Слово на литургии преждеосвященных даров в среду недели 1-й Великого поста, о покаянии

What happens, brothers, in your soul when you happen to commit some important offense in your everyday affairs - such an offense that spoils the entire course of your affairs, ruins all your relationships and puts a stain on you in front of everyone? Firstly, you clearly see then and fully feel that you have definitely committed an important offense, that it would have been a hundred times better not to have done it; that if what has been done remains as it is, then it will be extremely bad for you. From this consciousness, from this feeling of your own misfortune, a strong disgust is naturally born in you not only for your bad deed, but also for everything that served as the reason for it, what is in connection with it, what it entails: you are angry at yourself, at the short-sightedness of your mind, at the weakness of your will, at the infidelity of your feelings, and are ready to impose on yourself the most severe punishment in order to wean yourself from such sins. Along with this, the determination awakens to forever beware of such bad actions, and everything that can lead to them, but, on the contrary, to love and do the opposite. Further, if you see an opportunity to stop or erase the traces of your unfortunate offense, then quickly and strictly put into action and force all means to do so. And if you don’t see such an opportunity in yourself, but find it in others, then you turn to them for help, and having received it, you try to make amends for your crime as if it had not happened at all. This is what happens to us, brothers, when we strongly repent of something in relation to our earthly affairs! A similar thing should happen during repentance of sins, with the only difference that here the object of repentance is not just any one of our actions, but our entire behavior, that the incentive to repentance is not the loss of any temporary benefits, but our eternal destruction, and that the work of repentance, as the work of our salvation, occurs under the special assistance of the almighty grace of God, revealing to us our sins and their vileness, arousing in us disgust for him, and the reinforcing hope of God’s mercy. So, the first thing that is part of repentance is a living consciousness of one’s sinfulness and its disastrous consequences. This is the beginning of repentance, without which there can be no continuation; for whoever repents must first of all know what he is repenting of. The clearer the knowledge of one’s sins, the deeper the conviction of their disastrous consequences, the stronger and more lasting the repentance. That is why Holy Scripture so often and so strikingly describes the terrible state of sinner man, so that at least from alien experiences we learn to better understand our own sinful, unhappy state. And you should not think, brethren, that recognizing all your sinfulness and all the misfortune that results from this is not a difficult matter, as it may seem at first glance. Knowledge of one’s sins on the surface is definitely easy; there is no person who would say about himself: I am sinless; just as there is no person who would dare to assert that it is better to sin than to be without sin. But to see the full depth of your damage; but to be completely convinced that every sin, no matter how seemingly harmless it may be for us, is the greatest evil - this is very difficult for our damaged and sin-loving nature! Our pride is so able to cover up our most serious betrayals of duty and conscience that they seem like small shortcomings; vices, the most terrible, are often accompanied by such benefits in the world that their image for our sensual person is more attractive than the image of even virtue itself. Therefore, an intensified action of our mind and our conscience is required in order to recognize all our sinfulness and all the misfortune that comes from here. Sad experience proves that this is even impossible without the special action of God’s grace, which, just as alone can heal a person from sins, can also clearly show him those deadly ulcers from which he is healed. But when in one way or another we are convinced that we are not what we should be, that the path we are following is the path of eternal destruction: then, following the knowledge of our sinfulness, bitter regret about our condition cannot help but follow, a kind of hatred of our previous way of life, even of ourselves. The desire to throw out everything unclean and sinful is revealed in all the powers of the soul. Self-condemnation, self-contempt and self-hatred of the poor sinner sometimes extends in this case to the point that he is ready to carry out executions on himself, as the example of Judas shows. This extreme of despair is disastrous; Meanwhile, it is not too necessary to move away from it in the opposite direction: for our nature is much more inclined to the opposite extreme, that is, to insensibility in sin; and for true repentance, after the knowledge of sins, there is nothing more necessary than hatred of them. The more a penitent abhors his sins and himself, the closer he is to correction. In this case, his first and last desire is to be freed from sins and passions, and as much as possible to correct the evil he has committed. For this, the repentant, like a desperate patient who wants recovery, is ready to make all sacrifices, the heaviest: a false witness is ready to admit before the whole world that he betrayed innocent blood; he who owns someone else's acquisitions is ready to return everything that belongs to him with interest; an infidel and a blasphemer agrees to use all the powers of his mind to strengthen the truths in the minds that he had hitherto shaken. But sad experience and even the same reflection soon reveal to the poor sinner that, with all his desire to free himself from the dark power of sin and erase the consequences of previous vices, he is unable to do either one or the other. Cannot correct his nature; for for this it is necessary not only to abandon vicious actions (in which he sometimes succeeds), but also to cleanse the source of evil actions - the heart; but for this there is no power in it: for this it requires the action of Him who is greater than our heart, and therefore can change its very foundation for the better. A sinner cannot erase the consequences of his sins; for these consequences extend far beyond the circle of our actions, even beyond the circle of our knowledge: they are visible to one Omniscient, accessible to the power of one Almighty. The conviction of this absolute impossibility of freeing oneself from sin and its terrible consequences by one’s own efforts leads the sinner to the last stage of repentance, to humble trust in the mercy of God. Faith inspires the sinner that what is impossible for him is possible for his almighty Savior; that if He gives strength, then our will will be confirmed in goodness; if He stirs up His wisdom and power, then all the consequences of our sins, no matter how countless they may be, will be blotted out. And here the Divine face of the Savior of men appears in all its majesty to the repentant sinner; he is ready to fall, like a harlot, at His feet and wet them with tears in order to hear from Him forgiveness of sins and receive grace-filled strength to fight vice. The priest of Christ, with his power to bind and decide, with the cup of the covenant of the Body and Blood of the Lord, is for him the true visible representative of the invisible grace of heaven; and he rushes to these sacraments, as the last cure for sins, as a sign of the New Covenant with God, as a source of new grace-filled life. This, my brothers, is the general course of true repentance! General, I say, because its details are countless and varied, depending on the quality of the souls and hearts of those who repent. So, do you want to bring true repentance? Acquire knowledge of your sins, be convinced of their terrible consequences, awaken in yourself a feeling of disgust for your former sinful life, be inspired by the desire to be henceforth pure from sin, decide to do everything in our power for this, and hasten to those grace-filled means that were invented for this by the Wisdom of God and are offered to all of us by the Holy Church. Amen. You might be interested in: