"In this life many things happen in which we play a shameful part. Those of us who are strong forgive themselves and go on. The weak wallow in their shame and allow it to devour them. There is no one of us who is without sin, child. There ought to be some comfort in that."
The Duchess, Through a Glass Darkly, p607
There is no one righteous. Not even one.
Romans 3:10
Comfort. Yes, there is comfort in that, I suppose. But I don't want to be comforted by my sinful state. I want to be cured of it. I don't want to continue doing the thing that is sinful. Confession will do me no good if I don't stop doing it. Why continually confess the same thing over and over and over? Seems like a pointless exercise in futility to me.
This is not to say I don't do it.
For example, among the many things I must confess is being judgmental. I've passed judgment on many people. Not my job. I'm not supposed to judge the tree, just the fruit. I know I have judged many a tree however. I'm working on that, but you see my point. It's silly of me to keep doing it and I know it. So I must be watchful and not do the sinful thing. The prayer says "He came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief". (emphasis mine)
Abba Paphnoutios, a great desert father, was going along one day on his way and there he saw two men committing some sin. The thought of his passion said: "Look what great evil they are doing!" The eye saw them and immediately the thought flared up, trying thereby to attack the purity of the Saint's soul by judging the brother or also by his being tempted. Having watchfulness, however, he was being vigilant, immediately his mind was enlightened and he said to his thought, "They are sinning today, I will sin tomorrow. They will repent, but I know myself to be a hard man, unrepentant, egotistical, and thus, I wont repent. I will be punished since I am worse than these two. And what do I have to do about these careless sinners, since I am a much greater sinner and more passionate?" And speaking in this manner and putting a lock on the provocation of sin, he was saved and didnt judge the brothers who were sinning.
Watchfulness Prayer and Confession, Elder Ephraim of Philotheou
I fail so often in my watchfulness over myself, my thoughts and my mouth (Psalm 39:1). The Lord tells us to watch. But not doing so, well, I am being disobedient again. The Lord have mercy on me.
I am looking forward to confession. I want to feel clean again. I don't hope to maintain anything without the Lord to help me and keep His watch. Praise God that He never sleeps nor turns His eyes away...Once I actually allow Him on duty.
Relevant Verses
Romans 3:9-18
Psalm 39
Psalm 141:3-4
Psalm 121
4 comments:
You say, "Why continually confess the same thing over and over and over? Seems like a pointless exercise in futility to me." Man, you mirror myself like nothing I've ever seen. I used to fight that over and over inside myself until I was dog tired of it. Then, one day, I read somewhere, and hear someone say one time that Confession is medicine. You don't take one dose of an antibiotic and expect to be cured of influenza--you take the whole 10-day course. When a sin has been repeated so many times that it gets into your heart and becomes a passion, then one dose is not enough to cure it. You have to take the whole course of medicine, and sometimes the whole course can be years, or even the rest of your life, depending on the strength of its hold on your heart. Now I can get a grasp on that and run with it. This attitude completely changed my understanding of Confession. I had thought that once confessed, a sin is "washed away" and gone, and if I sin again, then--well, it wasn't pretty. Now my whole concept of Confession has changed, and I think my confessions have even become fuller and deeper. Too bad it took me half a century to learn this, but "better late than never," I guess.
I was distracted and forgot to add an important thought to my earlier comment. Along the way, I've discovered that beneath the obvious sin that I have to continuously confess is another, deeper problem that is actually the cause, or part of the cause, of the surface sin. Did that make sense? Once I discover the deeper cause, THEN I make progress toward spiritual health.
I need to chew on both of those but I think I just got it! Honestly I do. The things I do over and over are cultivated. I've made it a point to grow them over the years. So how could I possibly think they could be uprooted so easily. It's not a bulb! This thing has runners like crabgrass! It all needs to come out or it all comes back.
Yeah...Okay I'm getting it...
I think this is one of the reasons why frequent confession is so important. I struggle with this as well, and I often get fed up of hearing my own voice uttering the same old words. I commented elsewhere recently that sometimes I just feel like keeping a list of my regular sins, and handing it to my priest each week, with the accompanying words, 'Numbers 1, 2, 3, 5, and 9 this week, Father. Please absolve. Thank you.'
But it is this hearing ourselves over and over again that makes us realise where the problems lie. If we only confess once each month or quarter, then it is possible for us to not even realise that we have these ongoing weeds in the garden of our soul that need to be uprooted. It's good to survey the terrain often, I think.
I have the book from which this comes, and find it useful, alongside chapter four of the Rule of St Benedict.
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