Orthodoxy is a joyful faith. She does not prescribe pretense of grief, serious expression, or anything like that. On the contrary, it is believed that even repentance should be joyful.
What is repentance and how to implement it, is often completely incomprehensible to modern man. Unfortunately, a superficial attitude to the world and to the state of one’s soul is being cultivated, introspection is not recommended, and guilt is considered destructive.
When repenting by the Orthodox, the penitential canon of the Lord Jesus Christ is often used. The main purpose of reading this canon is to remind yourself of the true meaning of earthly values, to realize the transience of the world and time.
Canon is a church form of prayer. Many people believe that the main thing in prayer is content, and form is superfluous. This is partly correct. Indeed, if the penitent canon to the Lord Jesus Christ or any other prayer is read inattentively, a person will not receive any benefit. Prayer is not a spell, it does not act outside the will of man, its main purpose is to facilitate for man communication with the incomprehensible God.
You can draw an analogy with a declaration of love. In recognition, the main thing is content. But if the young man does not know what to choose expressions and how to start, he risks scaring the girl with strange words. Poetic lines close to him will help a lot. So it is in prayer: content is more important than form, the latter is only help. But can everyone express their thoughts about sin and their soul so fully as the holy fathers? The penitential canon to the Lord Jesus Christ allows you to put into words the vague movements of the heart, think through your life to the smallest detail, find in yourself vices that you have not noticed before.
Each church form of prayer - and there are several more - is built according to certain rules. For example, any canon, and a canon repented of the Lord Jesus Christ including, consists of eight songs. Moreover, the numbering of the songs is nine, but the second is always skipped. Each song consists of a song itself and several verses that are interspersed with the refrain established for this canon. The penitential canon is supposed to repeat: "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner."
Repentance should possess a person almost constantly, but especially on this topic it is necessary to work on confession.
The daily canon repented of our Lord Jesus Christ is a wonderful practice for preparing for confession. In this case, the canon is read at the discretion, once before the sacrament is mandatory.
The penitential canon to the Lord Jesus Christ was written many centuries ago, but now it is still relevant. A thoughtful reading of the entire canon takes about 20 minutes. The canon itself is published both in Russian and in Church Slavonic. You can read this way and that, the result does not depend on it.
Prayer work is one of the most difficult. It seems that uttering aloud or inwardly some words cannot give satisfaction to desires, that it is just self-hypnosis, a waste of time. However, even if this is so, the thoughts that are stated in the canon will be very useful for any thoughtful person.
Orthodox canons are read at any time of the day, alone or aloud, with a group of worshipers.