What is confession. An example of confession before the sacrament

In the modern world, the Gospel call to always be awake and continuously create a prayer is very difficult to implement. Constant cares, a very high pace of life, especially in large cities, virtually deprive Christians of the opportunity to seclude themselves and to appear before God in prayer. But the concept of prayer is still extremely relevant, and the appeal to it is certainly necessary. Regular prayer always leads to the thought of repentance, which occurs in confession. Prayer is an example of how you can accurately and objectively assess your mental state.

The concept of sin

Sin should not be seen as a kind of legal violation of God-given law. It is not accepted in consciousness "going beyond", but a violation of laws that are natural for human nature. Each person is endowed by God with absolute freedom, accordingly, any falls are committed consciously. In fact, when sin is committed, man neglects the commandments and values bestowed from above. There is a free choice in favor of negative actions, thoughts and other actions. Such a spiritual crime harms the person himself, damaging the very vulnerable internal strings of the person's nature. The basis of sin is the passions inherited or acquired, as well as the original susceptibility that made a person mortal and weaker to various diseases and vices. This greatly contributes to the fact that the soul evades towards evil and immorality. Sin is different, its severity, of course, depends on many factors in which it occurs. There is a conditional division of sins: against God, against neighbor and against oneself. Considering your own deeds through such a gradation, you can understand how to write a confession. An example will be considered below.

Awareness of sin and confession

It is extremely important to understand that in order to eliminate dark spots, one should constantly look at oneself, analyze their actions, thoughts and words, objectively assess the moral scale of their own values. Finding disturbing and restless features, you need to carefully deal with them, because if you close your eyes to sin, very soon you will get addicted to it, which will distort the soul and lead to spiritual illness. The main means for getting out of this situation is repentance and repentance. It is repentance, growing from the depths of the heart and mind, can change the personality for the better, bring a light of kindness and mercy. But the path of repentance is the way to a lifetime. By nature, man is prone to sin and will commit it every day. Even the great ascetics, who retired in uninhabited places, sinned in their thoughts and could daily offer repentance. Therefore, close attention to one's soul should not be weakened, and with age, the criteria for personal evaluation should be subjected to more stringent requirements. The next step after repentance is confession.

An example of correct confession is true repentance

In Orthodoxy a confession is recommended for all people over the age of seven. A child who is brought up in a Christian family, by the age of seven or eight, already gets an idea of the sacrament. Often it is prepared in advance, explaining in detail all aspects of this difficult issue. Some parents show an example of a confession recorded on paper, which was invented in advance. A child left alone with such information has the opportunity to reflect and see something in itself. But in the case of children, priests and parents rely primarily on the child's psychological state and worldview, the ability to analyze and understand the criteria of good and evil. If the haste of forcible involvement of children is excessive, it is sometimes possible to observe deplorable results and examples. Confessions in the church often turn into a formal "roll call" of sins, while the execution of only the "outer" part of the sacrament is unacceptable. You can not try to justify yourself, to hide something embarrassing and provoking shame. You need to listen to yourself and understand whether there is really repentance, or simply ordinary ritual that will not bring any benefit to the soul, but can cause significant harm.

Confession is a voluntary and repentant transfer of sins. This ordinance includes two main parts:

1) Confession before the priest of sins by a person who came to the sacrament.

2) Prayer forgiveness and the solution of sins pronounced by the shepherd.

Preparation for Confession

The question that torments not only the new-born Christians, but sometimes long ago the churchy ones - what to say in confession? An example of how to repent can be found in various sources. It can be a prayer book or a separate book dedicated to this particular sacrament.

Preparing for the confession, you can rely on the commandments, trials, take the example of the confession of the holy ascetics, who left notes and sayings on this subject.

If we construct a penitential monologue on the basis of the division of sins into the three kinds given above, then we can define an incomplete, approximate list of deviations.

Sins against God

This category includes lack of faith, superstition, lack of hope for God's mercy, formality and lack of faith in the dogmas of Christianity, murmuring and ungratefulness of God, oaths. In this group, there comes an unfavorable attitude to the objects of veneration - icons, the Gospel, the Cross, and so on. It is worth mentioning the skipping of services for a disrespectful reason and the abandonment of compulsory rules, prayers, and also if prayers were read hurriedly, without attention and the right concentration. Adherence to various sectarian doctrines, thoughts of suicide, an appeal to sorcerers and sorcerers, the wearing of mystical talismans is considered a apostasy, like this one must always be taken to confession. An example of this category of sins is certainly approximate, and each person can supplement or shorten this list.

