I confess to You, Lord my God and Creator, in the One Holy Trinity, glorified and worshiped Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, all my sins, which I have committed all the days of my life, and at every hour, and at the present time, and in the past days and nights, in deed, in word, in thought, overeating, drunkenness, secret eating, idle talk, despondency, laziness, disobedience, disobedience, slander, condemnation, neglect, selfishness, covetousness, theft, lack of speech, filthiness, money-gathering, jealousy, envy, anger, memory malice, hatred, covetousness and all my senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and my other senses sins, both mental and physical, that have angered You, my God and Creator, and untruthfulness to my neighbor; Regretting these things, I present my guilt to You, my God, and have the will to repent; Indeed, Lord my God, help me, with tears I humbly pray to Thee: forgive me my sins by Thy mercy, and forgive me from all these things that I have said before You, for You are Good and Lover of Mankind.
My belly is my life. Bad profit - criminal gain (profit). Msheloimstvo - bribery, greed (mshel - self-interest). Covetousness - greed, love of money. In our tradition, enshrined in the Catechism, this word has established the name for all kinds of unrighteous fleecing of neighbors: bribes, extortion, etc. Those who were untruthful - I slandered; caused all sorts of evil and injustice. Tochiyu - only. From all these, even words - from all this that I have expressed.
+ “Our daily affairs must be weighed hourly, listening to them, and in the evening we must lighten the burden of them by repentance, as much strength as we have, if we want, with the help of Christ, to overcome evil in ourselves. We must also look at whether we do all our sensory and visible deeds according to God, in the presence of God and for God alone, so that through foolishness we do not be robbed by any unkind feelings.”
Venerable Hesychius of Jerusalem
The need for daily repentance for sins committed throughout your life is explained by the words of St. Anthony the Great: “Say that you are sinners, and mourn everything you have done in a state of negligence. For this reason, the good will of the Lord will be with you and will work in you: for He is good and forgives the sins of all who turn to Him, no matter who they are, so that He will remember them no more. However, He wants those who have been pardoned to remember the forgiveness of their sins that they have committed so far, so that, having forgotten about it, they would not allow something in their behavior that would force them to give an account of those sins that had already been forgiven them... David, having received remission of sins, did not forget about them and passed on the memory of them to posterity. This was done in memory of all generations, from generation to generation. I will teach the wicked in Your way (Ps. 50:15), he says, so that all sinners will learn from his example to repent of their sins like him and, when they are forgiven, not to forget about them, but to always remember. God Himself said something similar through the prophet Isaiah: I am the one who blots out your sins, and I will not remember them. You remember... (Is.43:25-26).
Thus, when the Lord forgives us our sins, we must not forgive them to ourselves, but always remember them through renewed repentance for them.”
The same saint warns: “Do not turn back in your mind the sins you once committed, so that they do not recur again. Be sure that they are forgiven to you while you have given yourself over to God and repentance, and do not doubt it at all.”
So, while maintaining and constantly renewing repentance for the sins of our lives, without forgetting about them, we should not at the same time “turn them over in our minds,” relive them, cling to them in memory. This is one of the manifestations of the art of “invisible warfare,” the middle “royal” path that a Christian should follow.
This prayer helps to consider daily sins and supports the memory of those committed earlier - in all days of life. Let us remind you that sins sincerely confessed in the Sacrament of Repentance are completely forgiven by the Lord, but this does not mean that we should forget about them. Sins remain in memory for humility and contrition for what they have done.
“We must pay attention to whether our conscience has ceased to denounce us, not for the sake of our purity, but as if tired. A sign of remission of sins is that a person always considers himself a debtor to God.”
Venerable John Climacus
Both in confession in the Sacrament of Penance, and in daily confession to God, one must confess one’s sins separately, consciously. Therefore, let us dwell on the sins named in the prayer and indicate what deeds, actions, words and thoughts they may mean. In doing so, we are guided by the Orthodox Catechism and the instructions of the ascetics of the Orthodox Church.
Binge eating, drunkenness, secret eating are sins associated with the passion of gluttony, which is one of the eight main passions. Secret eating - eating food secretly (out of greed, shame or reluctance to share, when fasting is broken, when eating illicit food, etc.). The sins of gluttony also include polyeating and laryngeal madness - a passion for enjoying the sensations of taste, that is, gourmetism, which is so instilled in our days. Drug use and smoking also fall under the umbrella of binge drinking; If you have suffered or are suffering from these sinful addictions, include them in the list of sins.
Celebration. Let us recall the formidable word of the Lord Himself: I tell you that for every idle word that people speak, they will give an answer on the day of judgment: for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned (Matthew 12:36-37).
But here is the patristic recipe for how to behave if the situation and conversations in the company are conducive to idle talk: “If you have no special need to stay, then leave; and when there is a need to stay, then turn your mind to prayer, not condemning those who talk idle, but recognizing your weakness.”
Venerable John the Prophet
St. Ephraim the Syrian expands on the concept of idle talk: “What is idle talk? The promise of faith, not fulfilled in practice. A person believes and confesses Christ, but remains idle and does not do what Christ commanded. And in another case, the word is idle - namely, when a person confesses and does not correct himself, when he says that he repents and sins again. And a bad review of another is an idle word, because it retells what was not done and what it does not see.”
Dejection. This sin is often directly related to idle talk:
“Despondency is often one of the branches, one of the first manifestations of verbosity... Dejection is a relaxation of the soul, exhaustion of the mind... a deceiver of God, as if He is unmerciful and unloving of mankind; in psalmody it is weak, in prayer it is weak... in obedience it is hypocritical.”
Venerable John Climacus
Laziness, as we see, is closely connected with the passion of despondency. The Orthodox Catechism lists “laziness in relation to the teaching of piety, prayer and public worship” among the sins against the 1st commandment of the Law of God.
But here is a patristic observation from monastic life, valid for the world: “The lazy, when they see that they are assigned difficult tasks, then try to prefer prayer to them; and if the work of service is easy, then they run away from prayer like from fire.”
Venerable John Climacus
Disclaimer. “Bind your tongue, which frantically strives to argue, and fight this tormentor seventy times seven times a day,” teach the holy fathers in the words of John Climacus. “Whoever in a conversation stubbornly wants to insist on his opinion, even if it is fair, let him know that he is possessed by a devilish illness; and if he does this in conversation with equals, then perhaps the reproof of his elders will heal him; If he treats his greatest and wisest people this way, then we will not be able to cure this illness from people.”