Repentance – Father Gavril
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Repentance is one of the greatest gifts given to us by God for our salvation in the Church. Without repentance both the cleansing from passions and our salvation are impossible. We will begin our word on repentance with an example from “The Sayings of the Desert Fathers”. Namely, when on one occasion Abba Serapion was travelling through the village in Egypt he saw a woman sinner standing in front of her house and he told her to prepare as he wanted to spare the night with her. But when he came, instead of committing dissolute deeds he started with his prayer rule uttering prayer and supplications for her. The sinner realised that the Abba had not come to commit sin, but to save he very own soul from slavery to sin, devil and death. She started to tremble in terror and fell in front of his knees and pleaded:
– Abba, please do me a favour and take me where I could find God! Then the elder took her to a nunnery and presented he to the Abbes saying: – Accept this sister and do not impose on her a yoke or a command as you do with the other sisters; but whatever she wants, give it to her, and let her spend her life the way she wants! Two days had passed and she said: – I am sinful; I want to eat each second day. And after a few days she said: – My sins a numerous; I want to eat each fourth day. A couple of days after that she again pleaded the Mother (the Abbess) saying to her: – Because I have saddened God with my sins do me a favour, put me into a cell and wall it up, so that through a hole you can fetch me just a little bread and handwork. The Abbess did as Abba Serapion had told her and executed her demand so that this woman pleased God for the rest of her life.
From the example we can conclude what St. John of the Ladder says on repentance: renewal of baptism and contract and peace with God for improving one’s life, purchasing of humility, self-reproaching and caring about one’s own salvation, casting away the bodily comforts and concern about outward things, exhausting the body with fast and doing good deeds opposite to the previous sins, as we have seen from the example of this repentant woman.
Moreover, repentance is constant struggle that begins here and now, and ends with our death. Because after death there follows judgement and there is no repentance (Hebrews 9, 27)
We should not fall into despair with our spirit if we sin every day, but we need to rise again and again, so that, because of our patience and by His ineffable mercy, God will console us, like Abba Sisoe said to one of the brethren when he grieved for having fallen again: “Rise and rise again, until the end of your life, but take care not to be in a fallen state when death comes.”
The fact is, we need to offer deep and frank repentance for the sin we have done. The one-hour warm repentance of the woman sinner as we have seen in the example of John of Kolov, was more acceptable to God than the repentance of many whose repentance was long but lukewarm. We must not succumb to the thought that God is merciful so we can indulge ourselves in sin, because this same thought after we have sinned, will present God as fierce and relentless. Also we must not succumb to the thought: ” Do not fear, this is nothing, be careful not to commit bigger sins” .
It is necessary to have clear conscience as a beacon in our lives, and in case it has stopped criticising us, we should carefully examine whether this is caused by fatigue or insensitivity and not by absence of purity.
Repentance is kept by ceaseless reminder of death, memento mori, pondering upon our previous good deeds, sins and their effects, accompanied by many prostrations, ceaseless mourning and plenty of tears.
Repentance drives out laughter, idle talk, anger, rage, quarrel, laziness, bold speech, satisfying the body, enjoyment, concern for earthly things, vanity, pride and fault-finding.
“Repentance flares up prayer and hope is born. And the one who truly cares about his salvation, finds lost each day that he did not use to mourn his sins, even though he could have done something good during the day,” like Abba Arsenius for whom it was said that during his lifetime, while doing his handwork he kept a cloth in his lap to wipe off the tears that were springing from his eyes. It is also said that his eyelashes fell off from weeping. And when Abba Poemen heard about his repose, he said joyfully: “Blessed are you Abba Arsenius, because you mourned yourself in this life. Because, he who does not mourn himself here, he will mourn eternally there. Whether by his good will here, or because of pain there, it is impossible not to mourn.”
Abba John of the Ladder shares the same opinion with Abba Poemen, namely that more blessed are those who have fallen and mourn their sins than those who have not fallen and thus do not mourn at all.
About the fact that God releases us from our sins testifies the Spirit of God shown through love, compassion and deepest humility to the ones who have committed sin.
