True Repentance

St. Nikolai Velimerovic

When a man once truly repents, he needs to avoid thinking about the sins he committed, so that he will not sin again.  St. Anthony counsels: “Be careful that your mind be not defiled with the remembrance of former sins — that the remembrance of those sins not be renewed in you.”  He also says: “Do not establish your previously committed sins in your soul by thinking about them, so that they not be repeated in you.  Be assured that they were forgiven you from the time that you gave yourself to God and to repentance.  In that, do not doubt.”  It is said of St. Ammon that he attained such perfection that, in his abundance of godliness, he no longer recognized that evil even existed.  When they asked him what is that “narrow and difficult path,” he replied: “It is the restraining of one’s thoughts, and the severing of one’s desires, in order to fulfill the will of God.”  Whoever restrains sinful thoughts does not think of his own sin or the sins of others, or of anything corruptible or earthly.  The mind of such a man is continually in heaven, where there is no evil.  Thus, sin gradually ceases to be in him — not even in his thoughts.

Velimirovic, Saint Nikolai (2012-09-01). The Prologue of Ohrid. Sebastian Press Publishing House. Kindle Edition.