"We have been quiet among you, as a nurse tenderly treats her children" (1 Thess. 2). "I have become all things to all, that I might save some" (1 Cor. 9).

It is necessary to teach people to confess. How often, instead of confession, you hear completely mundane conversations, boasting about yourself, quoting good reviews about yourself, complaining about loved ones and about the difficulties of life. This is partly due to ignorance, from the lack of church culture, partly from sinful confusion, weakness, when a person does not know how to see himself and does not try to see himself, when he has neither the skill nor the desire to understand his soul, there is no aversion to sin, there is no desire for light and thirst for purification.

Try to make sure that all those who come to confession take away at least one good habit from each retreat – for example, obligatory prayer twice a day, non-condemnation, etc.; persistently inculcate, check — then it becomes a necessity itself.

It happens that, preparing for confession, the person who is fasting at times experiences fear of sin, sincere repentance to the point of tears, and when he comes to the priest, he feels nothing, has no fear and contrition. Is it possible to expand the limits of the sacrament? Is it not possible to consider that the sacrament of repentance includes all communion, prayers, and feelings of repentance, and that the moment of confession itself is only the final, albeit the most important, moment?

Every priest must be well informed in the field of nervous and mental illnesses – this is absolutely necessary in the practice of spiritual fatherhood.

It is a common case when the confessor, and with him the confessor, mistake a phenomenon of a purely nervous nature for religious experiences, or when the priest is unable to determine the hysterical background of many phenomena and thus only worsens the situation. And often the opposite is true: a serious state of the soul, burdened with sin, confused and overshadowed by unresolved conflicts, is mistaken for a nervous disease. There are cases when confession alone cured old and severe, supposedly nervous diseases, against which all medical means were powerless.

A person who confesses often, who does not have deposits of sin in his soul, cannot but be healthy. Confession is a grace-filled discharge of the soul. In this sense, the great importance of confession and of life in general in connection with the grace-filled help of the Church is enormous.

The first, too early confession (there are children, perfect babies at the age of six) does not disturb simplicity, integrity, and spontaneity by artificially awakened introspection? For some children, especially "children", I would postpone it a year or two later.

Today, children (10-12 years old) asked me (apparently after a big argument among themselves) what asceticism is. I answered, "A system of exercises that bring the body into subjection to the spirit." "What are the very first exercises?" – 1) breathing through the nose – 2) food is not full (do not take it a second time) – 3) do not lie in bed.

This can be a topic for a large independent conversation with children.

We, allowing frequent confession and communion, sometimes forget the salvific power of the duration of the retreat, which is possible only in Great Lent – frequent and special services. Then, during the week, a person has a vivid and convincing experience of struggling with sin, the joy of victory over it, sees the results of his prayer.

The hopelessness of the situation of many penitents, the seeming hopelessness of their situation ("all the same, I will return to the same, I have no strength to fight against sin") lies in the fact that these people stand outside the Church. Their salvation lies in entering the Church, into the communion of love with their brethren. In our church practice, the conciliar character of our sacraments, including the sacrament of repentance, is being lost.

I often notice in those who confess a desire to go through confession painlessly for themselves: either they get away with general phrases, or they talk about trifles, keeping silent about what should really weigh on their conscience. There is also a false shame before the spiritual father and, in general, a faint-hearted fear of seriously beginning to stir up one's life, full of petty and habitual weaknesses. True confession, as a good shock to the soul, frightens with its determination, the need to change something, and even just to think about oneself. Here the priest must show determination, not be afraid to destroy this calmness and try to evoke a feeling of real repentance.

Suspicious people, suspicious of every movement of their souls, torturing themselves and their spiritual father by incessant digging into their souls, and finally coming to complete confusion, should forbid them to introspection and a detailed examination of their conscience and transfer them to a simple but nutritious diet: prayer and good deeds. In these two exercises, the soul is simplified and the sense of Truth is developed; After that, you can return to testing yourself again.