On making a good confession
Following His glorious Resurrection, as He appeared to His Disciples, Our Lord Jesus Christ gave the command that:
“Whosoever’s sins you remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosoever’s sins you retain, they are retained.” John 20:23
From that moment in history, the Church has seen Confession (or repentance) as one of the holy mysteries (or sacraments) of the Church, through which the penitent receives the divine forgiveness of Christ for any sins that are confessed.
The Lord Jesus Christ bestowed His authority upon the Church to forgive sins, and the priest or the bishop, as His representative on earth, through his ordination, prayers to God for the salvation of the servant of God who really repented of his / her sins and God forgives the sins through the priest. Not the priest but God through the priests’ prayer forgives. The Mystery of Holy Confession is holy because it connects God and His children, with the priest acting as the Bridge.
Dependent upon the sin committed , the priest has the right to ban a communicant from receiving Holy Communion, for serious sin requires a time of repentance. Every priest has the right to forgive and retain through God the sins of the faithful, who are coming to Confession, but every priest can not listen to Confessions, they have to be appointed by the local Bishop, they should be trained in the practice and in the spiritual life.
To make a good confession it is necessary to prepare yourself carefully. Ask God to give you Grace to make a thorough examination of your conscience. The following can be of real value, as you prepare to stand before the Gospel Book, with the priest as the witness, and make your confession before Christ Himself.
Love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon
A BRIEF FORM OF CONFESSION
When indicated by the priest to do so, the penitent may say the following:
I confess to the Lord my God before you, reverend father, all my sins which I have committed up to the present day and hour, in deed, word, and thought. Every day and every hour I sin through ingratitude to God for His great and numberless blessings to me and His most gracious providence and care for me, a sinner. I have sinned through:
The penitent then mentions those sins from the following list he is guilty of:
anger
concealing sins in confession
disobedience
disrespect
insubordination
drunkenness
gluttony or over-eating
evil speech
foul speech
saying unseemly things
gossip
grumbling
idle talk
lying
greed
inattention
carelessness
laziness
negligence or carelessness
love of money
love of sensual pleasure
sexual sins
impure thoughts
missing church services
sleeping in church
neglect of prayer
attachment to things
love of glory or honor
pride
self-love
self-will
vainglory or false values
envy
jealousy
remembering wrongs
reproaching others
judging others
condemnation of others
resentment
scorn
slander
theft
The penitent then mentions any other sins which he is guilty of, and concludes:
I repent of all my sins, and I beg forgiveness of our almighty God.
I also ask forgiveness for all those sins I have not confessed because of their multitude and my forgetfulness.
Forgive and absolve me, reverend father, and bless me to receive the Holy Communion of the precious, holy, and life-creating Mysteries of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, unto the remission of sins and life everlasting.
Thursday November 13, 2014 / October 31, 2014
23rd Week after Pentecost. Tone five.
Apostles Stachys, Amplias, Urban, Narcissus, Apelles, and Aristobulus of the Seventy (1st c.).
Martyr Epimachus of Pelusium, who suffered at Alexandria (250).
New Hieromartyr Priest John Kochurov of Chicago and St. Petersburg (1917).
New Hieromartyr Leonid (1918).
New Hieromartyrs Vsevolod, Alexander, Sergius, Alexis, Basil priests, Hieromartyrs Anatolius, Euphrosynus amd Martyr James (1937).
New Hieromartyr Innocent (1938).
Venerables Spyridon and Nicodemus the Prosphorabakers of the Kiev Caves (1148).
Venerable Maura of Constantinople (436).
Venerable Anatolius, recluse of the Kiev Caves (12th c.).
New Martyr Nicholas the New of Chios (1754) (Greek).
Venerable Foillan, Irish monk-martyr (655) (Neth.).
Martyr Quentin of Rome (3rd-4th c.).
St. James, bishop of Mygdonia (4th. c.).
Commemoration of the Martyrs of Tbilisi slain under Jelaluddin (1227) (Georgia).
Martyr Epimachus the Roman and his companion Gordian (361-363) (Greek).
Martyrs Stephen, Barnabas, Trophimus, Dorymedon, Cosmas, Damian, Sabbas, Bassa, Abraham, and others with them (Greek).
Martyrs Seleucius and Stratonica his wife, myrr-gushers (Greek).
The Scripture Readings for the Day
1 Thessalonians 2:9-14
9 For you remember, brethren, our labor and toil; for laboring night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, we preached to you the gospel of God.
10 You are witnesses, and God also, how devoutly and justly and blamelessly we behaved ourselves among you who believe; 11 as you know how we exhorted, and comforted, and charged[a] every one of you, as a father does his own children, 12 that you would walk worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.
Their Conversion
13 For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe. 14 For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus. For you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, just as they did from the Judeans,
Luke 11:47-12:1
47 Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. 48 In fact, you bear witness that you approve the deeds of your fathers; for they indeed killed them, and you build their tombs. 49 Therefore the wisdom of God also said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and persecute,’ 50 that the blood of all the prophets which was shed from the foundation of the world may be required of this generation, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the temple. Yes, I say to you, it shall be required of this generation.
52 “Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered.”
53 And as He said these things to them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to assail Him vehemently, and to cross-examine Him about many things, 54 lying in wait for Him, and seeking to catch Him in something He might say, that they might accuse Him.
Beware of Hypocrisy
12 In the meantime, when an innumerable multitude of people had gathered together, so that they trampled one another, He began to say to His disciples first of all, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy