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Confession of Redemption and Prayer for the Church Praise be to Your bounties, Christ, our King, the Son of God worshiped by all! You are our King, You are our God, You are the Author of our life and our great hope! The hosts on high and the ranks below unanimously praise You, and they sing a song of gratitude to You, because You, the Hidden One, at the end of time appeared in our flesh. When Your compassions arose and Your love was pleasing, You came for our redemption and freed our race. You healed our illnesses, cleansed our sins and, through Your compassions, raised those who were dead. You founded the Holy Church on earth in the image of the Heavenly Kingdom, You created it with love, planted it with generosity, became engaged to it spiritually, and acquired it through Your suffering. But the hater of humanity, in his shameless insolence, attacks it in the person of his servants. Do not leave, O Lord, Your Holy Church without Your care, so that the promise You spoke about its invincibility does not turn out to be in vain! Do not allow her splendid beauty to be disfigured and her wealth to be stolen! Fulfill Thy promise given to Peter; what You said, seal it with your very deed. Establish her gates, strengthen her bars, erect her horn, lift up her head. Bless her sons, preserve her children, give peace to her priests and overthrow her evil-wishers. Settle Your peace in her and drive away evil schisms from her. Grant us to lead a peaceful and serene life in Thy fear. May we guard our faith with great hope and perfect love. May our life be pleasing to You and may we find Your bounties on the day of reward. May we continually praise You, O Lord, and Your Father and the Holy Spirit. Be merciful to us and to those who have departed! Merciful to sinners, be merciful to us on the Day of Judgment; forgive us our debts according to Thy mercy, and on the day of Thy appearing make us worthy of Thy palace. When the hosts of those judged tremble before justice and stand naked in fear, then, my Judge, have mercy on me, because I have praised You. When the mouths of the wise are blocked there and Thy powerful and terrible scepter threatens, then let my mouth be opened, because I have confessed Thee. When no friend or acquaintance will save you, and everyone will be drawn naked to account, then, Lord, be my Intercessor, because I have trusted in You. When the voice of the trumpet roars, the tribes tremble and everyone comes to receive reward for their labors, then, Lord, be my Intercessor, because I resort to You. Accept our service, Lord of the things above and the hope of those below, and have mercy on us. Be merciful to us, Lord, be merciful to our parents, be merciful to our mentors, be merciful to our brothers. Be merciful to us, Lord, and give rest to our departed and to all the dead who confessed You, believed in You, ate Your Flesh and drank Your Life-giving Blood. Grant us, together with Your sheep, to enter into Your sheepfold and, together with Your saints, to give due praise to Your greatness forever and ever. To the Mother of God about inner spiritual well-being Good Mother of the all-good God, look with Your merciful eye on the prayer of Your unworthy servant and grant me contrition, silence of thoughts, constancy of thought, a chaste mind, sobriety of the soul, a humble way of thinking, a holy mood of spirit, a prudent disposition and peace of mind, which the Lord gave to His disciples. Blot out the handwriting of my sins, cut through the clouds of my sadness, the darkness and confusion of thoughts, remove from me the storm and confusion of passions, expand my heart with spiritual expansion, rejoice me with joy and grant that I may walk faithfully in the right paths of the commandments of Your Son and with an impeccable conscience go through an untroubled life. Grant me, who pray before You, pure prayer, so that with an unperturbed mind and unwandering meditation I may always offer prayer in honor, glory and magnification of Your Only Begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. The soul itself is carried away - the enemy is not insurmountable Oh, how insensitive I am! What a rough, earthy soul I have! O corrupt heart, lips filled with bitterness, larynx - an open tomb! Why don’t you remember, soul, about the inevitable path of your separation? Why aren't you preparing for this procession? Why are you approaching death without self-pity? Why are you bringing eternal torment upon yourself? What are you doing, soul, living like a meaningless wordless thing? Alas, how is it that I choose darkness instead of light? How do I prefer this pleasure, which I have today and which I will not have tomorrow, to eternal and ineffable blessings? Alas, how, instead of this sunny robe, do I agree to be clothed in a dark and gloomy robe? How do I prefer a miserable existence in hell to the Kingdom? Alas for me, a sinner! I myself, voluntarily, with knowledge, plunge myself into final destruction! Finally come to your senses, my soul, fear God and begin to walk with courage along the path of His commandments! Understand, soul, that this age is like a race and the cunning serpent is striving by all means to gain victory. By others he is deposed and desecrated, and others he himself deposes and desecrates. Some, deceived by him, are overcome, while others enter into struggle with him and are crowned. Some, having tasted its bitterness, achieve the pleasures of eternal life, while others, having tasted its sweets, acquire the bitterness of eternal torment. Some, through extreme detachment from everything, conveniently gain the upper hand over it, while others, due to attachment to earthly things, are easily overcome by it. For those who love God with all their hearts, fighting with him means nothing, but for those who love the world it is difficult and irresistible. Understand, poor soul, that the joy, luxury and peace of this age are filled with sadness and sorrow, and sorrow, deprivation and self-bitterness bring unspeakable joy and eternal life. Decide to embark on the difficult and sorrowful path and strive in silence, so that when the hour of death and separation comes, you will not find yourself unprepared. On my bed I thought about You, Lover of Mankind, and at midnight I rose to glorify Your goodness. He brought to mind his debts and sins - and shed streams of tears. I was encouraged by the thief, the publican, Mary the sinner, the Canaanite woman, and also the woman of blood and the Samaritan woman at the well of water. They told me: “Arise, beg for bounties - your Lord is full of bounties!” David, the son of Jesse, cried out to me in his psalms, awakened me from the sleep that burdened my limbs, and said to me: “Arise, O man, why are you sleeping? The judge accepts gifts at midnight - get up, pray and ask for forgiveness. The merciful Lord will rejoice over you. His door is open day and night to those who repent.” At night, resting on my bed, I brought to mind my debts and sins, then horror seized me, and I cried out: “Alas, the terrible night and darkness devoid of all light is already coming! Whoever lives a lawless life will not rejoice on the day of resurrection, but will remain in darkness forever.” And David stayed awake at night on his bed, thinking about his iniquity and confessing his sins. At night he wet his bed with the tears of his eyes and begged with sighs, saying: “I know my iniquities, our Lord, and I bear away my sin before me; You alone, Lord, have sinned, have mercy on me!” We call on You, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, We beg You day and night, have mercy on us. According to the multitude of Your bounties, cleanse our iniquities and sins, grant us, O Lord, mental and physical health, deliver us from the evil one and from his power, from his fetters and from all his snares, and do not deny us Your bounties day or night! Watch day and night in prayer, so that the day of death does not come suddenly Let us awaken from sleep, let us cry out to the Lord with sighs, let us work day and night, taking care of our correction, while our life continues, until the time has come, after which there will be no place for repentance. Let us watch at the door of the Bridegroom, so that we may enter His palace with the Bridegroom and inherit eternal life. Come, and at night we will all sing the praises of God and imitate the hosts of Angels who constantly praise Him. And our Savior, when he moves and comes, accompanied by the Angels, seeing our wakefulness and vigil, will call us good servants and seat us at His Table. With the righteous, who have pleased God day and night, let us strive in goodness, ask for bounties from our Lord and, singing with David, say: “At midnight we rose to confess to You about the destinies of Your righteousness, have mercy and have mercy on me and make me worthy to inherit Your Kingdom.” I will not cease to praise You, our Lord, I will ceaselessly glorify You, so that Your righteousness will not condemn me. I know how guilty I am. I know that if you punish me for my sins, then my inheritance will be Gehenna, then all hope will be lost, my prayer will fall silent. Therefore have mercy on me and forgive my debts. I crawled and fell into sins - stretch out Your right hand to me, and I will rise, like the sinner in the house of Simon, like the thief on the cross. Have mercy on me, Merciful to sinners! Cry: the days pass, and there are ordeals Alas for me, careless one! Alas for me, who careless about salvation! Alas for me, who sin with knowledge! I know that I am doing evil, and I do not shy away from evil. Woe is me, for I have no excuse! In words I am numbered at the right hand, but in deeds I stand at the left. To You, Lord, the only Good and Unmemorable Evil One, I confess my sins. Even if I kept silent, You, Lord, know everything, and nothing is hidden before Your eyes. But since You, Lord, said through the prophet: Confess your sins first in order to be justified (Is. 43:26), then I will say: “I have sinned, Lord, and am not worthy to look up and see the heights of heaven from the multitude of my iniquities.” What should I do, the poorest of men? I will cry for myself day and night, as long as there is time to accept tears. Grant me tears of contrition, O Lord, the only Good and Merciful, so that with these tears I may ask You for cleansing from the defilement of my heart. Alas, you have sinned, my soul! Repent, for our days are passing by like a shadow. A little more, and you will leave here, you will pass through terrible places, my soul, do not put off day after day your turning to the Lord. Alas for me, my soul! By unclean deeds you have driven away the mercy of God from yourself. Do not give yourself rest, falling day and night to the Good and Humane, so that grace and mercy may be given to you from on high. A time will come for us full of fear and trembling, in which everything that everyone has done in secret and in darkness will be revealed - and woe to the soul that does not have the Lord as an Helper! My heart sighs, and my eyes long for tears, but my sin holds my mind captive, so that I do not fall into contrition and begin to beg the Lord not to plunge me into utter darkness. While we have the strength, let us work for the Lord in the rightness of our hearts, so that in times of trouble we can have Him as our Helper, delivering us from all troubles! Just as one who walks with a lamp gives light to those who are with him, so does virtue, which always carries glory with it, shine. Until you put it in your mind that you have already passed away from this life, and you do not look at this world and its glory as at a ruined tabernacle, until then it is impossible to overcome earthly passions and worldly lusts, which plunge a person into all-destruction and destruction. It is little work to lay the foundation, but it is difficult to complete the building, and the higher the building is erected, the more work it presents to the builder until the very end of the work. This is what happens to someone who begins to work for the Lord: first temptation, then sorrow, then labor, despondency, nakedness, suffering, oppression, humiliation. He who conquers everything is the one who wholeheartedly surrenders himself to the rule of God and remains in the will of God. God demands from us only perfect determination; He Himself gives us strength and grants us victory. You might be interested in: