Missionary Letters – Saint Bishop Nicholas of Zicki
86th Letter: To the Craftsman Paja C. on Confession
You wanted to know if confession is really necessary? You used to confess often, but you stopped because someone laughed at you for it. You didn’t need to stop. Who didn’t people laugh at? You know how the Most Seer said: woe to you who laugh now, for you will weep and lament.
In addition to your crafts, you say, you also have a vineyard, which bears fruit well because you cultivate it well. If someone were to neglect his vineyard and laugh at you for cultivating it carefully, would you give up the vineyard and stop cultivating it? You certainly wouldn’t do that. How could you then waver in cultivating your soul, which is more important than all the vineyards on earth? For when you die, you will take your soul with you and leave the vineyard. Of all the cultivations, the cultivation of the soul is the most important; and of all the labors that a man labors on earth, the labor for the soul is the most sensible. Therefore, return to the former labor for your soul, and begin to confess again. Thus says the apostle James: Confess your sins to one another. Sins grow and multiply in secret, but as soon as they come to light, they wither and perish. Do not say: I have not sinned! Read what the righteous man writes in the Psalter: I was conceived in iniquity, and in sin did my mother bear me. Nor say: I confess my sins to God alone, and it is not necessary to confess them to men. Who was more righteous than the apostle Paul? And this Paul had one sin before his apostleship, like Saul, and he confessed this sin publicly, not once but many times, and not only before the faithful but also before the pagans. You have heard, he writes to the baptized Galatians, how I persecuted the Church of God and destroyed it. He also declares the same before the unbaptized Emperor Agrippa (Acts 26). So if Saint Paul says so - why then should you keep the wounds of your soul hidden? Why should you let snakes multiply in your bosom? Is it only because someone laughed at you? If he laughed at you once, will he laugh at you forever? Pray to God for him in secret; he can repent and wipe away his sin with tears. What is more wavering than the thoughts of a man? How many and how many people repent in the evening for the words they have spoken during the day! Therefore, regarding your soul, do not listen to everyone who says something to you in passing, but listen to what the Church of God says. Enter into a conversation with spiritual fathers who confess people, and you will hear from them many examples of what spiritual relief those who have earnestly confessed have received. It is no fairy tale but a fact that many dying people in prolonged agony were only able to rest when they confessed their sins to a priest. I myself could give you such examples, which I have witnessed. Our God is a God of mercy and goodness, and He desires the salvation of all people. But how will a person be saved if he does not come and acknowledge the justice of God? With what a person carries in his soul when he dies, he goes to the judgment of God: if there is sin with sin, if there is justice with justice. God expects repentance from every mortal, and repentance includes the confession of one's sins. So since the angel of death can come for our soul every day and every hour, the Church recommends frequent confession and even more frequent repentance to the faithful. May God glorify and bless you.