Fr. Barnabas Iankos: Why do I get stuck in guilt?
Our feelings of guilt are useful as symptoms that show us we are not well. But we never dwell in them. In actuality, repentance means the suppression of the feeling of guilt.
Guilt is in essence an alarm signal that shows us that something is not going right within us. At this stage, this is useful, so that I can find out what I lack, this emptiness I have that provokes this guilt in me. But we will not get stuck in this feeling of guilt because it is a selfish act, it is a self-preoccupation: “I did this, woe to me! Why did I do this? Why am I this way or that?”.
This continuous observation and self-preoccupation is an egotistical act through which we seek to justify ourselves, analyze our guilt, and be preoccupied with it - thinking that if we do this, we will pay off the evil we did to ourselves or others and we will get rid of our guilt. No! There is no guilt from the moment Christ was crucified! There is no guilt from the moment we repent - but it is essential that we repent.
Repentance does not mean being preoccupied with my passions and analyzing them: how much I have sinned or not, how good or bad I am. True repentance means establishing a relationship with God. Sins represent symptoms that show that I do not have a genuine relationship with the Lord, that for me God is not the yearning and ache of my heart (that is to say, I need to yearn for Him and rejoice in Him, He needs to become my life), that He does not fill my existence. And this has filled me with sins and failures. But I do not get preoccupied with them. They are useful just like an illness is useful. An illness with no symptoms is very dangerous. Symptoms show us that we are ill and we need to see a doctor so that we can get healed. Our doctor is Christ!
From now on, I am not preoccupied with the symptoms. I have found the most important thing. I have found the solution, I have found the healing which is Christ! Aren’t you impressed that in the parable of the Prodigal Son, when the son returned home, he said to God the Father: “I have sinned against heaven and against You.” Did you notice any discussion regarding his sins? Or what he did and how he behaved in that distant country? Does the Father mention the son’s guilt at all? Nothing! From the moment the son came back and the Father embraced him, everything was over. It is the agreement of the reconciliation of our hearts with God. And when the heart is reconciled with God, it is reconciled with every human being.
And so, our feelings of guilt are useful as symptoms that show us we are not well. But we never dwell in them. In actuality, repentance means the suppression of the feeling of guilt. This is what we also say in Church: we have confused the compunction of the heart with depression. This disposition we have of being preoccupied with ourselves is cunning. We continuously analyze ourselves, looking to justify ourselves. We call this self-condemnation, but it is our wounded egotism. At some point, it can even be a demonic state - please allow me to use this expression - when it throws people into despair, into despondency, or into an inner rift that darkens their lives and the lives of those around them.
Usually, the psychological behavior of people who have such a self-condemnation shows suspicion and judgment toward others, and this is an “entanglement” that we can call, to use a nicer term, wounded egotism. And this is man’s attempt, without divine grace, to revive his fallen self. It is idolatry. I have fallen, I am in a state of collapse, and I try to get up by myself, to sit by myself on a throne, to make my own ‘self’ into an idol and to worship it. And, because I have not succeeded (because this has been my goal), because I have failed, I now whimper and pity myself, thinking that I can thus get rid of my guilt. We don’t get rid of guilt by whimpering or by condemning ourselves, but when we direct ourselves toward God’s love.
We need to be very careful. We see this in religious circles, especially with people who have a sensitive and fearful conscience, that they dwell in their sins, that they are permanently preoccupied with their sins, that they are continuously condemning themselves - thinking this is somehow a spiritual act. No! This is a dangerous act, which hides a specific religious egotism.
Translated from Romanian subtitles by Grig Gheorghiu: