Homily for the Fourth Saturday Evening of Great Lent
By Holy Hieromartyr Sergius Mechev
By Holy Hieromartyr Sergius Mechev
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!
Last Sunday, by bringing forth the Holy Cross for veneration, the Holy Church called us, by looking upon it, to follow Christ on His way of the Cross. Today She gives us the image of a great ascetic, our Venerable Father John of the Ladder, who in his life walked the path of bearing the cross. His life gives us practical guidance on how to follow this path, helps us to understand our own spiritual condition, and, above all, to recognize its diseased aspects.
One of the main wounds of contemporary spiritual life lies in our sinful attitude toward the mystery from which spiritual life begins — the Mystery of Repentance.
Every person who comes to the gates of the Church must bring repentance for his entire life; without this he cannot enter the Church and begin spiritual life.
But repentance is not only the beginning of our spiritual path; it is also the work of a person’s whole life. Before giving absolution of sins to the penitent, the priest prays that the Lord would grant him an image (pattern) of repentance, reconcile him, and unite him with His Holy Church in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This reconciliation with the Lord, which is the grace-filled fruit of repentance, will be fuller the deeper and more sincere our repentance for committed sins. In this consists that “image of repentance” for which the Church prays, and which accompanies a person throughout his whole life.
But we, for the most part, do not know how to repent and do not understand what true repentance is. A great share of the blame for this lies on pastors, who have distorted the mystery established by the Church by introducing general confession. General confession corrupts human souls and weans them away from repentance, which is contrition for sins committed and the inner crucifixion of the sinner.
By its very nature, a person who has sinned possesses the means for restoring his spiritual health, and this means is repentance. The teacher whom the Church glorifies today, Saint John of the Ladder, teaches us that repentance destroys every deed committed by a person and erases even its trace in the human soul. Every deed of ours is an expression of our spiritual state, and in turn it leaves a mark on the soul. A good deed leads the soul to health, purifies in us the image of God, and contributes to our ascent toward likeness to God; an evil deed leads to the corruption of the soul. But repentance, according to John of the Ladder, destroys every deed done by a person — not only evil, but even good. “Repentance for good deeds destroys them, just as repentance for evil deeds destroys the latter” (The Ladder, Step 26, 186).
“When the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the holy angels with Him” (Matt. 25:31), then our souls will tremble because all their deeds will be revealed. Then the conscience of every person will see his soul laid bare, and it will also be seen by the saints and the angels. And there will be the greatest shame and disgrace then for every sinner.
In order to free us from this shame of the last day, the Holy Church teaches us not only repentance and contrition for our sins, but also self-reproach through confessing them before a spiritual father. “O servant of the Lord,” says Saint John of the Ladder, “…lay bare your wound to the physician and do not be ashamed to say to him: ‘Father, this is my sore, this is my wound; it has arisen not from anyone else, but from my own negligence; no one is to blame — not man, not an evil spirit, not the flesh, nor anything else — but only my own carelessness’” (The Ladder, Step 4, 61).
But in our time one sometimes hears a person say that he has killed no one and has no particular sins, and therefore does not need confession. Such people forget that repentance with self-reproach not only frees us from sins already committed, but also helps us to refrain from new sins, because without repentance it is impossible to be freed from future sins.
If conscience restrains us from sinning in front of people because we feel “ashamed” before them, then all the more effective a means of spiritual healing is repentance with self-reproach. If you have sinned, then, repenting and grieving over the sin committed, do not be ashamed to confess it before your spiritual father, “so that by present shame you may escape future shame” (The Ladder, Step 4, 12).
The general confession so widespread in our days contains within itself a great “convenience” both for the penitent and for the pastor, especially when there are many confessing. It frees the pastor from the duty of entering into the spiritual life of each penitent, of sympathizing with him, suffering for his sins, suffering for each individual soul. He ceases to be a true spiritual physician, because for the healing of his spiritual infirmities the penitent needs to be sympathized with. And general confession frees the penitent from the need to reveal his sins before the spiritual father, replacing confession with something like filling out a spiritual questionnaire. It frees a person from the feeling of shame and self-reproach that always accompany every true confession; and with this disappear repentance and contrition for sins committed. It deprives us of all effective means of healing from sin.
They say that general confession is convenient because the priest, explaining the nature of each sin, immediately gives instruction on how to fight it and how to live spiritually. But such general instructions only cause harm, since the sin of each individual person requires particular remedies that are not applicable to another. Moreover, the Holy Fathers say that in confession it is not so much the instruction received from the spiritual father that is important, as the contrition for sin and its confession with self-reproach.
An elder was once asked what to do if you have a certain thought and know from the Fathers how to heal it — should you still reveal this thought to your spiritual father? The answer was: “You must confess it, because a person cannot heal himself.”
The Holy Fathers say that the devil often restrains those who wish to confess their sins before an elder by suggesting this thought to them: “You already know how to heal the wound of your soul; why reveal it to anyone?”
In reality, all these arguments conceal the shame that prevents us from confessing our sins.
One novice said to his elder: “You already know what is with me; why should I tell you about it?” But the elder replied: “You yourself must confess your sin.” For three years this novice went to the elder, and the elder continually spoke to him about the necessity of confessing his sins, until finally the need for repentance awakened in the novice’s soul. No word, no instruction can bring healing to the penitent until he finds repentance within himself, in his own soul; then he himself will come to the spiritual father to confess his sins.
Not every confession brings us effective healing, but only that which is offered with heartfelt contrition.
Two monks went to confession before an elder: one’s confession was accompanied by words and contrition; he tearfully begged the elder to help him; the second simply stated his sin and asked for prayer. The first received healing; the second did not.
In our days one often hears believers say that they “like” general confession conducted by one priest or another. This testifies to a complete distortion of the Mystery of Repentance. For what ought to be accompanied by tears and contrition of heart, we turn into something that we “like,” something convenient.
Defenders of general confession refer to the authority of Father John of Kronstadt, who also conducted general confessions; but he did this out of great necessity. Father John traveled throughout the Russian land; to him in Kronstadt and in other places where he went, thousands of people flocked seeking spiritual healing, and this great ascetic, out of extreme necessity, indeed resorted to general confession.
But the people who came to Father John came to him as to a grace-filled man, and when they approached him, the conscience of the penitents became sensitive and trembled at the awareness of their sins. There were even cases when Father John did not admit a person to Communion, because he knew what was happening in each soul.
But we resort to general confession without any necessity, turning the great mystery of the Church into something that we “like” and find convenient, and pastors sometimes use it to display their oratorical abilities. At the same time, we forget that what may be possible for a great man and in great necessity is not permissible for us who are small, especially when we resort to it often without any need.
Therefore today, as we celebrate the memory of our Venerable Father John of the Ladder, let us take care to acquire true repentance.
Some come to confession with the idea that they are not guilty of anything before God — they have not killed anyone and have committed no particular sins; while others, in great sorrow, grieve over things that we often do not even consider sins. They remember sins committed in childhood (a child stole a candy, kept the change).
We must remember that even the smallest sins reveal all the ugliness of our soul.
Let us therefore try within ourselves, in our own hearts, to find the source of repentance and contrition for our sins. And if conscience begins to speak within you, and some sin troubles you, one that you are ashamed to confess, try to find within yourself the strength to repent of it.
Do not comfort yourself with the thought that you repented of it at a general confession; remember that general confession is the concealment of sin. And if there is a sin in you that you are ashamed to confess, then make use of what has been given to you — repentance, which can free you from every sin.
Use this with great joy, because by enduring here on earth a small shame, we avoid the great shame on that day when our sins will be revealed before the angels and all the saints. Amen.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
