considering myself better than others, vanity - love for praise and honor, self-praise, lust for power, arrogance, disrespect, rude treatment of people, ingratitude towards those who do me good.
I sinned by condemning, ridiculing the sins, shortcomings and mistakes of my neighbors, slander, gossip, and with them brought discord among my neighbors.
He sinned with slander - he unfairly spoke about people that was bad and harmful and dangerous for them.
I sinned with impatience, irritability, anger, intransigence, stubbornness, grumpiness, insolence, disobedience.
I sinned with resentment, malice, hatred, rancor, and vindictiveness.
I sinned with envy, malice, gloating; He sinned by swearing, foul language, quarrels, cursing both others (maybe even his children) and himself.
I sinned by disrespecting my elders, especially my parents, by not wanting to take care of my parents and see them through their old age; I sinned by condemning and ridiculing them, by rude and impudent treatment of them. I sinned by rarely remembering them and my other loved ones in prayer - living and dead.
I sinned with unmercifulness, ruthlessness towards people who are poor, sick, grieving, merciless cruelty in words and deeds, I was not afraid to humiliate, insult, upset my neighbors, sometimes, perhaps, I drove a person to despair.
He sinned through stinginess, avoidance of helping those in need, greed, love of profit, and was not afraid to take advantage of other people’s misfortunes and social disasters.
He sinned with addiction, attachment to things, he sinned with regret about good deeds done, he sinned with merciless treatment of animals (he starved them, beat them).
He sinned by appropriating someone else's property - theft, concealing what was found, buying and selling stolen property. He sinned by not doing or doing his work carelessly - his household and official affairs.
I sinned with lies, pretense, double-mindedness, insincerity in dealing with people, flattery, and people-pleasing.
I sinned by eavesdropping, spying, reading other people's letters, divulging trusted secrets, cunning, and all kinds of dishonesty.
I sinned by laziness, love of idle spending time, idle talk, daydreaming.
He sinned by neglecting his own and other people’s property. He sinned through intemperance in food and drink, overeating, secret eating, drunkenness, and smoking. He sinned by being whimsical in his clothes, being excessively concerned about his appearance, and wanting to be liked, especially by people of the opposite sex.
He sinned by immodesty, impurity, voluptuousness in thoughts, feelings and desires, in words and conversations, in reading, in looks, in addressing persons of the other sex, as well as intemperance in marital relations, violation of marital fidelity, fornication, marital cohabitation without a church blessing , unnatural satisfaction of lust.
Those who performed abortions on themselves or others, or incited someone to this great sin - infanticide, sinned gravely.
I sinned because by my words and actions I tempted other people to sin, and I myself succumbed to the temptation to sin from other people, instead of fighting it.
He sinned by bad upbringing of children and even spoiling them with his bad example, excessive severity or, conversely, weakness, impunity; did not teach children to pray, obedience, truthfulness, hard work, frugality, helpfulness, and did not monitor the purity of their behavior.
He sinned by being careless about his salvation, about pleasing God, by not feeling his sins and his unrequited guilt before God.
I sinned through laziness in the fight against sin, constant delay of true repentance and correction.
I sinned by carelessly preparing for confession and communion, forgetting my sins, inability and unwillingness to remember them in order to feel my sinfulness and condemn myself before God.
I sinned in that I approached confession and communion very rarely.
I sinned by not fulfilling the penances imposed on me.
He sinned by justifying himself in sins: instead of condemning himself - even in confession - by minimizing his sins.
I sinned in that during confession I accused and condemned my neighbors, pointing out the sins of others instead of my own.
He sinned if during confession he deliberately hid his sins out of fear or shame.
I sinned if I approached confession and communion without making peace with those I had offended or who had offended me.
Forgive, Lord, my countless sins, cleanse, renew and strengthen my soul and body, so that I can steadily walk along the path of salvation.
And you, honest father, pray for me to the Lord, the Most Pure Lady Theotokos and the holy saints of God, that through their prayers the Lord may have mercy on me, absolve me from my sins and grant me the honor to partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ without condemnation.
Another example of a general confession, in a more abbreviated version.
This example can be taken as a basis when preparing for confession.
This is especially true for the person who has the custom of making a list of committed sins before confession. Of course, sins committed, but not included in this list of especially common sins, should be mentioned additionally. Let us, however, remember that before confession we make a list of sins not to “report” to the priest, or better yet, to the Omniscient God, but only to remind ourselves of what we must say, what we must repent of. And the deeper and more sincere the repentance, the stronger the degree of healing of the wounds of our soul.
I sinned in deed, in word, in thought, voluntarily and involuntarily, in knowledge and ignorance, in reason and foolishness.
I sinned by idle talk, idle talk, verbosity; words and speeches that are abusive, annoying, nasty, blasphemous, frivolous, unreasonable, ridiculous, vain; unreasonableness, argumentativeness. By watching, listening, reading empty and soul-harming things. Conversations and laughter in the temple.
I sinned with lies, deceitful words and speeches, failure to fulfill promises made to God and people, incomplete confessions, false opinions, and incorrect advice.
I sinned by judging my neighbors, sacred persons; ridicule, slander, reproach.
I sinned by gluttony, by eating at the wrong time, not according to the Church Charter; failure to observe fasts and fasting days, did not always pray before and after eating food; satiety, gluttony, secret eating, greed.
I sinned by laziness, idleness, excessive bodily rest, and too much sleep. Rarely going to Church for services, especially the Divine Liturgy. By abandoning the prayer rule and other soul-saving readings. During church and cell prayer - relaxation, lethargy, inattention; being late for the start of services, leaving church early without a good reason. Carelessness, despondency and neglect of your soul. Work on Sundays and holidays. Non-remembrance of parents, relatives, living and deceased.
I sinned by petty theft in everyday life and at work, by not returning monetary debts or things given for a time.
I sinned through love of money, stinginess, excessive acquisitiveness, unnecessary wastefulness.
I sinned through covetousness, greed, and illegal profit.
He sinned with various kinds of untruths, deceptions, and evasion of payment for various services.
I sinned with envy, enmity, hatred, hostility, non-reconciliation, ill-will, gloating; abuse of a neighbor's trust.
I sinned with pride, vanity, conceit, grandeur, man-pleasing, hypocrisy, double-mindedness, cowardice, pride, love of fame, arrogance, and humiliation of one’s neighbor. Disobedience and failure to show due honor to parents, spiritual father; self-justification, ambition.
I sinned with anger, rage, hot temper, irritability, grumpiness, reproaches of my neighbor, rudeness, insolence, bitterness, slander, annoyance, cruelty.
I sinned through malice, remembrance, vindictiveness, excessive demands and severity towards neighbors, household members and relatives. Striking neighbors in anger, immoderate punishment of children.
I have sinned with superstitions of various kinds. Gambling, singing obscene songs.
I sinned with lustful thoughts, unchaste behavior, unclean dreams, obscene conversations, intemperance in the flesh on fasting and holidays.
I sinned by lack of faith, by carelessly performing prayers, making the sign of the cross, and bowing; frivolous mention of shrines. Unworthy preparation for the Sacraments of the Church: Repentance, Communion and others. Taking God's Name in vain. He did not wear a pectoral cross.
I sinned by insufficient trust in God’s Providence in various circumstances, murmuring against God, ingratitude to God, lack of fear of God in my soul, disobedience to the will of God, and petrified insensibility.
He was a temptation to his neighbors in various circumstances.
For all these things that have been said, and for the sake of unconsciousness that cannot be said, I repent.
The pairing of repentance and Communion
The rule that one must confess before participating in the Eucharist is in fact not canonical. For example, priests do not follow it and receive communion freely on any day. This causes controversy in the church environment and confusion among parishioners.
- In the first centuries of Christianity, there was only one repentance - before receiving baptism. Then everyone freely participated in the Lord's Supper without any preparation. However, one must understand how seriously people then took the adoption of the Christian faith. The preparation lasted for years - from 3 to 10 years. When people became full members of the Church, they began to behave differently.
- There have been cases where baptism was delayed so as not to “accumulate” sins before death. This, of course, is extreme. Over time, they began to practice confession for those who had already been baptized and stumbled. After all, many admitted to wrongdoing and asked to return to the community.
- In the modern practice of the Greek Church, attendance at confession before Communion is not required. And in the Russian Orthodox Church, some priests allow their spiritual children to take the Chalice without preparation - although this is not advertised. And, basically, only bishops or rectors of churches who know very well the spiritual state of a particular person do this.
What should ordinary parishioners who want to begin the Sacrament do? You will have to read all the Orthodox prayers before confession and attend services. Perhaps, having appreciated your efforts, the priest will eventually become less demanding in matters of fasting and frequency of repentance. However, services and prayers remain unchanged. Unfortunately, not everyone can bear such a burden. Many, frightened by such serious preparation, completely refuse to visit the temple, which is very sad.
Before confession, the priest reads prayers aloud. Which?
- After the blessing there are the usual pre-initial texts.
- Psalm 50 is considered repentant and is included in the daily rule. It is advisable to know it by heart.
- Troparions are short poems.
- Three prayers to the Lord, the text can be studied at the end of the article.
These prayers before confession are not translated into Russian; they are only in the breviary and are read by clergy. And the liturgical language in the Russian Orthodox Church is Church Slavonic. The meaning of prayers is a request to God for mercy towards sinners and the granting of forgiveness, which is the essence of repentance. Peace to you!
- Orthodox prayers read before Communion
- Prayers before reading the Psalter - find here
- Prayers of the Athonite elders -
Rules for Holy Communion
The following (rule) for Holy Communion is prayers and the canon, the reading of which is obligatory on the eve of receiving the Holy Gifts.
Follow-up can also be found in almost any prayer book for the Orthodox. The rule helps to spiritually attune to the Eucharist and contains prayers that must be read while directly approaching the Holy Chalice. The prayers of the saints - Symeon Metaphrastus, Basil the Great, John Chrysostom, John of Damascus, Symeon the New Theologian - remind every believer of the special spiritual responsibility before accepting the Holy Gifts. To avoid the dangers of unworthy communion, you need to carefully prepare by fasting and prayer for the Eucharist and sincerely repent, without concealing your sins during Confession.
