In today's world, the gospel call to always be awake and unceasingly pray is very difficult to implement. Constant worries, a very high pace of life, especially in large cities, practically deprive Christians of the opportunity to retire and stand before God in prayer. But the concept of prayer is still extremely relevant, and it is certainly necessary to turn to it. Regular prayer always leads to the thought of repentance, which occurs at confession. Prayer is an example of how you can accurately and objectively assess your state of mind.
The concept of sin
Sin should not be seen as some kind of legal violation of a God-given law. This is not a “going beyond” accepted in the mind, but a violation of the laws that are natural for human nature. Each person is endowed by God with absolute freedom; accordingly, any falls are made consciously. In fact, by committing sin, a person neglects the commandments and values given from above. There is a free choice in favor of negative deeds, thoughts and other actions. Such a spiritual crime harms the personality itself, damaging the veryvulnerable inner strings of human nature. Sin is based on passions, inherited or acquired, as well as original susceptibility, which made a person mortal and weaker to various diseases and vices.
This greatly contributes to the fact that the soul deviated towards evil and immorality. Sin is different, its severity, of course, depends on many factors in which it is committed. There is a conditional division of sins: against God, against neighbor and against oneself. Considering your own deeds through such a gradation, you can understand how to write a confession. An example will be discussed below.
Sin Confession and Confession
It is extremely important to understand that in order to eliminate dark spiritual spots, you should constantly turn your inner gaze on yourself, analyze your actions, thoughts and words, objectively evaluate the moral scale of your own values. Having found disturbing and haunting features, you need to carefully deal with them, because if you turn a blind eye to sin, you will very soon get used to it, which will distort the soul and lead to spiritual illness. The main way out of this situation is repentance and repentance.
It is repentance, growing from the depths of the heart and mind, that can change a person for the better, bring the light of kindness and mercy. But the path of repentance is a lifelong path. By nature, man is prone to sin and will commit it every day. Even the greatthe ascetics who secluded themselves in deserted places sinned with their thoughts and could repent daily. Therefore, close attention to one's soul should not weaken, and with age, the criteria for personal assessment should be subjected to more stringent requirements. The next step after repentance is confession.
An example of correct confession is true repentance
In Orthodoxy, confession is recommended for all people over the age of seven. A child brought up in a Christian family, by the age of seven or eight, already acquires an idea of the sacrament. Often it is prepared in advance, explaining in detail all aspects of this difficult issue. Some parents show an example of a confession written on paper, which was invented in advance. A child left alone with such information has the opportunity to reflect and see something in himself. But in the case of children, priests and parents rely primarily on the psychological state of the child and his worldview, the ability to analyze and realize the criteria of good and evil. With excessive haste in forcibly attracting children, one can sometimes observe deplorable results and examples.
Confessions in the church often turn into a formal "roll call" of sins, while the performance of only the "outer" part of the sacrament is unacceptable. You can not try to justify yourself, to hide something embarrassing and shameful. You need to listen to yourself and understand whether repentance is really present, or whether there is just an ordinary ritual ahead that will not bring any benefit to the soul, but can cause significantharm.
Confession is a voluntary and repentant enumeration of sins. This ordinance has two main parts:
1) Confession of sins before a priest by a person who has come to the sacrament.
2) Prayer for forgiveness and forgiveness of sins, which is said by the shepherd.
Preparing for confession
The question that torments not only novice Christians, but sometimes even those who have been churched for a long time - what to say in confession? An example of how to repent can be found in various sources. It can be a prayer book or a separate book dedicated to this particular sacrament.
Preparing for confession, you can rely on the commandments, ordeals, take the example of the confession of holy ascetics who left notes and sayings on this topic.
If you build a penitential monologue based on the division of sins into three types given above, then you can determine an incomplete, approximate list of deviations.
Sins against God
This category includes lack of faith, superstition, lack of hope in God's mercy, formality and lack of faith in the tenets of Christianity, grumbling and ungratefulness of God, oaths. This group includes an irreverent attitude towards objects of veneration - icons, the Gospel, the Cross, and so on. Mention should be made of skipping services for an unexcused reason and leaving obligatory rules, prayers, and also if prayers were read hastily, without attention and the necessary concentration.
Connecting tovarious sectarian teachings, thoughts of suicide, turning to sorcerers and soothsayers, wearing mystical talismans is considered apostasy, such things must be brought to confession. An example of this category of sins is, of course, approximate, and each person can add or reduce this list.
Sins against neighbor
This group deals with the attitude towards people: relatives, friends, colleagues and just random acquaintances and strangers. The first thing that is most often clearly revealed in the heart is the lack of love. Often, instead of love, there is a consumer attitude. Inability and unwillingness to forgive, hatred, malevolence, malevolence and revenge, stinginess, condemnation, gossip, lies, indifference to someone else's misfortune, mercilessness and cruelty - all these ugly thorns in the human soul must be confessed. Separately, actions are indicated in which there was open self-harm or material harm was caused. It can be fights, extortion, robbery. Abortion is the gravest sin, which will inevitably entail church punishment after it is brought to confession. An example of what punishment can be is learned from the parish priest. As a rule, penance is imposed, but it will be more disciplinary than redemptive.
