In practical terms this preparation consists, first of all, in the awareness not only of "Christian principles" in general, but precisely of Communion itself—both of the one that I have already received and which, by making me a partaker of the Body and Blood of Christ, judges my life, challenges me with the inescapable call to be what I have become, and of the one that I shall receive, in the life and holiness and approaching light of which time itself and all the details of my life acquire an importance, a spiritual significance which from a purely human and "secular" point of view they would not have. A venerable priest, when asked how one can live a Christian life in the world, answered: "Simply by remembering that tomorrow (or after tomorrow, or in a few days) I shall receive Holy Communion. ..".
One of the simplest ways to generate the beginning of that awareness is to include prayers before and after Communion into our daily rule of prayer. Usually we read the prayers of preparation just before Communion and the prayers of thanksgiving just after, and having read them, we simply return to our "profane" life. But what prevents us from reading one or several prayers of thanksgiving during the first days of the week after the Sunday Eucharist, and the prayers of preparation during the second part of the week, thus introducing the awareness of the Sacrament into our daily life, referring the whole of our life to the Holy Gifts received and about to be received? This of course is only one step. Much more is needed and, above all, a real rediscovery—through preaching, teaching, and counseling—of the Eucharist itself as the Sacrament of the Church and therefore the very source of all Christian life.
The second level of preparation is centered on that self-examination of which St. Paul speaks: "...let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup" (I Cor. 11:28). The goal of that preparation consisting of fasting, special prayers (the Rule for Those Preparing Themselves for Communion), spiritual concentration, silence, etc., is, as we have seen already, not to make a man consider himself "worthy," but to make him aware precisely of his unworthiness and to lead him to true repentance. Repentance is all this: man seeing his sinfulness and weakness, realizing his state of separation from God, experiencing sorrow and pain because of that state, desiring forgiveness and reconciliation, rejecting the evil and opting for a return to God, and finally desiring Communion for the "healing of soul and body."
This repentance begins however not with preoccupation with one's self but with the contemplation of the holiness of Christ's gift, of the heavenly reality to which one is called. It is only because and inasmuch as we see the "bridal chamber adorned" that we can realize that we are deprived of the garment needed to enter therein. It is only because Christ has come to us that we can truly repent, i.e., see ourselves as unworthy of His love and of His holiness and thus desire to return to Him. Without this true repentance, this inner and radical "change of mind," communion for us will be for "damnation" and not "healing." Yet it is the very fruit of repentance that, by making us realize our total unworthiness, it takes us to Christ as the only salvation, healing, and redemption. By revealing to us our unworthiness, repentance fills us with that desire, that humility, that obedience which alone, in the eyes of God, makes us "worthy." Read the prayers before Communion. They all contain that one cry:
...I am not worthy, Master and Lord, that You should enter under the roof of my soul. Yet inasmuch as You desire to live in me as the lover of men, I approach with boldness. You have commanded: let the doors be opened which You alone have made and You shall enter with Your love . . . You shall enter and enlighten my darkened reasoning. I believe that You will do this...
Finally, the third and the highest level of preparation is reached when we desire to receive Communion simply because we love Christ and long to be united to Him who "with desire has desired" to be united to us. Beyond the need and the desire for forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing there is, there must be, simply this: our love for Christ whom we love "because He first loved us" (I John 4:19). And ultimately it is this love and nothing else that makes it possible for us to cross the abyss separating the creature from the Creator, the sinful from the Holy One, this world from the Kingdom of God. It is this love which alone truly transcends and therefore abolishes as an irrelevant dead end all our human—all too human—digressions about "worthiness" and "unworthiness," brushes away our fears and inhibitions, makes us surrender to the Divine Love. "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear. Because fear has torment. He that fears is not made perfect in love..." (I John 4:18). It is this love which inspired the beautiful prayer of St. Symeon the New Theologian:
...partaking of the Divine Mysteries which deify man, I am no longer alone, but with Thee, O my Christ.... And I shall not be left without Thee, the Life-Giver, my breath, my life, my joy, the salvation of the world.
Such is then the goal of all preparation, all repentance, all efforts and prayers: that we may love Christ and "with boldness and without condemnation" partake of the Sacrament in which Christ's love is given to us.
What—in this preparation—is the place of sacramental confession? We must ask this question and try to answer it because in many Orthodox Churches there developed, and is commonly accepted today, the doctrine which affirms that Communion for laity is impossible without sacramental confession and absolution. Even if someone wishes to receive Communion frequently, he must each time go to Confession or at least receive sacramental absolution.
The time has come to state openly that whatever the various and sometimes serious reasons that brought this doctrine and this practice into existence, they not only have no foundation in Tradition but, in fact, lead to very alarming distortions of the Orthodox doctrine of the Church, of the Eucharist, and of the Sacrament of Penance itself.
To be convinced of this one has to recall the initial understanding by the Church of the Sacrament of Penance. It was and, according to the essential teaching of the Church, still is the Sacrament of reconciliation with the Church, of the return to her and into her life of those excommunicated, i.e., excluded from the eucharistic gathering of the Church. At first the high moral standard of life expected from the members of the Church, and the very strict ecclesiastical discipline, allowed for only one such reconciliation: "After that great and holy calling [of Baptism] if anyone is tempted by the devil and sins, he has but one penance," we read in The Shepherd of Hermas, a Christian document of the second century, "for if anyone should sin and do penance frequently, to such a man his penance will be of no avail." Later on, and especially after the massive Christianization of the Empire following the conversion of the Emperor Constantine, the discipline of Penance was somewhat relaxed, but the understanding of the Sacrament itself was in no way altered: it was for those alone who were excommunicated from the Church for acts and sins clearly defined in the canonical Tradition of the Church. And that this understanding of the Sacrament of Penance remains that of the Church even today is clearly seen in the very prayer of absolution: "...reconcile him (her) with Thy Holy Church in Christ Jesus our Lord. ..." (This incidentally is the prayer of absolution used universally in the Orthodox Church. As to the second one, unknown to many Orthodox Churches—"...and I, an unworthy priest, by the power given unto me, do forgive and absolve..."— it is of Western origin and was introduced into our liturgical books at the time of the acute "Latinization" of Orthodox theology.)