Welcome to answers from an apostolic faith.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen.
Welcome back, my beloved. Today, we conclude our three-part series on repentance and confession and why they are so crucial in the life of the Christian believer. Now, for those of you who have been following with us, previously in our first video, we discussed the meaning of repentance and we discovered that repentance is that change of mind and that change of direction back to God. In the second video, we looked into the mystery of confession, what it means and why God instituted it as a means to salvation. We saw that there can exist confessions of faith and confessions of sins, and in both, we are called to speak using the same language, the same words as God, according to the standard that He's revealed to us. Finally, in today’s video, we will speak to the question of why we confess to a priest, as well as discuss how we ought to confess. Let's dive right in.
Many people will shy away from confession, because they are ashamed to speak their sins before a priest. They adopt an attitude which says: Why can’t I confess my sins directly to God? After all, God already knows all that I've done. Well, if we speak honestly for just a moment, although we say that we know that God is present everywhere and knows all of our actions, if we truly believed this and truly lived a life where we witnessed that God was present everywhere and fills all, then we would not sin at all, would we? And it's precisely because we don’t acknowledge God’s presence in our lives that the Lord has instituted the Church as a means to reveal His divine presence amongst us here on earth.
The Lord has chosen the Church and those who are appointed to holy orders, bishops and priests, to be His manifestation among us all. The mysteries of the Church are the gifts that God grants to the Christian believer and all of these are administered by the Lord Himself through those who have been granted the mystery of the priesthood. What this means is that when we partake of the mysteries, it is our Lord Jesus Christ who is present amongst us and His presence is manifested in the person of the bishop or in the person of the priest. And this applies to confession, my beloved.
Take, for instance, when our Lord Jesus was preparing His disciples and His holy apostles to go into the world and to begin their ministry. Let's see what the Lord tells them once He appears to them after the resurrection. The Gospel of John, chapter 20, verses 21 to 23:
'' 21 So Jesus said to them again, ''Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.''
22 And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, ''Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven (...); if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.'' (John 20:21-23)
The Lord could not be any clearer: As the Father has sent Me, Me the Lord, the Father's Son, His ambassador and His image, I also send you. He's basically saying: what I have said and done for the world, now you, my disciples, also do. And then He gives them the Holy Spirit and He grants them the power of loosing and binding sins.
St. John Chrysostom, in the 4 th century, writes a book called On the Priesthood and he comments beautifully saying the following:
''Priests have received a power which God has given neither to angels nor to archangels. It was said to them [His disciples]: 'Whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose, shall be loosed.' Temporal rulers have indeed the power of binding; but they can only bind the body. Priests, in contrast, can bind with a bond which pertains to the soul itself and transcends the very heavens. Did [God] not give them all the powers of heaven? 'Whose sins you shall forgive', He says, 'they are forgiven them; whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.' What greater power is there than this? [, says St. John.] The Father has given all judgment to the Son. And now I see the Son placing all this power in the hands of men [His priests, His bishops]. They are raised to this dignity as if they were already gathered up to heaven.” (St. John Chrysostom, On the Priesthood 3:5)
My beloved, it's therefore very clear. When we build up the confidence to go see our father of confession, the priest, we are following a process that is instituted by God and that has been observed since the very early Church.
Now that we have seen why we confess to a priest, let’s take a moment to ask how we ought to confess. Let’s first clarify that we must make a distinction between three separate and unique types of conversations that can be held with a priest.
The first one is the one we are speaking of today, which is true confession. This is usually a 15 to 20-minute dialogue where I speak my sins aloud to God before a priest and I can sometimes include a prescribed spiritual canon given by the priest to help in repentance. We ought to prepare ahead of time through prayer and offering a sincere repentance and come ready to list out our confessions with an attitude that is free from excuses and justifications. At the end of this, the priest prays the prayer of absolution over the believer and the mystery is complete.
The second type of conversation that can be held is that of spiritual counselling. This is when we come to the priest with questions and sometimes concerns not always revolving around a
confession of sin. Oftentimes, we have believers that have a father of confession as their spiritual counsellor as well as the person that they confess to. Sometimes people have two different people, two different fathers: one for confession and another for counselling. Both are fine and acceptable in the Church.
The third type of conversation is that one that is sometimes therapeutic in nature. And although I want everyone to know that we can speak to our spiritual fathers about anything, we ought to know that there is nothing wrong when priests advise some of their children to seek professional help in cases where it is needed. Let's not forget that the priest is there to administer the mysteries of the Church and to guide believers to God. He is not, however, specialized in professional things such as academic, psychological and even medical advice. Therefore you should not be offended in anyway if your priest, out of genuine love for you, directs you to see a professional for your own sake in matters that he cannot best advise you.
We conclude, my beloved, by confirming once again that our relationship with a father of confession is one that is crucial in the life of the orthodox believer. So if any of us, old or young, are hesitant in any way to come forward and to offer a true and sincere repentance, let us be encouraged by the grace of God. Let us hold true God’s promises. Let us set aside our pride and our shame and let us go to God's priests. Let us humbly confess our sins, all of this for the sake of the remission of our sins and for our salvation.
Remember, my beloved: Know your faith, live your faith, and teach your faith. And to God be the glory now and forever unto the ages of all ages. Amen.