When I Think of the Many Evil Things I Have Done...

Here within the Great Fast, the hymnology of the Church changes.  And during the celebration of Matins, we add penitential hymns not used at other times in the year.  Among these is the hymn, "Open to Me the Doors of Repentance."

It's a wonderful hymn, directed toward the Mother of God, and filled with prayerful images of a heart being turned toward God.  The hymn reads:

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
Open to me the doors of repentance, O Life Giver, for my spirit rises early to pray towards Your holy temple, bearing the temple of my body, all defiled.  But in Your compassion, purify me by the loving kindness of Your mercy.
Now and ever, and unto ages of ages.  Amen.
Lead me on the paths of salvation, O Mother of God, for I have profaned my soul with shameful sin, and have wasted my life in laziness.  But by your intercession, deliver me from all impurity.
Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your great mercy, and according to the multitude of Your compassion, blot out my transgression.
When I think of the many evil things I have done, wretch that I am, I tremble at the fearful Day of Judgment.  But trusting in Your lovingkindness, like David I cry to You:
Have mercy on me, O God.
Have mercy on me, O God.
Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your great mercy.


The hymn is filled with imagery of that which is wrong in my life, the things that I must not only confess, but seek the Lord's help to overcome in fighting the temptation which regularly causes me to fail and fall.  It also points me in the direction of not thinking that I can overcome this alone, and it causes me to seek the intercession of the Theotokos.  As the Mother of God, she is the Protectress of Christians.  It is she who can offer intercessory prayers before her Son, our God, as she did at the wedding in Cana of Galilee.

The hymn is a paraphrase of the soul searching of the Prodigal.  I have profaned my soul with shameful sin.  Many may say, "What have I done that is so horrible, father?"  The response is that anything which separates us from the holiness and purity of God separates us from Him, and is sinful, is something that indeed is shameful, deserving of either separation from the Love of God, or conversely, deserving of being confessed and forgiven.

Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom), in his book "Beginning to Pray," encouraged the reader to take a prayer offered in this day, and to focus on only one aspect of the prayer.  Make just one thing that which you attempt at all times in this present day to complete with all integrity and diligence.  For example, within Morning Prayers, there is a phrase, "Grant that I may be diligent and faithful, avoiding evil company and influence, resisting temptation, that I may lead a godly and righteous life, blameless and peaceful, ever serving You, and that I may be accounted worthy to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  Amen."


Within this one line of one prayer, we could attempt to go this day being fully diligent, engaged in only good works. Or we could instead seek to turn ourselves away from temptation when it comes to us.  Or we could try to bring peace to all situations we encounter, within self or others.  Can you see the myriad of ways to try to focus on only one thing from only one line of a prayer?

Suppose we take the first path, that of being diligent, engaging only in good works.  We start the day.  We pray.  So far, so good.  We have coffee and breakfast.  No problem so far.  We get into the car, and begin the drive to work.  And at the traffic light, as it turns yellow, we speed up....  The test has been failed, and the day is not yet an hour old.

"Yes, but father, the hymn says 'shameful sins'.  What is shameful in this description?"

When we choose to follow the easy path, the one that is expedient for us personally, without giving prayerful thought to the effects we have on others, this is shameful in and of itself.  There is no sin that I could commit which might not cause a brother or sister in response to sin him- or her-self.  When I went through that yellow light, did the person in the waiting cross traffic get angry with me for not caring about their safety?  In their anger, did my lack of foresight and integrity cause them to sin?

We don't often give thought to such "small" things.  And yet a dish cloth is typically not dirtied by one massive lump of foulness, but by many small specks of filth.  So it is with us in all too many cases.

This is the season to wash the stains from the cloth of our souls.  This is the time to seek the loving kindness of the Lord in repentance, and to enlist the aid of His mother, of our patron saint, of our guardian angel, and of all whom we know care for us spiritually.

And to all who read, forgive me, a sinful servant.