Lord, grant us to see our sins, so that our mind, drawn entirely to the attention of our own sins, ceases to see the faults of our neighbors, and thus sees all our neighbors as good. Grant to our hearts to leave the destructive concern for the shortcomings of our neighbor, to unite all our concerns into one concern for the acquisition of the purity and holiness commanded and prepared for us by You. Grant to us, who have desecrated the garments of our souls, to whiten them again: they have already been washed with the waters of baptism; now, after desecration, they need to be washed with tearful waters. Grant us to see, in the light of Your grace, the various ailments living in us, destroying spiritual movements in the heart, introducing blood and carnal movements into it, hostile to the Kingdom of God. Grant us the great gift of repentance, preceded and generated by the great gift of seeing our sins. Protect us with these great gifts from the abyss of self-delusion, which opens in the soul from its unnoticed and incomprehensible sinfulness; is born from the action of unnoticed and incomprehensible voluptuousness and vanity. Protect us with these great gifts on our path to You, and grant us to reach You, who calls confessing sinners and rejects those who recognize themselves as righteous, so that we may forever praise You in eternal bliss, the One True God, the Redeemer of the captives, the Savior of the lost. Amen.
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Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me: for my soul trusts in You, and I hope in the shadow of Your wing, until lawlessness will pass away. I will call to God Most High, the God who has done good to me. He sent from heaven and saved me, giving as reproach to those who trample on me: God sent His mercy and His truth, and delivered my soul from the midst of the Scymnians. Pospakh is confused: the sons of humanity, the teeth of their weapons and arrows, and their tongue is a sharp sword. Ascend into heaven, O God, and Thy glory is throughout all the earth. You have prepared a net for my feet, and slush for my soul: you dug a pit before me, and fell into the nude. My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready: I will sing and sing in my glory. Arise, my glory, arise, psalter and harp: I will arise early. I will confess to You among the people, O Lord, I will sing to You in the midst of the people: for Your mercy has been magnified to the heavens, and even to the clouds of Your truth. Ascend into heaven, O God, and Thy glory is throughout all the earth.
1 Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov). Ascetic experiences. Volume 2.
2 Synodal translation.
See SIN