Sins against the neighbor

In this group the attitude to people is considered: to relatives, friends, colleagues and simply casual acquaintances and unfamiliar. The first thing that opens most often in the heart is the lack of love. Often, instead of love, there is a consumer attitude. Inability and unwillingness to forgive, hatred, malevolence, malice and revenge, stinginess, condemnation, gossip, lies, indifference to someone else's misfortune, mercy and cruelty - all these ugly splinters of the human soul should be confessed. Separately indicated actions in which there was an open self-injury or damage to the material nature. It can be fights, extortion, robbery.
The hardest sin is abortion, which inevitably entails a church punishment after taking him to confession. An example of what punishment can be is learned from a parish priest. As a rule, penance is imposed, but it will be more disciplinary than an expiatory one.

Sins directed against oneself

This group is reserved for personal sins. Despondency, terrible despair and thoughts of your own hopelessness or excessive pride, contempt, vanity - such passions are capable of poisoning a person's life and even bring him to suicide.

Defects like drunkenness, drug addiction, addiction to gambling, also strongly affect the personality and literally in a few years destroy it. This category includes excessive idleness, dishonesty, lust, voluptuous thoughts and defiant behavior, as well as a predilection for obscenities in the soul and body.

An example of confession reflects only some of the sins. Every Christian who decides to repent in the temple himself considers his state of mind and marks sins.

The role of the priest

It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the shepherd, who has the duty to accept the repentance of a Christian. Confession is an example of the unity of the Church, the connection of all its children. How is this possible? The priest sets himself the responsibility of witnessing the totality of the Church that the person has brought repentance. His quiet presence is nothing more than a testimony to the Lord himself about a salvation and repenting Christian who thinks about the soul. The person actually brings himself to the Church, because God knows the sins they commit. Repentance must be committed by a child of the church without false shame, concealment, self-justification. And the priest, being an image of the Christian community and the Church as a whole, receives tears of repentance. The confession itself is directed directly to the Lord, and the shepherd symbolizes the divine-human nature of the Church. Often the priest helps to open up, cope with embarrassment and fear. There is enough of a question or several heartfelt words so that a person can figure out how to build a confession correctly. An example of such effective assistance can be found in the priest Paul Gumilev. This pastor reveals in his creation important aspects that all can rely on who wish to bring repentance in the temple.

An example of confession before the sacrament

Archimandrite John the Peasant promoted the creation of the book "The experience of constructing a confession." This printed edition is a perfect example of confession before communion. Father John considered sins, proceeding from the commandments given to Christians by the Lord Himself. Before proceeding to the sacrament, the priest urged him to forgive his abusers.

The first commandment proclaims the existence of only one Lord, and no one else should be honored as God. Father John advised parishioners to turn to their conscience and check whether this commandment is not violated. Does the heart have enough love for God, is there faith in Him, the hope of His mercy. Do not come thoughts related to apostasy and apostasy.

The second commandment warns the faithful from the creation of an idol or an idol. Often this message is perceived as having only material pagan idols. But John the Peasant points to intangible aspects, recalling that all people are slaves to their pleasures and passions, and, in fact, most are serving the body and its whims. Especially many people feed pride, from which vanity and condemnation grow.

The third commandment prohibits the pronunciation of the name of the Lord without special reasons, that is in vain. Here we should remember whether there were oaths and exclamations with the participation of the name of God, for even a scattered prayer can be attributed to the empty remembrance of the Most High. Father John also complained about insufficient preparation for the sacrament of confession. Even many church people carry an example of a confession written down on paper, which they met and rewrote in the prayer-book, not having the desire even for a few hours to immerse themselves in meditation on the state of their inner world.

Thus, enumerating all the commandments one by one, the shepherd calls to examine in detail the state of mind and check whether it corresponds to the essence of the message.

About brevity

Priests often ask to confess briefly. This does not mean that there is no need to call a sin. It is necessary to try to talk about sin, but not about the circumstances in which it was committed, without involving third parties, who may be somehow involved in the situation, and not detailing the details. If repentance occurs in the temple for the first time, you can sketch an example of confession on paper, then during the exposure of oneself in sins it will be easier to gather, to bring to the priest and, most importantly, to God, everything that has been noticed, without forgetting anything.

It is recommended to pronounce the name of the very sin: lack of faith, anger, insult or condemnation. This will be enough to convey what disturbs and weighs heavily on the heart. "Extraction" of the exact sins is not an easy task, but this is how a short confession is created. An example may be the following: "I have sinned: pride, discouragement, foul language, little faith, excessive idleness, bitterness, lies, ambition, abandonment of services and rules, irritability, temptation, bad and unclean thoughts, excess in food, laziness. I also repent of those sins that I forgot (a) and did not say (la) now. "

Confession, of course, is a difficult task, requiring effort and self-denial. But when a person becomes accustomed to the purity and purity of the soul, he can no longer live without repentance and the sacrament of communion. A Christian will not want to lose his newfound connection with the Almighty and will only strive to strengthen it. It is very important to approach the spiritual life not with "jerks", but gradually, carefully, regularly, be "faithful in the small", not forgetting about gratitude to God in absolutely all life situations.