This present homily focuses on the Sacrament of Confession. St. Philaret of ChernigovPhilaret of Chernigov, St.
“>St. Philaret of Chernigov was a Holy Hierarch of the nineteenth century, at a time when the laity typically didn’t commune at the Presanctified Liturgies in the 
The First Week of Great Lent“>first week of Lent, but rather spent the week preparing to commune on Saturday, including through Confession. Though we tend to commune more frequently today, it’s always good to have a reminder of the need for Confession and the power of the Sacrament.—Trans.
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The holy Church calls us now to Preparing for ConfessionNow tell me: Is Confession profitable or needful? Certainly it is profitable and even essential; because, just as it is impossible to cleanse a vessel without ridding it of all uncleanness, so it is impossible to purge your soul of sins without confession.
“>Confession. It desires, it demands that we not only repent of our sins before our conscience, but that we offer repentance before the servant of God as well. Is this something useful that it demands of us? Is this a necessary task being placed upon us?
Why confess to a man like ourselves? Not for the Lord’s sake, of course. He knows our sins even when we hide them not only from others but even from our very selves. He knows the secrets of our heart. But does every man know what lies in his heart? Is every man able to give a detailed and accurate account of his affairs? Repentance is necessary and requires a full and accurate examination not only of our deeds, but also our motivations. Truly, who knows a man better than himself? But do we even have to say that there are whole thousands among us who are too little able to enter into themselves, who know little of the law of God, and are even less capable of measuring themselves against this law of God? Who better to show them themselves than a minister of God? And mustn’t every man admit that we’re too deceived by our self-love; there’s much within us that we see incorrectly, and many bad things we simply don’t see at all. Thus, thanks be to the Lord that He gives us someone to help in examining our conscience.
Why don’t you want to tell someone else about your sins? Are you ashamed? Oh, if only it were so! Then it would remain only to say that that’s why you must reveal everything to a priest, leaving nothing out; so that a salvific shame can awaken in your soul, which you may not have felt before; or perhaps you felt it, but not to the extent that your vile deeds deserve. Therefore, you must confess everything to the servant of God, so that the shame that awakens within you during Confession can serve to guard your soul against base deeds in the future. But is it shame? Is it shame alone that keeps you from revealing your sins to the priest? Be honest with yourself: Pride lives in all of us—it’s our common property. And by its “mercy,” we don’t like to think low of ourselves, we don’t like to appear in a negative light even to ourselves, let alone others. What do you think—can Confession be pleasant for our pride? So then Confession is a precious, invaluable medicine mitigating the most dangerous disease of our soul—pride. Humility is the foundation of the virtues. Without it, spiritual perfection is a dream, and a pernicious dream. Confession, forcing us to descend into the depths of our soul and bring the vices and impurities of our heart to light one by one, crushes our pride and sows humility in our soul.
Earthly authorities can put shackles on hands and feet; they have prisons and confinement, but does all this bind the soul? No. Pride puts nothing human above itself. It’s a different matter when it comes to Heavenly power rather than earthly. Miscreants, who couldn’t be corrected by any punishments, have come to deep contrition before a humble servant of God and renounced their former lives once and for all. Plunderers have returned what was not theirs, irreconcilable enemies have reconciled, litigants have stopped their lawsuits, quarreling spouses have forgotten their quarrel at the suggestion of God’s servant—because he’s not a servant of man, but a servant and messenger of God. O, earthly wisdom! How blind it is, rejecting help from Heaven that would be so beneficial even for Earth!
I said, I will confess mine iniquity to the Lord against myself (Ps. 31:5), says the repentant David. What does that mean? Does it only mean a heartfelt awareness of our iniquities? But he already spoke about this when he said before: I acknowledged my sin, and hid not mine iniquity. If David said, I will confess mine iniquity, then by definition he’s talking not only about the awareness of his sins in his conscience, but about declaring, revealing his lawlessness before others. Let us verify the words of David’s hymn with David’s history and we’ll see the same thing. The Prophet Nathan rebuked David for his sin with Bathsheba, and David didn’t limit himself to confessing his sin only in his soul; he confessed his iniquity before Nathan, saying: I have sinned against the LORD (2 Kg./2 Sam. 12:13).
We also see God’s commandment about Confession in the Mosaic Law. There God commands: Speak unto the children of Israel, When a man or woman shall commit any sin that men commit, to do a trespass against the LORD, and that person be guilty; Then they shall confess their sin which they have done: and he shall recompense his trespass (Num. 5:6–7). There were various sacrifices for sin. While offering them, they confessed their sins over them in the presence of a priest, who prayed that their transgressions wouldn’t be held against them due to their faith in the future universal sacrifice (Lev. 4:1–26). The Forerunner St. John baptized in the Jordan only those who came to him and confessed their sins. And in doing so, he gave special instructions for publicans, special instructions for soldiers, and special instructions for ordinary men (Lk. 3:10–15, Mt. 3:6); this particularity of instructions was due to the fact that different sins were revealed, or that different conditions of soul were revealed through their confession. It’s clearly stated that confession before St. John wasn’t a matter of human arbitrariness. The Pharisees didn’t want to confess their sins to St. John and be baptized by him, and the word of God says of them that they rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him (Lk. 7:30).
It’s unclear how anyone can doubt the holiness of Confession: Secret, Private, Common, and General…From now on, confession had to be done privately, since domestic sins affected not only the conscience of the penitent, but also the personal life and the reputation of other members of the community.
