Can our good deeds torment us?

[alexei]

Hello all,

What do the fathers say about our good deeds? Sometimes I wish I could forget them, so that I would avoid the risk of feeling justified. Is there any particular advice for this?

Yours in Christ,
Alesha

[Alec Lowly]

Hello all,

What do the fathers say about our good deeds? Sometimes I wish I could forget them, so that I would avoid the risk of feeling justified. Is there any particular advice for this?

Yours in Christ,
Alesha

Well, try to stop thinking them as "yours." Then try thinking of them as the Lord's. Then resist the temptation to be proud that the Lord has chosen to use you. Remember that He also chose to use a donkey to ride into Jerusalem.

[Vera L.]

I don't know if this helps but... my spiritual father told me about monastics who would confess even their "good deeds". They knew that they had sinned when they had thought that the deed was "good". Only God can label a deed good or bad...

In Christ,
Vera

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

I don't know if this helps but... my spiritual father told me about monastics who would confess even their "good deeds". They knew that they had sinned when they had thought that the deed was "good". Only God can label a deed good or bad...

In Christ,
Vera

Some things to point out.

Indeed it is proper to confess being proud of our accomplishments. It is God Whom we should acknowledge as the author of any good that may happen in us.

Of course though if God is the Author then we are the writing tool. It is important to speak about and fully reveal our spiritual state to our spiritual father. This refers not only to what is negative but also to any spiritual progress being made so that the spiritual father can discern our true spiritual state and can encourage or warn us in an appropriate way.

This latter is more spiritual counsel than confession. But in Orthodoxy there is no hard and fast line between the two. We receive spiritual cousel at confession and much of what we reveal during spiritual counsel is a kind of confession.

Incidentally this brings up the interesting difference between the Byzantine & Russian traditions in the way confessions are heard. In the Byzantine tradition often the person making the confession and the spiritual father both are sitting down, facing each other. The priest has his epitrachilion on but obviously it is not placed over the head of the penitent until absolution.

In the Russian tradition on the other hand most always confession is done standing up in front of an analoy (icon stand) with Gospel & Cross. Some priests cover the head of the penitent while hearing their confession while others do not until the prayer of absolution.

There's such a different dynamic between both of these ways. Having experienced both ways I wouldn't say one is more or less correct than the other. But the Byzantine seems to reflect a more ancient tradition where confession and spiritual counsel are hardly separate. This may also reflect the fact that in this older tradition it was usually monastics who heard confessions although I'm not sure if this is the case anymore.

In the Russian tradition there is something more formal to the way one stands in front of the analoy. But having the Gospel and Cross right before you on the analoy encourages compunction. Also the physical proximity of the priest somehow makes the presence of Christ more immediate if you're used to this way already.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Matthew Panchisin]

What do the fathers say about our good deeds? Sometimes I wish I could forget them, so that I would avoid the risk of feeling justified. Is there any particular advice for this?

I don't mean to sound negative, but why not think about all the good deeds you have not done? If you make a list, the have not done side is supposed to be and not supposed to be much longer than the have done.

First Morning Prayer by St. Macarius the Great

O God, cleanse me a sinner, for I have done nothing good in your sight. Deliver me from the evil one, and may Your will be within me so that I may open my unworthy lips without condemnation and praise Your holy name of the (+) Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.

Also Augustines' confessions is a good read.


In Christ,

Matthew Panchisin

[Anthony]

Remember that He also chose to use a donkey to ride into Jerusalem.

Beautifully put.

The following quotation from Abbess Gavriilia might also be helpful:


# When God wants to help someone, He can create "children of Abraham" from these very stones. If it wasn't you, it would be somebody else. You were the impersonal delegate of God. Woe betide you if you think one day that this someone should owe gratitude to you! If he comes and thanks you, say that you ought to thank God, because He would undoubtedly have sent somebody anyway to help them. He sent you, consequently you ought to thank him, and be grateful to God for sending you.

[Antonios]

Luke 17:10 "So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, 'We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.'"

[Ken McRae]

... my spiritual father told me about monastics who would confess even their "good deeds". They knew that they had sinned when they had thought that the deed was "good". Only God can label a deed good or bad ...

St. Lk. 17:10 "So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do." We have done our duty, the text says. That's a good thing, imo!

To trust in that, though, as if it somehow "earned" us our salvation, is a grave error. Christ "earned" and paid for it with His Own blood, so let us give Him all the credit! Glory to Thee, O Lord! And if He dwells and "works" within us, then all merit attached to such work(s) belongs to Him, the Source of all good things! To take the credit for our good works, as if we were the Source, is where we commit sin; but to give God the credit for all good works is not a sin! Thus, when you hear the Lion's Roar, glorify God for every good thought, and every good word, and every good deed He has ever graced you with!

Conscience is tormented by dead works, not good works: "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Heb 9:14)

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Fr Raphael, in a recent post in this thread you wrote:


This latter is more spiritual counsel than confession. But in Orthodoxy there is no hard and fast line between the two. We receive spiritual cousel at confession and much of what we reveal during spiritual counsel is a kind of confession.

I very much appreciated your words, both the above, and the whole post in which they are found. One of the the ideas that has always moved me has been the way in which the whole of the exchange between confessor and penitent is 'the confession': the enumeration of sins, the exploration of conscience, the advice on emendation, the questions about the future, etc. It is not simply the 'listing off my sins' that is the confession, to which is emended some spiritual guidance. The whole of the exchange is integrally what it means to stand before God as a penitent, to confess and make a real repentance - a metanoia, a change of life.

INXC, Matthew