Confused about confession

[Johanna]

Hello. My name is Johanna and I am new to this discussion group, but have been blessed by it already. I have been an Orthodox Christian for four months now, converting from Protestantism. There is so much to learn and so much I don't yet understand, but God has so graciously given me a deep settled peace that I have found the True Faith and for that, I'm forever grateful. My question is regarding formal confession. I guess I just don't understand it. I don't understand how often I am supposed to go. As I pray daily asking God to reveal to me the sins in my heart that He wants to uproot, He so faithfully answers my prayer. I feel I could easily go to confession every week, but isn't that too often? Am I supposed to confess my sins to God alone and keep a running list to take to formal confession a few times a year? I just don't understand it, its purpose or what I am to do. I have talked to my priest about it and he said that I would know when it was time to come to confession. Well, so far I guess I don't know. Can anybody help me?

[Priest David Moser]

Hello Johanna,

Confession for converts to Orthodoxy can be sometimes a confusing and even frightening idea. However, it is one of the great blessings of the Church, not only to repent of your sins, but to have the burden of those sins lifted from your soul and the healing balm of God's grace applied.

You asked about the frequency of confession. The first and best answer to that question is "Ask your priest." He will tell you, as your spiritual "primary care provider" how often he expects you to come to confession. That's your baseline, build from there. As you said, your priest suggested that you should come when you feel the need. So use your own conscience as a guide. I would suggest you set a regular schedule for yourself to prepare for and go to confession. In addition you should also confess your sins daily in your private prayers. A very useful tool for this are the various "formal" confessions contained in the prayerbooks (which prayerbook are you using, perhaps someone familiar with it can point out these prayers of confession) One of the more common such prayers is the confession of St Dmitri of Rostov (it is a single page, I imagine it is available online somewhere, if not it is pretty easy to find as a pamphlet - perhaps someone has a better sense than I of where to get a copy). Another prayer, taken from the evening prayers of the Jordanville prayerbook is the Prayer of St Ephraim to the Holy Spirit www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/prayerbook/main.htm (http://www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/prayerbook/main.htm) Use these prayers as a means to discover your sins and to confess them on a daily basis (usually done at the time of your evening prayers). Then you should keep a list of the sins which either recur frequently or which impact your conscience and take that list to your "formal" confession with the priest - adding in any other sins that your conscience might also suggest to you at the time, or that the questions of the priest might bring to mind.

In the Russian tradition, it is usual for a person to confess every time time they prepare to receive Holy Communion. For some, then, that means weekly (or even more frequent) confession. This is not a problem, rather for these people they become more aware of their sins, more sensitive to their sins and therefore can more easily identify and resist temptation to sin. I find that the more frequent confessors are people who are actively struggling against their sins on a day to day, moment to moment basis.

Even though you may do this in your private prayers, bring this same frequency to confession is beneficial because in confession God's grace is bestowed upon you for the remission of sins and for strength in resisting those same temptations again and again. In other words, the more often you go to confession, the greater measure of grace you receive and as a result you become more sensitive and aware of your sins (allowing you to repent more fervently and exactly) and you become stronger in your struggle against temptation.

Back to the original question, just my own experience in confession, I would suggest that you try to confess at least once a month (I assume from your comments, btw, that you are a regular communicant in a non-Russian Church where confession is not required prerequisite for communion). Use that as your baseline and then increase or decrease your frequency as your conscience dictates.

Priest David Moser

[Johanna]

Dear Fr. David,

Thank you for your response to my questions about confession. I was able to locate the prayer of St. Dmitri of Rostov on-line and found some other helpful info. on confession.

I noticed some of the benefits of confession that you mentioned were the remission of sins, strength for resisting the same temptations again and again, the healing balm of God's grace applied and the burden of those sins being lifted from the soul. Please forgive my ignorance and immaturity, but may I ask are these benefits only received through formal confession and not through private confession alone? I am not at all opposed to formal confession, I'm just trying to gain a better understanding of it. It seems that I am going through a process of purging false beliefs from my time in Protestantism and then being fed the truth. Through the three years I spent studying Orthodoxy, I was so afraid because I had already spent so many years believing the heresy that was taught to me in the Protestant churches only to realize that it was not at all the truth. I think my fears and doubts hindered me from embracing the truths of our Faith as I was being taught and finally God helped me to know in my heart that the Orthodox faith is the True Faith and that I can trust the Church. I am just a simple, uneducated woman who longs to embrace the truths of our faith. God has so blessed me by leading me to Orthodoxy!!Really I feel like a little child totally dependent upon God to lead me along the way and grow me into whoever He created me to be. So much to learn...but I am so thankful to have the Orthodox Church as my new home. Thank you so much for your input. I will be talking with my priest again, but I think going to confession at least once a month sounds reasonable.