“>Confession when they have no doubt that repentance for sins must be sincere. If you sincerely repent, if your soul is full of sorrow for your sins, then what’s natural to expect from your soul in such a state? Bellows and moans, bitter complaints about things we’ve lost—this is what the sorrowful soul pours out! At the very least, when the feeling of the soul is holy, the expression of its feeling can’t be sinful; when our sorrow for our sins is holy, the confession of our sorrow for our sins is also holy. On the other hand, an unwillingness to reveal our sin is a sign that it’s still pleasing to the soul, that it doesn’t feel any aversion to it, that the sorrow over it is still insincere, incomplete, and shallow.
Who can forgive sins, but God alone? (Lk. 5:21). In His right hand are our life and death; we’re sinners before Him. Only He can forgive us or not forgive us. Have you sinned against someone? It’s up to him to either hand you over to the power of judgment or to reconcile with you. It’s exactly the same before God. Repent as much as you want, but until they tell you you’re forgiven, you bear responsibility. If you tell yourself that you’re forgiven, this would be another act of audacity, which won’t go unpunished. True, even in the Old Testament it was said that God was ready to forgive a repentant sinner. But the final answer to Confession had to wait for the future, for the appearance of the Mediator. Then, when the Son of God Himself appeared on Earth to reconcile the truth of God with guilty mankind, He proclaimed to men that He, as God and mediator, has the authority to forgive sins, and in His own Person He transmitted Divine authority to His servants. Receive ye the Holy Spirit, He told the Apostles. Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained (Jn. 20:22–23).
Understand how the establishment of a special authority to forgive or not forgive the sins of all men corresponded to the time of the fullest revelation of God’s love for men, of the fullness of God’s nearness to mankind. That which was given to the Apostles in relation to the sins of men was given to all their successors, because Christ the Lord didn’t establish His Church for Apostolic times alone; and because the Holy Spirit, by Whom the binding or loosing of a sinner was to be accomplished, wasn’t given for the Apostles alone. And in the Apostolic writings we see the Apostles of Christ command their successors to continue the work of reconciling sinners with God and transfer to them the authority to bind or loose the conscience, with instruction on how to use this authority. Remember, for example, how displeased St. Paul was with the Corinthian pastors for their weakness in dealing with a brazensinner (1 Cor. 5:2). So, this is who among men holds the authority to forgive or not forgive a sinner. It’s those who were given this authority by God Himself, by the Redeemer, the Son of God.
What then can be said about you, self-appointed pastor of schism who takes Divine authority upon yourself, who cloaks yourself with a right that wasn’t given to you? Woe to your blind audacity! And is there salvation for those who expect from you what you can’t give them? Thus, it’s criminal and terrible to neglect the God-established authority, to not turn to it for the verdict for your sins! No, go to him who has received authority over your conscience; go not as to human judgment, but as to Divine judgment. It’s not a man who will pronounce sentence on you; he’s only a servant of God who’s been entrusted to forgive or not forgive a sinner in the name of God.
The minister of God who has received this authority to forgive or not forgive sins can’t dispose of this authority either by his own will or the will of others; he’ll have to give a strict answer for how he used this terrible power. Therefore, he must first carefully examine whether a sinner is worthy or unworthy of forgiveness of sins.
To give grace-filled forgiveness to an undeserving man would mean to subject yourself to condemnation; and it wouldn’t mean salvation for him who receives grace unworthily. If a priest must see whether a sinner is worthy of forgiveness, and as a man he can know this only when the inner state, the deeds, thoughts, and dispositions of the sinful soul are revealed to him by the sinner himself through examination, then Confession to a priest follows God’s will just as surely as the Divine authority to forgive sins is beyond question. Thus, Confession to a priest is an institution of God’s will. Be afraid, sinful soul, to conceal your deeds before the servant of God, for he has received authority from God to be the judge of all your deeds. Even if you manage to deceive him as a man about the state of your soul, you haven’t deceived God, Who, knowing all that is hidden, won’t leave your deed without terrible punishment, because it’s not a man you’re offending, but God, the Holy Spirit, acting through His servant.
The servants of God have received power over the conscience, to save the sinner from sin; he’s the sinner’s doctor and teacher. Depending on the state of the spiritual illness, he should also assign a treatment; and depending on the mistakes and shortcomings, he should also give some instruction. If so, then the sinner’s sincere desire to be healed of his spiritual illnesses, his sincere desire to take the straight path to salvation should encourage him to sincerely confess his sins before a spiritual doctor and teacher. It’s the same as when a man who is sick in body, who sincerely desires healing from his illness, tells the doctor about his illness. Thus, to conceal your sins from a priest would mean, besides insolence against the will of God, blind hostility toward your salvation.
Must it be said after this in the early days of Christianity, Confession was a holy deed for everyone? Ah! Perhaps only to expose our coldness toward this holy duty. Since at that time the hearts of all burned with love for the Lord, those who had the misfortune to fall into sins confessed their sins not only to a minister of God, but before the whole congregation; and they confessed them not just once, but stood before everyone among the penitents for several weeks. O, my God! How far we are from Thy best servants.
I conclude with the words of the Apostle: Now it is high time to awake out of sleep… Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light (Rom. 13:11–12).
Amen.
Source: Orthodox Christianity
