Discourse on Repentance
By St. John of Kronstadt
“If anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world" (1 John 2:1-2).
Today, beloved brethren, you will go to repent. As a pastor, I would like to instill in you what is required of someone who begins confession so that his confession is true, pleasing to God and soul-saving. Namely, what is required from the repentant is contrition for his sins, the intention to correct his life, faith in Christ and hope in His mercy.
And so, first of all, contrition for one’s sins is required. But this is something that we spiritual fathers very often do not see in our spiritual children.
Quite a lot of people come with the spirit of complete indifference, and if they had not been asked anything, they would either say nothing, or would only say in general to the spiritual father they are sinful for all their sins. And do they say this with a heartfelt consciousness of their guilt? No, therefore woe unto them, having done it without the consciousness of their sins, but in order to quickly finish with confession. Beloved! Let us not turn the work of God’s extreme mercy towards us sinners into a reason for God’s wrath. How insensitive we are! Don't we have anything to grieve about in confession? How many sins do we have? If we began to weep all our lives about our sins, then we would not do anything unnecessary, but only what should be done. Oh! If any one of us were to say that he has no sin, he would be deceiving himself, and it would be in vain for him to seek the truth.
Can't you see your sins? Pray to God that He will let you see them. It’s not for nothing that you often said with the priest in Church: “Lord, grant me to see my own sins!" (Prayer of Saint Ephraim the Syrian). Let us try, at least now with our common strength, to see our sins, so that later in confession we can confess them with heartfelt contrition. And our first very important sin is that we, being great sinners, do not feel that we are sinners who deserve not mercy, but God’s punishment! Let us condemn ourselves first of all for this insensibility, and say to the Lord with all our souls: Here I am, Lord and Master of my life, an insensitive sinner, I am the greatest sinner, but I do not feel my sins. It must be because my sins have multiplied more than the sand of the sea, and I am full of sins, like a smallpox patient with smallpox. I repent to You, my Lord God, with all my heart for my insensibility, and I pray to You: Grant me to feel with all my heart how much I have angered and am angering You. O, this imaginary, Pharisaic righteousness of ours, how many people it has destroyed and is destroying! And to spite us, it strikes our heart precisely during fasting, during the very mystery of repentance and before the mystery of Holy Communion.
But let's look further - with what sins did we sin against God the most? If we are people of little faith, we live on earth not for heaven, not for God and the salvation of our souls, but for the earth and everything pleasant on earth, in a word, we live for the flesh, for its pleasures, and not for our immortal soul, not for her future life - isn't this a great sin? Have we forgotten the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, for us, His Most Pure Blood shed for us on the Cross, His glorious Resurrection! Was it not for us, that is, to raise us up to paradise, having been removed from paradise by sin, by His descent to earth, His divine teaching, His miracles, His prophecies, for example, about the future Last Judgment, about the resurrection of the dead on the last day, about the blessedness of the righteous and the eternal torment of sinners? Finally, His suffering, His resurrection from the dead and His ascension into heaven? Therefore, if it is true that we must live here for the life of the age to come, then is it not a sin not to live for that life, but to live with all our thoughts and with all our hearts on earth and for the earth? And how much sin happens because we only want to live well on earth and do not believe with all our hearts in the future blessed life? How much anger, hatred, love of money, envy, stinginess, deception comes from this? Hence all the vices: all carnal lusts, all passions of the soul. So let us repent of this, that is, we will repent that we have little faith, if not unbelief, and that for God and for the salvation of our souls, we either do not live for here, or we live for it very little; also that there is little hope in our hearts, if not none at all, for a future life. We also suffer from the greatest sin of ingratitude to God, not loving Him for His countless, ineffable mercies. I think everyone is aware of this, at least from time to time. Here are all of you who move on your own feet, all of you are healthy in body and soul, honorable in mind from God the Creator, with free will, and what were you so recently? Nothing; but the Lord brought you all from non-existence into existence and from that time on He gave you everything: He gave you a soul with its abilities, a body with its wise and beautiful structure, He gave you and is constantly giving you food to nourish your body, clothes to clothe it, gave a corner for you in His land, and shelter for your dwelling; feeds you with the priceless, life-giving food of His body and blood; He delights and gives you peace; makes you happy by listening to His word, forgives you your sins without number, constantly preserves your life like a mother the life of a child, grants us His future kingdom, and who knows what He doesn’t do out of His love for us sinners and ungrateful people? It is impossible to list. And what? How do we respond to His love for us - a love that has no number or measure? Just lawlessness, just bad behavior, just ingratitude. And so, with tears, let us repent of our ingratitude before God, of our dislike for Him, and also with tears we will ask Him for the gift of love. O, “Bless the Lord, my soul, and do not forget all His rewards” (Ps. 102:2).
The repentant is also required to have the intention to correct his life: and pay attention to this. When going to confession, say to yourself, after confession, I will try with all my might to correct myself from those sins that I now want to repent of. I won't deceive myself any longer; I will not lie to God; I will no longer insult the mystery of repentance. Help, Lord, strengthen my spiritual strength, Lord! What is the benefit of such repentance, after which they again, without a twinge of conscience, indulge in the same sins of which they repented? In such people the proverb is fulfilled: “A dog returns to his vomit, and a pig, having washed, to his puddle” (2 Peter 2:22).
Finally, what is also required from the repentant is faith in Christ and hope in His mercy. Anyone approaching confession must believe that during the mystery Christ Himself stands invisibly and accepts his confession; that only Christ can forgive sins, since He, through His suffering, His honorable blood and His death, sought for Himself the right from the Heavenly Father to forgive us all our iniquities, without offending divine justice, and that He, in His mercy, is always ready to forgive us all kinds of sins, if only we confessed them with heartfelt contrition; if only we had the intention to live better in the future, if only we had faith in Him in our hearts. “Your faith will save you: go in peace” (Mark 5:34). This is what He says internally to everyone, after absolution from the priest, who repents as they should.
Let us all repent sincerely; let’s do everything we can to improve our lives; let us bring God the fruits of repentance. Amen.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.