Question to the priest.
I am 19 years old. I go to the church weekly, sing on the kliros and love everything connected with the church. I fell into fornication, and, the strangest or most terrible thing, I cannot leave him: he is a good person, kind, but not very religious, we are former classmates with him. Father, help! Not only that I can’t go to confession, I'm ashamed to look at icons. What should I do? I can't tell anyone about this.
The priest Mikhail Vorobyov, rector of the church in honor of the Exaltation of the Holy Life-Giving Cross of the Lord, town of Volsk, answers.
There can be found no way out of the current situation, except for sincere and deep repentance. You condemn yourself, condemn your sin, you are ashamed of your ambiguous stay in the church - this is the voice of your conscience, which is nothing but the voice of God in the human heart. The Lord calls you to repentance, to the discovery of your sin at confession, which shall be courageous, precise, ruthless towards yourself.
The person is not able to get rid of the sin on his own. To fight temptations, to actually destroy sin, Divine grace is needed, which is given to the penitent sinner in the Sacrament of Confession. Without this, you will never find the strength in yourself to free yourself from your passion, regain peace and balance.
It should be remembered that the fear of the priest when confessing one's sin, the fear of condemnation and publicity are the devil's suggestion, caused by the desire to destroy a person in any way. You will be convinced of this by the extraordinary relief that you will feel after confession.
Sometimes the sinner's uncertainty that he will find the strength to give up the sinful passion becomes an obstacle to confessing the sin. This must be said openly and honestly in confession, asking the confessing priest to pray for these forces to appear.
The Gospel of Mark tells about the healing of a demon-possessed young man who was brought to Jesus by his father: “Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief” (Mark 9:23-24). Even such an imperfect faith, which is on the border with unbelief, was enough for a miracle to happen. In the same way, sincere repentance helps even a spiritually weak person to overcome his or her sin.
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