Please pray for me, a stumbling sinner,

Johanna

[Priest David Moser]

Johanna,

Just remember that confession is a sacrament - like Baptism, Chrismation, Holy Communion, and so on. Sacraments have certain characteristics - they bestow a particular grace, there is a rite through which this grace is bestowed and they are administered by a priest (or more properly by a bishop who gives a priest the blessing to administer the sacraments).

Personal prayers of confession do not have the same effect as the sacrament of confession. There is no question that even though you bless the food you eat, it does not become the Body and Blood of Christ and does not bestow upon you the same grace that you receive in Holy Communion. So also with Confession (or any of the other sacraments for that matter).

Priest David

[Elizabeth Riggs]

Fr. David,

Father, bless!

Is this what you were referring to?

BRIEF CONFESSION BEFORE A SPIRITUAL FATHER
Compiled by the late Archbishop Tikhon of San Francisco.
Based on a longer version by St Dimitry of Rostov.
I confess to the Lord my God before thee, reverend father, all my sins which I have committed up to the present day and hour, in deed, word and thought. Every day and every hour I sin through ingratitude to God for His great and numberless blessings to me and His most gracious providence and care for me, a sinner. I have sinned through:

idle talk
saying unseemly things
condemnation of others
laughter
scorn
self-love
insubordination
love of glory
pride
love of honour
envy
gluttony
anger
love of sensual pleasure
slander
over-eating
inattention
drunkenness
listlessness
attachment to things
negligence
love of money
carelessness
vainglory
resentment and remembering wrongs
laziness
disobedience
acceptance of lustful and grumbling impure thoughts
self-will
missing church services
reproaching others
dozing and sleeping in church
evil speech
neglect of prayer
lying
concealing sins at confession
I have sinned with all my senses, both spiritual and physical, wherefore I repent to the Lord and ask forgiveness. Absolve all my sins, reverend father, and bless me to partake of the Mysteries of Christ.


Love in Christ,
Elizabeth, the sinner
and Perennial Student

[Vladimir Deczynski]

If the Sacrament of Holy Communion has the effect of forgivness of sin (other than grave or "mortal" sin) why is it recommended that Confession be received before Holy Communion. Are not the sins forgiven through the power in the Holy Communion?
Vladimir

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear in the Lord, Vladimir,

Welcome to the discussion community -- it is good to have you here.

Regarding your question on the mystery of confession, I should perhaps begin by pointing out that there is actually nothing in the canons of the Church that distinguishes between 'types' or 'degrees' of sin in relation to the absolution offered through confession. Thus confession of 'grave or "mortal" sin' is received in the same embrance during the sacrament as any other.

INXC, Matthew

[Richard Leigh]

Dear Johanna,

I took your term "private confession" to mean your private prayer to God alone for forgiveness. Is this correct? This comes as part of the "Our Father," and of course, yes, we are forgiven when we pray.

One of the problems we have as westerners (maybe not only us) is our tendency to quantify things and to think of them in terms of commodities. So we fall into questions like "Did I do this enough, is maybe something else too much? etc.

God Himself is Community in action, i.e., He is they Holy Trinity, and that is why He likes community so much. He even set it up so that life only comes as a function of cummunity, and works best fueled by love.

The peacemakers who are to be called the sons of God are those who make peace, or bring shalom between others who are in enmitty with one another. This was originally the problem between humanity and God, who sent His Son to "make peace" between us. Our sins are disruptive of that peace, but Christ heals the disruption by being our peace with His Father and advocating for us to His Face. God has given authority to us humans to impart this forgiveness of sins, specifically through the church in your priest. This is why peace through this means.

Richard

[Herman Blaydoe]

If the Church is the spiritual hospital, the priest is "therapist" who administers the Holy Sacraments, one of which is Holy Confession. If we wish to be cured of the spiritual illness of sin, how can we do so if we do not tell the doctor what is wrong with us? In confession and absolution we also receive advice on what we can do to keep from "re-infection" from the sins in our lives. If we keep everything to ourselves, how can we receive healing if the doctor does not know what symptoms to treat?

Just some simple thoughts.

Simply Herman

[Johanna]

Dear Richard,

Yes, when I said "private confession", I meant a prayer of confession to God alone for forgiveness. This prior post was from several months ago. Just as a note, since that time I have been going to confession on a regular basis, usually about once a month and have experienced the burden of those sins being lifted from my soul and the healing balm of God's grace applied, as Father David spoke of. The mystery of confession has become for me one of the great blessings of the Church.

Yours in Christ,

Johanna

[Matthew Panchisin]

Dear Johanna,

It wasn't to long ago that I jumped into a deep sewer and wanted out, and thanks be to God several compassionate Priests pulled me out. A few weeks ago, one of the dear Fathers saw an icon I had just finished painting and said "Well Matt you came out an iconographer, see that who would have thought." I too "have experienced the burden of those sins being lifted from my soul and the healing balm of God's grace applied, as Father David spoke of."

I don't know what a person does or can possibly do without the Orthodox Church and the mysteries lovingly given within.

