Weep over your sin: it is a spiritual ailment; it is
death to your immortal soul; it deserves ceaseless, unending weeping and crying;
let all tears flow for it and sighing come forth without ceasing from the depths
of your heart.
In profound humility I weep for all my sins,
voluntary and involuntary, conscious and unconscious, covert and overt, great
and little, committed by word and deed, in thought and intention, day and night,
at every hour and minute of my life.
I weep over my pride and my ambition, my self love
and my boastfulness; I weep over my fits of anger, irritation, excessive
shouting, swearing, quarreling and cursing;
I weep for having criticized, censured, gossiped,
slandered, and defamed, for my wrath, enmity, hatred, envy, jealousy, vengeance
and rancor;
I weep over my indulgences in lust, impure thoughts
and evil inclinations; covetousness, gluttony, drunkenness, and sloth;
I weep for having talked idly, used foul language,
blasphemed, derided, joked, ridiculed, mocked, enjoyed empty gaiety, singing,
dancing and every pleasure to excess;
I weep over my self indulgence, cupidity, love of
money and miserliness, unmercifulness and cruelty;
I weep over my laziness, indolence, negligence, love
of comfort, weakness, idleness, absent-mindedness, irresponsibility,
inattention, love of sleep, for hours spent in idle pursuits, and for my lack of
concentration in prayer and in Church, for not observing fasts and not doing
charitable works.
I weep over my lack of faith, my doubting, my
perplexity, my coldness, my indifference, my weakness and unfeelingness in what
concerns the Holy Orthodox Faith, and over all my foul, cunning and reviling
thoughts;
I weep over my exaggerated sorrow and grief,
depression and despair, and over sins committed willingly.
I weep, but what tears can I find for a worthy and
fitting way to weep for all the actions of my ill fated life; for my
immeasurable and profound worthlessness? How can I reveal and expose in all its
nakedness each one of my sins, great and small, voluntary and involuntary,
conscious and unconscious, overt and covert, every hour and minute of sin? When
and where shall I begin my penitential lament that will bear fitting fruit?
Perhaps soon I may have to face the last hour of my life; my soul will be
painfully sundered from my sinful and vile body; I shall have to stand before
terrible demons and radiant angels, who will reveal and torment me with my sins;
and I, in fear and trembling, will be unprepared and unable to give them an
answer; the sight and sound of wailing demons, their violent and bold desire to
drag me into the bottomless pit of Hell will fill my soul with confusion and
terror. And then the angels of God will lead my poor soul to stand before God 's
fearful seat of judgment. How will I answer the Immortal King, or how will I
dare, sinner that I am, to look upon My Judge? Woe is me! I have no good answer
to make, for I have spent all my life in indolence and sin, all my hours and
minutes in vain thoughts, desires and yearnings!
And how many times have I taken the Name of God in
vain!
How often, lightly and freely, at times even boldly,
insolently and shamelessly have I slandered others in anger; offended,
irritated, mocked them!
How often have I been proud and vainglorious and
boasted of good qualities that I do not possess and of deeds that I have not
done!
How many times have I lied, deceived, been cunning
or flattered, or been insincere and deceptive; how often have I been angry,
intolerant and mean!
How many times have I ridiculed the sins of my
brother, caused him grief overtly and covertly, mocked or gloated over his
misdeeds, his faults or his misfortunes; how many times have I been hostile to
him, in anger, hatred or envy!
How often have I laughed stupidly, mocked and
derided, spoke without weighing my words, ignorantly and senselessly, and
uttered a numberless quantity of cutting, poisonous, insolent, frivolous,
vulgar, coarse, brazen words!
How often, affected by beauty, have I fed my mind,
my imagination and my heart with voluptuous sensations, and unnaturally
satisfied the lusts of the flesh in fantasy! How often has my tongue uttered
shameful, vulgar and blasphemous things about the desires of the flesh!
How often have I yearned for power and been
gluttonous, satiating myself on delicacies, on tasty, varied and diverse foods
and wines; because of intemperance and lack of self-control how often have I
been filled past the point of satiety, lacked sobriety and been drunken,
intemperate in food and drink, and broken the Holy Fasts!
How often, through selfishness, pride or false
modesty, have I refused help and attention to those in need, been uncharitable,
miserly, unsympathetic, and mercenary and grasped at attention!
How often have I entered the House of God without
fear and trembling, stood there in prayer, frivolous and absent-minded, and left
it in the same spirit and disposition! And in prayer at home I have been just as
cold and indifferent, praying little, lazily, and indolently, inattentively and
impiously, and even completely omitting the appointed prayers!
And in general, how slothful I have been, weakened
by indolence and inaction; how many hours of each day have I spent in sleep, how
often have I enjoyed voluptuous thoughts in bed and defiled my flesh! How many
hours have I spent in empty and futile pastimes and pleasures, in frivolous talk
and speech, jokes and laughter, games and fun, and how much time have I wasted
conclusively in chatter, and gossip, in criticizing others and reproaching them;
how many hours have I spent in time-wasting and emptiness! What shall I answer
to the Lord God for every hour and every minute of lost time? In truth, I have
wasted my entire life in laziness.
How many times have I lost heart and despaired of my
salvation and of God's mercy or through stupid habit, insensitivity, ignorance,
insolence, shamelessness, and hardness sinned deliberately, willingly, in my
right mind, in full awareness, in all goodwill, in both thought and intention,
and in deed, and in this fashion trampled the blood of God 's covenant and
crucified anew within myself the Son of God and cursed Him!
O how terrible the punishment that I have drawn upon
myself!
How is it that my eyes are not streaming with
constant tears?.. If only my tears flowed from the cradle to the grave, at every
hour and every minute of my tortured life! Who will now cool my head with water
and fill the well of my tears and help me weep over my soul that I have cast
into perdition?
My God, my God! Why hast Thou forsaken me? Be it
unto me according to Thy will, O Lord! If Thou wouldst grant me light, be Thou
blessed; if Thou wouldst grant me darkness, be Thou equally blessed. If Thou
wouldst destroy me together with my lawlessness, glory to Thy righteous
judgment; and if Thou wouldst not destroy me together with my lawlessness, glory
to Thy boundless mercy!
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