Is it that Confession is obligatory before
every Communion
or is that you take Communion whenever you want and
have Confession whenever you want?
Such is the false question which I first heard over forty
years ago, to which any answer must also be false, for
false questions can only have false answers. What is the
reality?
Confession and Communion are two different Sacraments.
Thus, you can have Confession and not take Communion
and you can, in some circumstances, take Communion
without Confession. In other words, you can have
Confession very often and take Communion less often.
This is the opposite of the modernism’s apparent
hatred of Confession and love of obligatory Communion
– which is not part of the Church. The impression
given is that modernism does not believe that its
adherents any sins and that therefore they have nothing
to repent of. If this is so, then it is spiritual
pride. Of course, this impression may be quite wrong,
but it is the one made. After all, a doctor does not
prescribe medicine, if he cannot first make a
diagnosis, and Confession is precisely diagnosis.
If we are talking about nominal Orthodox who take
Communion only occasionally, perhaps once or twice a year
or once or twice every ten or twenty years, then
Confession before every Communion is the rule.
What about Communion whenever you want and Confession
whenever you want? This statement is a piece of consumerism
that treats the Church as a supermarket and has its roots
in the anti-sacramental and therefore anti-priestly
Protestant mentality that lies behind consumerism:
‘Do whatever you want whenever you want’.
Little wonder that this mentality is that of certain
unChurched converts, precisely of Protestant origin, who
always take Communion without Confession and even scorn
cradle Orthodox who do not take Communion at every
Liturgy. The result is that cradle Orthodox no longer
attend convert services, feeling hostility. And that is a
pity because it means that unChurched converts can no
longer meet anyone they can learn from, with the result
that convert ghettos are only reinforced.
What then is the ideal? It is to take Communion,
voluntarily, according to personal spiritual needs, when
you spiritually need it (not when you want it –
‘want’ is the word of consumerists) and to
have Confession beforehand because we should need
Confession before Communion. If we do not feel the need
for Confession, it suggests that we do not need Communion.
Put simply, if a full dustbin does not know that it needs
emptying (Confession), then it does not need filling
(Communion).
There are exceptions to this. Firstly, in parish life, for
example during Passion Week or Bright Week or at other
times as before the Nativity or Theophany, when there may
be liturgies on several consecutive days and simply we may
feel no need for Confession two or more days running
because the faithful are striving to live a quiet and
devout life ‘in all godliness and honesty’.
The second exception is in monastic life or among those
who are living a monastic-style life in the world and may
take Communion more regularly but only have Confession
every few days or even every few weeks, according to their
spiritual father’s directions.
Preparation before Communion assumes not only Confession,
but also that the fast days in the week before Communion
and due abstinence are observed, together with the fast
from midnight, that the faithful attend the vigil service
(or vespers and matins) before the Liturgy and that they
also read the rule before Communion.
Modernism
which has more or less abandoned the sacrament of
Confession (if it ever knew it) will say that it does not
need Confession frequently because the ‘early
Christians’ took Communion every day. This is
dangerous spiritual pride. Are modernists seriously
claiming that they live on the spiritual level of Orthodox
in the first centuries who faced possible martyrdom every
single day? Let us face reality. Those in modernist groups
who want weekly or even daily Communion (impossible for
menstruating girls and women) are simply copying
heterodox, for whom, in any case, there is no Body and
Blood of Christ, but just biscuit wafers with or without
some wine. And what is unconsumed among them, they throw
away. Such modernism is not Orthodox and should learn what
the Apostle Paul says and tremble:
Wherefore whoever shall eat this bread and drink this
cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body
and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and
so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For he
that eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks damnation
to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this
cause many are weak and sickly among you and many
sleep (1 Cor 11:27-30).
Confession and Communion form a virtuous circle, for the
benefits of Communion depend directly on our preparation
for it. Modernism which superstitiously misbelieves that
Communion is a sort of magic, which confers its benefits
(listed in the prayers before and after Communion)
automatically, without any effort on our part, is sadly
and dangerously mistaken. I have often seen the sorrowful
consequences of this mistake in the past decades and they
always lead to lapsing from the Faith, which is the only
thing that Satan wants us to do.
31 / 01 / 2017
Source -pravoslavie.ru
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