And one sin, you know, if we confess it, if we repent, it is not very difficult for Him to forgive us. I will tell you a story, and stories remain. I heard it myself from a friend, a very dear hermit monk, who has experienced it himself and considers it a verified reality, not something imaginary, and it is from our own times. He had gone to a hospital, and there he met a friend of his, a priest, who was very sorrowful. He tells him, "Father, what is happening?" He says, "Look, you see, I have here a young spiritual child of mine, who is in his last days..."
This is not... it is terrifying; like this, it is expected—we will all reach some time in this condition. The terrifying thing is that he sees demons in this final phase, let's say, of his life. And you know, when a person, let's say, reaches the end of his life, because the curse falls—let's say it with the word "curse"—he sees the spiritual world, and he sees, according to the life he has lived, either the angels, who come to take his soul, or the demons. So, looking at demons is not a good thing at all; it is not good. They went together to see him, and they tell him, "What do you see?" He says, "I see some black, sour [ugly] men, who are beside me... and they are looking at me and want to tear me apart, and they are mocking me as well... because, he says, they also see something on my back, stuck..." ...They are reading a paper; this was it, and they are laughing. "And he says, "The angels... but the angels do not dare to come into the room; they are at the door, being sorrowful and grieved." Then God enlightened the priest and said, "You can... tell the angels to read what this paper says.,which is stuck on your back?" This one was a bit relieved; he spoke [was in touch] with the environment, and something was murmuring. After a little while, he came to his senses and said, "Father, they told me... they told me what it says. It is a sin that I had committed in my youth... and I had been ashamed at that time to confess it, and then I forgot it." A heavy, secular sin. So the priest says, "Go outside all of you, to tell me your "sin"—he was a spiritual father. Indeed, the man told his sin, and immediately he found relief; everything changed. He tells him, "What do you see now?" He says, "The demons left, grilling [burning], very angry because he told his sin, and the angels came inside, very happy." And he tells him something else: "This paper that I had stuck on my back, now I see it stuck on the foot of the bed." Do you understand what that means? For our rights to be lifted through confession, our rights are redeemed [our debts/charges]. A sin had the man told, and the demons were ready to tear him apart. "How then do we compromise ourselves?" – and for this reason, surely, the spiritual fathers tell us, "Never leave a sin unconfessed for too long." Maybe you don't remember it; you forgot it... and you don't allow me to tell my sin. This trap—says the holy Zosimas—is the devil. A trap you have when you make... when you go to make your confession, not when it is for an apocalypse [revelation] and you are set free.
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