Fr. John Chryssavgis: God loves us in all our sin

 Man in all his sinfulness is loved by God if he can just keep moving towards God. When one does fall, if one only cries out with confidence, the fall is not into nothingness but into the arms of God stretched open once and for all on the Cross.

+Fr. John Chryssavgis, from Repentance and Confession in the Orthodox Church, Introduction.

Fr. John Chryssavgis: Repentance as a Pascha

 Repentance is not a self-contained act: it is a passing over, a Pascha from death to life, a continual renewal of that life. It consists of a reversal of what has become the normal pattern of development, which is the movement from life to death. To experience this reversal in repentance is to have tasted of the glory and beauty of God; it is the mark of man's presence before God in the abundance of His mercy and of God's presence before man in the abyss of his weakness: "Set Your compassion over against our iniquities, and the abyss of Your lovingkindness against our transgression."¹ It is the awareness of God's beauty that makes one realize the chasm that separates one from His gratuitous grace. The initiative belongs to God, but presupposes man's active acceptance, which is a way of perpetually receiving God within the heart, of God being embodied within man, of divine incarnation. Here God call man, and man responds to God and in doing so gains salvation and life abundant: "sorrow working repentance to salvation not to be repented of"(2 Cor 7:10). In repentance it is man's total limitation and insufficiency that is placed before God, not simply particular wrongdoings or transgressions.
+Fr. John Chryssavgis, from Repentance and Confession in the Orthodox Church, Introduction
¹from Vespers of Pentecost, first kneeling prayer

Fr. John Chryssavgis: Assuming blame for your own sins

Assuming the blame for your own sins is by no means identical to avoiding confrontation with others. It means refusing to be victimized. It implies freedom and control over one's life. If you are not in control of what you do, then someone else is in control of your life and you are dis-empowered from any action at all. The first step in personal change can only come from within. Assuming responsibility for your life, and doing something about it, is the beginning of a truly creative and meaningful life. In any case, these desert dwellers knew very well that, even if we have not directly committed a particular wrong, nevertheless our actions - and especially our attitudes - may in fact contribute to the general conditions that allow particular wrongs to occur. We all influence one another's spiritual choices. We are all involved in one another's spiritual growth.
+Fr. John Chryssavgis, In the Heart of the Desert: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, Chapter 5: The Struggle against Demons