Removing the Beam

Removing the Beam

I implore and I beseech and I exhort you to confess to God frequently. I do not lead you into a theater of your fellow-servants…. Open your conscience in the presence of God, and show him your wounds, and seek medications from him. Show them not to one who will reproach you but to one who will heal you; for even if you remain silent, he knows all….

If we have been neglectful to the present moment, let us proceed immediately to the work of destroying sin through confession and tears, and by accusing ourselves of our sins, for there is nothing more destructive of sin [when] joined to repentance and tears. 

Have you condemned your sin? You have put aside your burden! Who says so? God himself, who renders judgment. First tell your sins, so that you may be justified (cf. Is 43:26). Why, pray tell, are you ashamed, why do you blush to tell your sins? Do you tell them to a man, such as might reproach you? Do you confess them to a fellow servant, such as might make them public? No, you expose your wound to the Master, to the Guardian, to the Benefactor of mankind, to the Physician…. Unless you tell the magnitude of your debt, you do not experience the abundance of grace. “I do not oblige you,” he says, “to come into the middle of a theater and to be surrounded by many witnesses. Tell your sin to me…so that I may heal your wound and release you from your pain.”

Saint John Chrysostom