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recite your sins before a spiritual father, but it is necessary together with this to purge
your soul with repentance or contrition and grief of soul, and burn it out with voluntary
endurance of afflictions. So then, this is what confession and repentance mean!
What does a true and correct confession consist of?
When we wish to cleanse our conscience of sins in the Mystery of Repentance: Before
everything else it is necessary to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and firmly hope that He
is ready to forgive all sins, no matter of what magnitude, if only the sinner repents open-
heartedly; it is necessary to believe and hope that the God of all wants and seeks our
return.
Of this He assures us through the prophet thus: "As I live, saith the Lord," i. e., I assure
and swear by My life, "In desiring I do not desire", i.e., I do not at all desire, "the death of
a sinner, but entirely desire his conversion."
It is necessary to have a broken heart. Who is God? And who are we? God is the
Almighty Creator of heaven and earth; He is the awful and righteous Judge. And we? We
are weak and insignificant mortals. All people, even the greatest people, are less than dust
before God, and we can never imagine how disgusting to God is any sin and how any
transgression offends Him.
And we, insignificant and weak, we mortals endlessly benefited by our God, dare to
offend Him - the All-Good One? Oh! This is so horrible! We are such debtors before
God, such transgressors, that not only should we not dare to call ourselves His children,
but are not even worthy of being His lowliest servants.
Therefore, picturing all this, you see what contriteness, what lamentation it is necessary
to have then, when we want to purge ourselves of sins. And such a feeling must be had
not only before confession and during confession, but also after confession. And even
more important, do you want to offer a sacrifice to God such as will be acceptable to
Him? Naturally we all gladly want this and as far as possible we offer it. But what can we
offer Him really acceptable? A broken heart. A sacrifice unto God is a broken spirit; a
heart that is broken and humbled, here is an offering to God more priceless than all
offerings and oblations!
It is necessary to forgive all our enemies and offenders all the harmful and offensive
things they have done to us. ForgivenessÁ-¦what does it mean to forgive? To forgive
means never to avenge, neither secretly nor openly; never to recall wrongs but rather to
forget them and, above all, to love your enemy as a friend, a brother, as a comrade; to
protect his honor and to treat him right-mindedly in all things. This is what it means to
forgive.
And who agrees that this is difficult? So, it is a hard matter to forgive wrongs, but he who
can forgive wrongs is for this reason great - truly great, both before God and before man.
Yes, it is a hard matter to forgive your enemies; but it is necessary to forgive, otherwise