Sins against oneself
This group is reserved for personal transgressions. Despondency, terrible despair and thoughts of one's own hopelessness or exorbitant pride, contempt, vanity - such passions can poison a person's life andeven drive him to suicide.
Visions like drunkenness, drug addiction, gambling also greatly affect the personality and destroy it in just a few years. Excessive idleness, extravagance, lust, voluptuous thoughts and defiant behavior, as well as addiction to obscenities in mental and bodily terms can be attributed to this category.
The example of confession reflects only some of the sins. Every Christian who decides to repent in the temple examines his own state of mind and notes sins.
The role of the priest
It is difficult to overestimate the importance of a shepherd who has the duty to accept the repentance of a Christian. Confession is an example of the unity of the Church, the bonding of all her children. How is this possible? The priest places upon himself the responsibility of witnessing to the entire body of the Church that a person has repented. His quiet presence is nothing but a testimony before the Lord himself about the saving and penitent Christian who thinks about the soul. A person actually brings himself to the Church, because God knows the sins he commits. Repentance must be accomplished by the child of the Church without false shame, concealment, self-justification. And the priest, being the image of the Christian community and the Church as a whole, accepts the tears of repentance. The confession itself is directed directly to the Lord, and the shepherd symbolizes the divine-human nature of the Church. Often a priest helps to open up, to cope with embarrassment and fear. A question or a few penetrating words is enough,so that a person can figure out how to build a confession correctly.
An example of such effective help can be found with priest Pavel Gumilyov. This shepherd reveals in his creation important aspects that everyone who wants to bring repentance in the temple can rely on.
Example of confession before communion
Archimandrite John the Krestyanin contributed to the creation of the book "The Experience of Building a Confession". This printed edition is an excellent example of confession before communion. Father John considered sins based on the commandments given to Christians by the Lord himself. Before proceeding to the sacrament, the priest urged to be sure to forgive his offenders.
The first commandment declares that there is only one Lord, and no one else should be worshiped as God. Father John advised the parishioners to turn to their conscience and check whether this commandment was being violated. Is there enough love for God in the heart, is there faith in Him, hope for His mercy. Are thoughts of apostasy and apostasy coming.
The second commandment warns the faithful against making an idol or an idol. Often this message is perceived as referring only to material pagan idols. But John the Peasant points to non-material aspects, recalling that all people are slaves of their pleasures and passions, and, in fact, the majority serve the body and its whims. Many especially harbor pride, from which vanity and judgment spring.
The third commandment forbids pronunciationname of the Lord for no special reason, that is, in vain. Here it should be remembered whether there were oaths and exclamations with the participation of the name of God, because even an absent-minded prayer can be attributed to an empty remembrance of the Almighty. Father John also complained about insufficient preparation for the sacrament of confession. Even many churched people bear an example of a confession written down on paper, which they met and copied in a prayer book, not having the desire to immerse themselves in thoughts about the state of their inner world for at least a few hours.
Thus, listing all the commandments one by one, the pastor calls for a detailed examination of the state of mind and checking whether it corresponds to the essence of the message.
On brevity
Priests are often asked to confess briefly. This does not mean that it is not necessary to name some kind of sin. We must try to talk specifically about sin, but not about the circumstances in which it was committed, without involving third parties who may be somehow involved in the situation, and without describing in detail the details. If repentance occurs in the church for the first time, you can sketch an example of confession on paper, then during the exposure of oneself in sins it will be easier to get together, convey to the priest and, most importantly, to God absolutely everything noticed, without forgetting anything.
It is recommended to pronounce the name of the sin itself: lack of faith, anger, insult or condemnation. This will be enough to convey what worries and weighs heavily on the heart. “Extracting” exact sins from oneself is not an easy task, but this is how a short confession is created. An example might be the following: “Sinned (a): pride, despondency,foul language, fear of little faith, excessive idleness, bitterness, lies, ambition, abandonment of services and rules, irritability, temptation, bad and unclean thoughts, excess in food, laziness. I also repent of those sins that I forgot about and did not utter (la) now.”
Confession is certainly a difficult task requiring effort and self-denial. But when a person gets used to the purity of heart and tidiness of the soul, he will no longer be able to live without repentance and the sacrament of communion. A Christian will not want to lose the acquired connection with the Almighty and will only strive to strengthen it. It is very important to approach spiritual life not in “jerks”, but sedately, carefully, regularly, to be “faithful in little things”, not forgetting gratitude to God in absolutely all life situations.