God bless our Orthodox Bishops who rightly divide the word of HIS truth and our Priest who hear our confessions and give us the body and blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

In Christ,

Matthew P.

[Nina]

I am not sure if this is the most appropriate thread for this link. (http://preachersinstitute.com/2010/02/many-confess-few-repent/)

[Richard A. Downing]

I am not sure if this is the most appropriate thread for this link. (http://preachersinstitute.com/2010/02/many-confess-few-repent/)

Dear Nina,
I am personally indebted to you for posting this link, and reviving this thread, which I have now read. I was in need of the instruction, as I try to prepare for my first orthodox confession.
May God break my spirit.
This is the hardest thing I have ever done. But I am heartened by these words:

No sin can surpass God’s love.
There is not one sinner who cannot become a saint, if he desires to.

I'll be satisfied with much less than that!

Love, in Christ,
Richard.

[Andreas Moran]

Dear Nina,
I am personally indebted to you for posting this link, and reviving this thread, which I have now read. I was in need of the instruction, as I try to prepare for my first orthodox confession.
May God break my spirit.
This is the hardest thing I have ever done. But I am heartened by these words:

No sin can surpass God’s love.
There is not one sinner who cannot become a saint, if he desires to.

I'll be satisfied with much less than that!

Love, in Christ,
Richard.

Also heartening, I find, are these words from the prayer before holy communion of St Symeon the New Theologian:

Forgive me my sins and grant me pardon.
Thou knowest the multitude of my evil-doings,
Thou knowest also my wounds,
And Thou seest my bruises.
But Thou knowest also my faith,
And Thou beholdest my willingness,
And Thou hearest my sighs.
Nothing escapeth Thee, my God,
My Maker, my Redeemer,
Not even a tear-drop,
Nor a fraction of a tear-drop.

I know, O Saviour, that no one
Hath sinned against Thee as I,
Nor hath done the deeds
That I have committed.
But this again I know:
That neither the greatness of transgressions
Nor the multitude of my sins
Can surpass the great patience
Of my God, and His extreme love for men.
But with the oil of compassion
Thou dost purify and enlighten them that fervently repent
And Thou makest them children of light,
And sharers of Thy Divine Nature.

[David Lanier]

Dear Nina,
I am personally indebted to you for posting this link, and reviving this thread, which I have now read. I was in need of the instruction, as I try to prepare for my first orthodox confession.
May God break my spirit.
This is the hardest thing I have ever done. But I am heartened by these words:

No sin can surpass God’s love.
There is not one sinner who cannot become a saint, if he desires to.

I'll be satisfied with much less than that!

Love, in Christ,
Richard.
I felt this way too when I had my first Confession many years ago, but to quote from the article in the link that Nina provided:
Like all the other holy sacraments of our Church, the sacrament of Confession is performed (and it bestows Grace on the faithful), not in conjunction with the skill, the scientism, the literacy, the eloquence, the energy and the artfulness of the priest – not even with his virtue and holiness – but through the canonicity (validity) of his priesthood and through the “Master of Ceremonies” – the Holy Spirit. you will feel as though the weight of the world has lifted from your soul as you come up from Confession if you approach it with contrition and sorrow.

In Christ,

David

[Richard A. Downing]

Dear Andreas and David,
Thank you both for your words. I made my first confession yesterday, and it was everything that I had hoped, and more. The Lord has placed a veil between me and my past sins - it is as if I can only see them dimly and they no longer act as a weight on my soul.
In Christ, Richard.

[Andreas Moran]

Dear Andreas and David,
Thank you both for your words. I made my first confession yesterday, and it was everything that I had hoped, and more. The Lord has placed a veil between me and my past sins - it is as if I can only see them dimly and they no longer act as a weight on my soul.
In Christ, Richard.

Thanks be to God Who by His Cross has torn up the handwriting of our sins (cf Prayer of St Basil, Sixth Hour).

[David Lanier]

Dear Andreas and David,
Thank you both for your words. I made my first confession yesterday, and it was everything that I had hoped, and more. The Lord has placed a veil between me and my past sins - it is as if I can only see them dimly and they no longer act as a weight on my soul.
In Christ, Richard.
Glory to God in all things! Hold firm to the Holy Orthodox Faith and go for services as often as you can, and go for Confession and Communion as often as you can too, and never cease to offer up prayer and draw close to Him.

Peace and Love in Christ to you,

David

[A. Wright]

Dear Nina,
I am personally indebted to you for posting this link, and reviving this thread, which I have now read. I was in need of the instruction, as I try to prepare for my first orthodox confession.
May God break my spirit.
This is the hardest thing I have ever done. But I am heartened by these words:

No sin can surpass God’s love.
There is not one sinner who cannot become a saint, if he desires to.

I'll be satisfied with much less than that!

Love, in Christ,
Richard.
I know this thread is slightly dead... but those words are helping me too. Thank you for posting them, Richard.

In Christ,
A.