Rome regarded penance as the reconciliation of serious sinners, often only of the excommunicate; in the Celtic Church it was remedial, applying to all Christians and all types of sin. Reconciliation differs from remedy in that the one is a juridical term and the other pastoral. The first implies the legal reinstatement of the excommunicate or of a grave sinner who has “fallen out of grace”. The second implies healing and therefore growth, which gives it an ascetical rather than a merely moral implication. The defendant of a lawsuit gains nothing on acquittal; at best he is back where he was before. A patient who is healed and strengthened may be better than he was before treatment.
English Spirituality, 151
The practice of “confession of thoughts” for example, was confused with the sacrament of confession by observers who became scandalized at what looked to them like sacrilege. The elder receiving the confession of thoughts would not necessarily be a priest. In a woman’s monastery, it would most likely be a nun. Among those who were most severely persecuted, were Elder Leonid’s disciples in women’s convents. The spiritual texts recommended by the elders to their disciples were the basic ones that had been read by monks throughout the history of monasticism. Certainly Russian monks of earlier ages (such as St. Nilus of Sora (1508+) also practiced the confession of thoughts and it is believed that the practice was quite wide-spread. 18 Yet these early texts were being seen in Russian or Slavonic for the first time, and so they were believed to be innovative and potentially heretical. These texts include Abba Dorotheos’s Discourses and Sayings, The Fifty Homilies of St. Macarius the Great, The Ladder of Divine Ascent by St. John Climacus, The Spiritual Homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian, Spiritual Counsels by Saints Barsanuphius and John among others. Throughout these trials the elders recognized the spiritual origin and nature of the war against them, and understood that those monks removed from their midst would be as leaven in the monasteries they were assigned to. Thus they remained at peace.
Spiritual Treasure in Filthy Rags: An Introduction to the Paisian Tradition through the Optina Elders, 18-19.
a fool and his prayer book 