The sacrament of repentance is performed when a revolution occurs in the human heart, when a person renounces sin, begins to hate it with fierce hatred. Then he no longer falls into sin. He has temptations, desires, and all sorts of thoughts that incline him to sin, but he successfully fights them with the help of God's grace. And if there is no grace, then, of course, he cannot defeat sin.

How can we attract the grace of God into our hearts? We must try to have true repentance in him. To do this, we need to become aware of our sins, to see all their abomination, to understand that they hinder us from reaching the Kingdom of Heaven. One must truly desire the Kingdom of Heaven; with all our soul, to love God deeply, deeply.

That's how it is usual if a person likes something, for example, fried potatoes, then he, of course, tries to buy potatoes more often, fry and eat them more often. If a person likes to watch TV, of course, it burns in the morning, in the afternoon, and in the evening. If a young man and a young woman fall in love with each other, of course, they want to be always together, and that's why they get married. The same is true for a mother – if she loves her child, then she takes care of him, reads books to him, brings him up. If he does not love him or does not love enough, then he will send him to kindergarten for five days, give him to his grandmother. And so it is in everything.

If a person loves God, he will constantly go to church, constantly read the Holy Scriptures, pray. He does not need to force himself, because he loves. That is why only he who loves God enters the Kingdom of Heaven; one who loves nothing in the world so much as God alone. He always wants to talk to God, to be with Him, he does not want to be distracted from Him even for a minute. He thinks only about God all the time, only fearing that he will depart from Him, that He may be angered in some way, that he may be deprived of communion with Him. Because such a violation of communication with God is hell. And such communion with God is paradise.

And his fate in eternity depends on whether a person has come to know God in this earthly life, whether he has joined Him, whether he has loved Him. If the Lord sees that a person has devoted his whole life to approaching Him, of course, such a person does not die, but passes from death directly to life. He passes directly into the embrace of the Father, inherits the Kingdom of Heaven, prepared for him by the Heavenly Father, because man loves God, and how can God, who loves all people, deprive him of this communion with God?! Well, the one who does not love God, who does not need God, naturally loses God, is deprived of the Kingdom of Heaven. He needs health, he needs fame, wealth, the development of his intellectual abilities, his own interesting life, he needs himself – and he remains with himself.

When a person loves God and desires the Kingdom of Heaven, then he will begin to see what prevents him from knowing God. This knowledge is hindered by sin. For example, he wanted not to be distracted from God, but his thoughts interfere with him, and a person begins to hate his thoughts. He noticed that as soon as he eats too much, his prayer disappears, which means that he hates his own gluttony. If a person has not read the Holy Scriptures for a long time, he feels that somehow his heart has grown cold, that such laziness to read the Scriptures leads him away from God, from the true spiritual life – and so he hates his laziness. He begins to hate his talkativeness, fornication, his condemnation, rudeness, vanity. Thus, gradually, gradually, a person begins to hate sin in himself, because it does not allow him to see God, does not allow him to constantly communicate with God, to be with Him all the time. And little by little, he begins to straighten out his life. This correction is called repentance.

A person comes to confession. It is not without reason that it is always read before it: "Behold, child, Christ stands invisibly, accepting thy confession." That is, it is not the priest who receives confession, but the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. That is why he approaches not the priest, but the Lord Jesus Christ Himself and says: Lord, I have realized in my life that I am prevented from uniting with You by such and such qualities of mine, acquired and inherited, which are in my soul. You help me to improve, You heal me, I just hate it, I hate what is in me. And when the Lord sees that there is a sincere desire and a sincere hatred of sin in him, the person will leave confession, touching the cross and the Gospel, completely healed. This sin will no longer be in him, he will never repeat it again. If repentance is deep, if there is a real awareness of sin, then the grace of God comes and heals a person.

Then, when the first layer of sin is removed from his soul, the second will appear under it. People often say: what is it, I never knew about myself, and suddenly I got out of me. It's very simple: you have struggled with those sins that are on the surface, and the Lord helped you to correct them, and now the second layer is revealed. If you take it off, there is a third, a fourth, because in our souls such layers of sins come one after another. And we don't need to live in order to process food into manure – there are animals that do it perfectly. Man was created by God to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The Lord wants to lead every person into the Kingdom of Heaven. So these layers need to be removed, removed, and there is no need to be surprised that we have many of them. Life is given to everyone just enough to be completely cleansed of all sins.

And we must try to do so; we must endure the way the Lord heals us, how He Himself heals us with all kinds of sorrows, illnesses, difficulties – He applies plasters to our soul in order to steam this scab. For example, let's say we have some kind of sore on the body, and if we apply a compress to it, it will get wet, it can be slowly peeled off. Slowly, because you can't tear it off with meat, it will be very painful. So is sin. The Lord will send some kind of illness, we will be ill for a day or two, a month, a year – you see, the soul will soften a little, and then we can remove this sinful scab. The Lord Himself chooses medicines for everyone according to their soul, according to their illness. And we must thank God for this.

Some people who are mistaken think that if order is established on earth, if human relations are good, so that everything is fair, then immediately people will be good, beauty will immediately come. And no, nothing works, on the contrary, it gets worse - and crime grows, and people drink more vodka. The question is, why is this? Because you need to deal with the soul first of all. For example, a bad person was born, and his mother raised him badly, and the guys on the street taught him who knows what. How can he become good? Is it possible? I read Gorky, I read Chernyshevsky, I read Mayakovsky – "Who to be?", "What is to be done?". I will know everything. So what, will I become better? No.

Not a single book, not a single movie, not a single wonderful performance can correct a person. Put a criminal in the auditorium, where the actors say the best words from the stage, the dramaturgy is wonderful. So what, will it come out cleaned? No, a play or a book can only give rise to a thought about what is good and what is bad. But neither Tolstoy, nor Dostoevsky, nor Pushkin, nor anyone can purify a person, make him good from bad. Because a writer may write correctly, but he himself does not do the right thing. And if you look at, for example, a biography of Leo Tolstoy or "Confessions", you think, well, well! One sinner cannot correct another sinner.

And a person cannot correct himself. We are often surprised: why can't I do anything, no matter how hard I try, I can't do anything with myself? But if it were possible to be cleansed from sin without God, the question arises, would Christ have come to earth? Only God can correct a person, because He created him, He knows how his soul is arranged. And God loves man. Therefore, if we want to be better, we must turn to God. Only He can give us the grace that will make us better from bad, clean from dirty, clever from fools, beautiful from ugly. And in all difficulties, sorrows, in the struggle with sin, we must ask Him: "Lord, help, you see, I am exhausted, you see how I struggle with sin. You help me."

And if we do our best to refrain from sin and ask for God's help, we will see how the grace of God will begin to heal us, miracles will happen. These miracles are manifested in the Church every hour. We simply do not notice it, because the Kingdom of Heaven does not come in a noticeable way. Gradually, gradually, by the grace of God, all the most beautiful things that were laid down by God will be revealed in us.

Living without God, a person usually becomes worse and worse, more gloomy, angrier, more envious, he cultivates evil in himself, turns into some kind of monster gradually, as if he is maturing in sin. And if, on the contrary, he strives for God, then he becomes better, purer and more beautiful. And if we have such an aspiration, then each of our confessions will turn out to be a step forward towards God, and not just a formality before communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ.