Repentance is an integral part of spiritual life
In the Church, repentance means two things:
- the process of repentance itself: in the form of prayer or simply a state of mind
- and the following internal rebirth of the soul - its cleansing from sin.
In both of its forms, repentance is truly an integral part of the spiritual life of an Orthodox person. In general, there are many integral aspects: participation in divine services, and Church sacraments, and prayer, and keeping the commandments... But priests and saints speak especially about repentance - because this is a human activity that does not have externally described rules and can be “easily forgotten” ", while observing all other rules.
You can read prayers every evening and morning, but not have repentance in your soul.
You can go to confession and not actually have repentance.
You can help all your neighbors, and also not have repentance.
Sometimes monks and saints even specifically asked God for repentance in their prayers - this state is so easy to miss in the bustle of life.
A person’s full spiritual life without repentance is impossible, because repentance cleanses the soul. A pure soul is able to more fully perceive the Grace of the Holy Spirit. Namely, the acquisition of the grace of the Holy Spirit is the main goal of an Orthodox Christian on earth...
“Acquire a peaceful spirit, and thousands around you will be saved,” said one of the most revered Russian saints, St. Seraphim of Sarov.
Venerable Seraphim of Sarov.
Condemnation of your sins
“The beginning of repentance is the condemnation of sins,” writes the saint. John Chrysostom. You need to clearly see your sin in yourself, be horrified by its blackness. As a rule, we constantly commit the same sins. It happens that we step into the same mud for years. This fact alone should make you feel terribly ashamed, ashamed, even just to raise your eyes to the icon and look at the bright Face of the Savior. But who should we go to if not to Him? “You, too, judge your sins,” Chrysostom continues, “this is enough for the Lord to justify you, because he who has condemned his sins will not so soon decide to fall into them again.” And here is a sign of real condemnation of sins, and not like ours. Think about this: we have a huge number of small vices that we constantly profess, but which we also constantly continue to commit. They seem to constitute a certain sinful “backdrop” of our life, to which we have become accustomed, and which we have even begun to perceive as the norm.
“If you humiliate yourself, you will find peace, because he who reproaches himself remains patient in all cases,” says St. Pimen the Great. I quoted these words for a reason. We have heard about self-abasement for the sake of repentance many times, but here it is important to clearly distinguish between genuine repentance and the formation of neuroses through self-digging and “straining out a mosquito,” when, for example, we hate ourselves for eating 0.02% milk powder in a candy during fasting. I repeat, you need to hate not yourself as a person and a person, but the sins in yourself. In addition, the words of St. Pimen tell us that true repentance will grant inner peace and allow us to maintain patience. It turns out that if peace is not found with self-reproach, then it means that we are doing something wrong.
What is repentance?
Repentance should not be confused with self-flagellation - despite the fact that all the texts of prayers, at first glance, only say that a person is bad, sinful, unwanted, and so on. However, behind these words in prayers lies a completely different attitude than stupid self-flagellation: hidden behind them is a reminder of the objective “status” of a person - against the backdrop of the beginningless, immortal, immense, incomprehensible and life-giving and Love-giving Lord.
The basis of spiritual life is gratitude and love for God. At the end of the day - or week - we remember how we lived that time. We remember how we deceived, how we raised our voices, how we cheated or tried to act dishonestly. And we say: “Lord, forgive me that instead of increasing love in the world, I did everything I did.” This is not self-flagellation - this is a dialogue with God.
“Repentance in the deep sense of the word is not simple contrition for sins, and even less does it mean formal confession: the meaning is much deeper. This is a decisive transfer of life onto a new track, a complete rearrangement of all values in the soul and heart. In other words, repentance requires the creation of a new, unified center in man, and this center, where all the threads of life converge, must be God.”
sschmch. Vasily Kineshemsky
Depending on the character of a person, on his position in the world, on his level of spiritual life or the degree of problems that life poses to him, he regrets different things, he has different sins and different degrees of understanding of sin. However, there is always one thing in common - this is the awareness that you do not live holy, but would like to live holy, because every person is created to become a saint.
This is precisely the difference between repentance and self-flagellation. Self-flagellation is a look back and self-examination. And repentance is a look into the future and a sincere desire and determination (even if only at the moment) to live differently.
And then a moment comes - for some it happens faster, for others it takes more time - when determination is reborn into a truly accomplished fact: a person begins to live in a new way and no longer lives in the old way, his soul seems to be renewed. Sin is forgiven, repentance is accomplished.
Such repentance can occur in relation to a variety of things: starting from some habits (for example, cigarettes, when the craving for them goes away) and ending with an entire way of life or worldview - when a person updates the entire picture of his earthly existence (for example, he ceases to be a thief and a fornicator, but begins to go to the temple and arranges a prosperous family).
How to repent correctly?
