But perhaps intensified repentance is needed only for great sinners, and not for us?

In the Gospel there is one, at first glance, mysterious phrase. The Lord said: "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" (Matt. 9:13).

And He was often accused of having more dealings with sinners, prostitutes and tax collectors, and less with those who strictly observed the law of Moses, with the scribes and Pharisees.

Why did the Lord not want to deal with the "righteous"? Because those who considered themselves "righteous" who had no need of repentance were in fact in self-deception, were proud, i.e. sinned with the sin most hateful to God, and were spiritually incurable, thanks to the complete absence of consciousness of their sinfulness.

There are no "righteous" people on earth at all. The Prophet David said: "All have deviated, have become equally useless; there is none that doeth good, there is not one" (Psalm 13:3).And one elder (his name remains unknown) said to his disciple thus: "Know, son, that not only I and you, imaginary monks, are in need of unceasing sobriety and weeping, but also the great ascetics need them. Hear the following spiritual reasoning: lies from the devil; a passionate view of a woman is imputed by God to fornication. Anger against one's neighbor is numbered among murder, for every idle word a reward is promised. Who is a man and where can he be found, who would not know lies, who would not be tempted by lust, who would never be angry with his neighbor in vain, in whom idle talk would not be found and who, therefore, would not need repentance?"

And here is what Fr. Alexander Elchaninov writes about the same thing: "You justify yourself by saying that your offense is small, unimportant. But there is nothing unimportant, insignificant in the world - neither bad nor good. The most insignificant action, the most casual word, the most fleeting feeling, are as important and real as everything in the world. Therefore, all the smallest must correspond to the most important, and nothing can be considered unworthy of attention or free from our responsibility." Let us conquer our prideful consciousness of our illusory "righteousness," let us pity our poor soul, disgraced by sin and passions, which is in bondage to the evil spirit, and realize for ourselves the need for active, deep repentance.

Thus, all people without exception need repentance: all are sick, all are in spiritual ulcers.

As Fr. St. Isaac the Syrian: "Repentance is always proper for all sinners and righteous people who wish to obtain salvation. And there is no limit to perfection, because the perfection of even the most perfect is truly imperfect. Therefore, that repentance until death is not determined either by time or by deeds."

This can explain the spiritual paradox formulated by Archimandrite (later Patriarch) Sergius in the following way: "The higher a person is morally, the stronger is his awareness of his unworthiness and the more abundant are his tears of repentance. Such, for example, is St. Ephraim the Syrian, whose works are almost incessant weeping, although they bear indelible traces of the heavenly joy inherent in every true righteous man."

Hence, those who in self-deception do not consider themselves sick, consider themselves if not "righteous", then, in any case, not some "great" sinners, should be considered especially sick and intractable.

Thus, in order to be healed, one must first of all feel one's illness and recognize the need for a physician, i.e., recognize one's sinfulness. Without acknowledging it, a person is hopelessly ill and is in a state of proud self-deception. Christ is the Physician of our infirmities. But He waits for us to turn to Him, for us to confess our sins, and then He removes them from us and gives us the strength to fight against sin. But what is repentance?

Here is the definition of repentance of St. St. Isaac the Syrian: "The meaning of the word repentance, as we have learned from the actual nature of things, is this: it is an unremitting petition approaching God with a prayer filled with contrition for the forsaking of the past and a supplication for the preservation of the future. Repentance is the ship of the soul, on which it sails and is saved in the mental sea of sin."

And Bishop. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) defines repentance as follows: "In repentance all the commandments of God are combined. Repentance is the consciousness of one's fall, which has made human nature useless, defiled, and therefore constantly in need of the Redeemer."

The process of repentance of the soul is mysterious. In it we open before God the wounds of our souls, and with a sorrowful spirit and pain of heart we testify that we are aware of them, are horrified by their ugliness, and ask for the healing of these wounds and the forgiveness of sins. This path was followed by all those whom the Church reveres as saints and righteous. And only by following this path, "narrow" and "strait," the path of spiritual poverty and the deepest repentance, is the salvation of the soul possible.