Confession and spiritual guidance are very different things! It is essential that we understand this, so that we know what to reach for and we have peace in our troubled times.

What is confession? 

Put straightforwardly, in confession I reveal my sins. Simply, without complications, not out of a troubled conscience, but out of a clear one. This means that I do not analyze myself or compare myself (to others, especially not the saints), and I do not measure myself or judge myself. I do not self-diagnose, I do not determine how I am, I just present myself, with my sins, to Christ my true Physician.

Confession offers “absolution” of sins in the original sense of the word, a liberation from the worries and “cares” of our fallen life, things that weigh us down and keep us in the mire of our existence outside of God. Therefore, confession is a reintegration into the life of Christ and his Church. Individual sins are forgiven, but only individual sins, “those which one has confessed,” as the traditional (“Greek”) actual prayer of absolution goes. One is not forgiven those sins which one has not confessed. 

So it is not sinlessness that confession offers us. It is humility, liberation, peace, and forgiveness of the sins that our feeble human understanding allows us to identify and remember. Therefore, unexpectedly enough, confession refocuses us, re-orients us. It shifts the focus away from our sins which—in their committing—took our attention away from Christ and on which—even in the act of repentance—we dwelled enough (but briefly!) in order to be able to point them out. Confession restores our attention to where it should be—on Christ himself. This is the “discernment” or clarity to which the Apostle Paul refers as what Communion requires: understanding that I am sinful and orienting this reality toward Christ. 

For this reason I must avoid the following pitfalls.

• I should not provide stories with my sins. The longer the stories, the more my ego will take over and justify what I have done.
• I should not use adjectives for myself or for what I have done. Christ decides on what or how I am, not me. All I know is what I have done, only he knows me truly for what I am.
• I should not look at what others have done, even if what I have done is in reaction to their behavior.
• I need not confess shortly or immediately before I commune, so that I do not have time to sin after being forgiven. To push confession as close to Communion as possible shows an absolute trust in the fact that a penitent has confessed everything and that someone can be truly sinless. Yet, as many prayers say, sins are voluntary and involuntary, of word, deed, or thought, in knowledge or ignorance etc. This practice increases an obsession with sin, when our obsession should only be with Christ himself.
• I do not go to confession in order to relinquish my freedom. I do not expect my father confessor to tell me what to do, what decisions to take. The abandonment of my freedom (and my responsibility with it) is not the purpose of confession or spiritual guidance. Rather, both confession and spiritual guidance build us up to be people as Christ wants us, mature in him—responsible, decisive, at peace, free, good-hearted, and clear-headed. 
• One of the common and severe pitfalls is to confess on a schedule, on a fixed frequency. What, do we sin on a schedule, too? One should not worry about how often they “should” confess, but rather the focus is on developing that “good conscience” not obsessed with sins that will nudge me to go at the right times, whenever I need to. At some times in our lives this can be more often, at other times this can be more rare, depending on where our hearts are and on whether they have been distracted from Christ.

What is spiritual guidance?

Unlike in confession, where I only reveal my sins, in spiritual guidance I reveal all things on which I wish to receive guidance, both sinful and not sinful—my thoughts, my inclinations, my temptations, my experiences, etc.

A spiritual guide or elder is someone more advanced in the knowledge of how spiritual life works. It is not necessarily someone perfect, fully grown in Christ to the full measure of his stature, but just someone more advanced, someone who can get us ourselves through the segment of the journey in which we are. This person needs not be a priest or bishop or monastic. It can be a lay person, man or woman. They must just have the knowledge to see us through our rough patches.

Must one have an elder or spiritual guide? No. Certainly not on a regular basis. We should not despair if there is no one around us to guide us. It is not this guidance that will give us forgiveness or the Kingdom itself. Confession and Communion will, not spiritual guidance. 

Nevertheless, your father confessor can also be your elder if you find him mature enough for it. Yet, at all times, even if we receive both confession and spiritual guidance from him, we must keep in mind the essential distinction between the two and not confuse them. We ought to be aware of what we need when we approach him—confession or spiritual guidance—and ask accordingly.