“At the beginning of repentance, bitterness predominates, but soon after that we see that the energy of new life penetrates into us, producing a wonderful change of mind. The repentant movement itself appears as the acquisition of God's love. Before our spirit, the indescribably magnificent image of the Primordial Man emerges more and more clearly. Having seen this beauty, we begin to realize what a terrible distortion the primary idea of the Creator about us has been subjected to.”
Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov)
How to repent correctly? There cannot be an unambiguous answer to this question, because despite all the general laws according to which a person’s spiritual life flows, everyone’s soul is individual and each person needs his own advice. The saints wrote entire books about repentance!
Most accurately, in spiritual matters, only a confessor can guide you - a priest with whom you have confessed more than once. Who knows your life, your weaknesses and your needs.
For example, if a person is deeply depressed or prone to self-flagellation and depressive states (if he is actually prone to them!), then the priest will most likely advise in prayer and repentance to focus one’s attention not on the wrongdoings committed, but on thoughts about the Love of Christ and joy in being with Him.
And for a person, say, frivolous or confident that he generally has order in everything - on the contrary, he may be advised to focus precisely on a deliberate search for sins in his life, because such is human nature: either to plunge headlong into despondency, or not to notice in the eye and "logs".
However, in any case, repentance is in one way or another connected with a sincere dialogue of the soul with God - and in general with the sincerity of the soul. And also with the determination of a new life. And also with prayer.
It is impossible to conduct a dialogue with God while reading a book or scrolling through a social media feed. It is impossible to repent while riding a carousel or eating a cake in a cafe. It is impossible to repent while talking to neighbors or chatting.
That is why in the Orthodox Church there are prayers that are collected in prayer books and prayer rules that help a person focus on the life of his soul. That is why there are fasts in the Orthodox Church - as a way to help a person concentrate even more on his inner life: not only during morning and evening prayers, but also for several days. Days when a person completely focuses on the inner world - trying to cut off everything external and unnecessary.
The ability to accept God's forgiveness
You can't go anywhere without this. “Trusting in Your immeasurable mercy, like David, I appeal to You: have mercy on me, O God, according to Your great mercy,” is sung in the penitential troparion. Contemplation of one's depravity, awareness of the blackness of one's soul must necessarily be coupled with the ability to accept God's mercy and forgiveness.
Remember Judas, his repentance was demonic, satanic in nature. He realized that he had committed a terrible crime, but at the same time he could not accept, he did not even believe that the Lord was able to forgive him. In this situation, there is only one path left - despair and a loop. That is why the words of St. St. Petersburg are so important. Isaac the Syrian: “When someone falls, let him not forget the love of his Father.”
Confession and repentance: what is the difference?
We have already written above that the Sacrament of Confession and repentance are not the same thing.
Confession is the forgiveness of sins. Repentance is the cleansing of the soul not only from sin, but also from its consequences. Confession does not relieve a person from the consequences of sin - for example, from ingrained habits. That is why repentance is not limited to one confession.
Let's say we have a habit of swearing. At confession we received forgiveness of sins - (the sin is forgiven) - but the habit remains and the person continues to swear, sometimes without noticing it.
Every sin takes root in a person, so confession is not an event that should be followed by complacency and forgetting about oneself. Confession is a great Sacrament and a God-given helper to us in our main task - repentance. This is a helper in our sincere desire to find within ourselves a New man, a holy man. Become one by eradicating all sin in yourself and acquiring the life-giving Grace of the Holy Spirit in prayers to our Lord Jesus Christ!
Perseverance
Any good work, and especially repentant work, will certainly encounter a number of obstacles. We are all “horses” who are trying to escape from the devil’s “stable”; naturally, we need to be returned to this “stable” by all means and by all means. In any struggle, perseverance is a necessary condition for victory, especially in a spiritual struggle.
St. Isaac writes that even if we happen to fall into many sins, we still cannot stop caring for good. Further, he writes the following words about the true warrior of Christ: “Let him not stop in his striving, but let the conquered one rise up again to fight his opponents, and daily begin to lay the foundations of the destroyed building, until his very departure from this world.” This, by the way, is an excellent instruction for those who constantly lament the failure to fulfill their obligations for the post. We are probably all like this, and we need to lament, but we also need to not forget about the need to move on. In this case, St. Isaac, there is a wonderful analogy for us with a boat: “But if every day his boat is broken and all its cargo is wrecked, let him not cease to take care, stock up, even borrow, move to other ships and sail with hope, until the Lord, looking upon moved him and, having compassion on his contrition, will not send down His mercy to him and will not give him strong incentives to meet and endure the red-hot arrows of the enemy. This is the wisdom given from God; such is the wise patient who does not lose hope.” We constantly “spill over” all the grace that we accumulate with such difficulty, but we cannot stop accumulating it and, let me emphasize, that, according to the word of the saint, we must do this with hope, i.e. with hope.
I hope that these short notes will help us somehow get together and usefully spend both the preparatory and Lenten days in order to joyfully meet the Risen Christ.
