My beloved spiritual children in Christ Our Only True God and Our Only True Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.
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THE MYSTERION (SACRAMENT) OF REPENTANCE AND CONFESSION (Part IV)
The Mysterion (Sacrament) of Confession
A Christian, at any rate, an Orthodox Christian, views repentance as a dynamic act of responsibility to God, but also to other people. It is not pining away in narcissistic self-reflection, even while employing self-knowledge and self-examination. Sin itself is a relational act - a break in the "I-Thou" relationship, it concerns my relationship with another person. When the Prodigal son "came to himself" in the Gospel Parable (Luke 15), he did so in relation to his father: "I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you" (V. 18). Nevertheless, the love of God is implicit in His very nature. God, Himself is the Archetype of Divine Love. When Saint John the Theologian says that "God is love" (1 John 4:8-16), love is seen as an established ontological category of both Divinity and humanity in His likeness. In fact, the beauty and loving freedom of the human person is, in the words of Nicholas Berdiaev, God Himself. It is He, 'the Creator of all...Who out of extreme erotic love moves outside Himself...burning with great goodness and love and eros." It is He Who is "the fullness of erotic love." And it is this supreme love that moved God to create human nature in His image and likeness. "As Lover, He creates; and as Loved, He attracts all towards Him." "As a mad Lover He desires His beloved human soul," says Saint Nilos.
Confession takes place within the Church. It is not a private procedure, a treatment of some guilt-ridden individual on an analyst's couch. It is not based on an admission of guilt and certainly cannot be reduced to a feeling of guilt, of liability for conduct contrary to norms and laws which render a person subject to punishment. It is related to what is deepest in man, to what constitutes his being, and his relationship with other human beings as well as with God. It is a Mysterion (Sacrament) - "the visible form of an invisible grace" (Saint Augustine), re-establishing a bond of union between God and man, between man and man. This is why confession also takes place within prayer because it is there that a personal relationship in all its intensity is realized both with God and the entire world. As such, confession and prayer are not merely technical terms but means and opportunities offered b the Church for overcoming sin and death. Repentance is indeed the cause and consequence of prayer, being the highest and fullest foundation for and form of prayer. "True prayer," according to Saint Anthony the Great, "is that in which one forgets that one is praying," and genuine repentance enables one to forget oneself and simply long for God, who is present in the very depth of repentance. For it is 'before him alone that one sins" (Psalm 50:3-4).
The Supreme act of communion is the Eucharist, the communal sharing of bread and wine, symbolizing sacramentally the reconciliation to come and the reconciliation already achieved in the here and now. Repentance and confession as Mysterion (Sacrament) seal man's change of direction from disruption to reconciliation. An examination of the early forms of confession shows that they are derived from community services and even liturgies.
In the early Church times the exhortation of Saint James served as a foundation for the Mysterion (Sacrament) of repentance: "Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed" (5:116). Confession was regarded as a form of repentance and regeneration (St. Matthew 3:6; St. Mark 1:5; Acts 19:18). This actual ritual aspect of repentance was a direct result of such Apostolic testimony, at first in the form of confession before the entire Church (congregation) and, subsequently, before a spiritual father. Nevertheless, the earliest order of confession is of relatively late origin (10th century and is ascribed to St. John the Faster, Patriarch of Constantinople. This text may well be the source of later Greek and Slavonic services of confession. The communal, sacramental aspect of confession was more apparent in the early Church when penance constituted a public rather than an individual episode. It was only after the 4th century that private confession was more widely practiced.
In the Orthodox Church, the priest is seen as a witness of repentance, not a recipient of secrets, a detective of specific misdeeds. The "eye," the "ear" of the priest is dissolved in the sacramental mystery. He is not a dispenser, a power-wielding, vindicating agent, an "authority." Such a conception exteriorizes the function of the confessor and of confession which is an act of re-integration of the penitent and priest alike into the Body of Christ. The declaration "I, an unworthy priest, by the power given unto me, absolve you" is unknown in the Orthodox Church. It is of later Roman Catholic (Latin) theology by Latin thought and practice. Forgiveness, absolution is the culmination of repentance, in the response given by the grace of Christ and the Holy Spirit within the Church as the Body of Christ.
Altogether, the function of the priest should not be ignored or minimized. "All who have experienced the blessing of having as their confessor one imbued with the grace of true spiritual fatherhood," writes Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, "will testify to the importance of the priest's role. Nor is his function simply to give advice. He can withhold absolution - although this is very rare - or he can impose a penance (epitimion), forbidding the penitent to receive Holy Communion for a time or requiring the fulfillment of some task. This, again, is not very common in contemporary Orthodox practice, but it is important to remember that the priests possess this right...Not that the penitence should be regarded as punishment; still less should it be viewed as a way of existing an offense...We do not acquire 'merit' by fulfilling a penance, for, in his relation to God, man can never claim any merit of his own. Here as always, we should think primarily in therapeutic rather than juridical terms."
The most significant effect of confession is indeed due neither to the penitent nor to the priest, but to God Who heals our infirmities and wounds. It is not a matter of a let-off, a clearance; it has the force of healing, of making the penitent whole. As such it is a gift from God which man must be open to receive and learn to receive: "Let us apply to ourselves the saving medicine of repentance; let us accept from God the repentance that heals us. For it is not we who offer it to Him, but He Who bestows it upon us." It is significant that the Greek for confession, exomologesis, implies not only confession but also thanksgiving (cf. Matthew 11:25; Luke 10:21): "I shall confess/give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, and tell of all His wonders" (Psalm 9:1). (Source: Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America)
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"Glory Be To GOD For All Things! - Saint John Chrysostom
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With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia (Ministry)
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+Father George