Confession is Beautiful

It’s valuable to pray to the Holy Spirit for enlightenment and sincerity before an examination of conscience and to ask the intercession of Mary so that you might make a good confession.

Come Holy Spirit into my soul, Enlighten my mind that I may know the sins I ought to confess, and grant me your grace to confess them fully, humbly and with contrite heart. Help me to firmly resolve not to commit them again. Amen.

O’ B1essed Virgin, Mother of my Redeemer, mirror of innocence and sanctity, and refuge of penitent sinners, intercede for me through the Passion of Your Son, that I may obtain the grace to make a good confession. Amen.

1. THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

1. 1am the Lord your God. You shall not have strange gods before me.

• Do I give God time every day in prayer?
• Do I seek to love him with my whole heart?
• Have I been involved with superstitious practices, or have I been involved with the occult?
• Do I seek to surrender myself to God’s word as taught by the Church?
• Have I ever received Communion in the state of mortal sin?
• Have I ever deliberately told a lie in confession, or have I withheld a mortal sin from the priest in confession?
• Are there other “gods” in my life (money, security, power, people, etc.)?

2. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

• Have I used God’s name in vain: lightly or carelessly?
• Have I been angry with God?
• Have I wished evil upon any other person?
• Have I insulted a sacred person or abused a sacred object?

3. Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day.

• Have I deliberately missed Mass on Sundays or holy days of obligation?
• Have I tried to observe Sunday as a family day and a day of rest?
• Do I do needless work on Sunday?
• Do I shop unnecessarily on Sunday?
• Do I dress properly and act reverently in Church?

4. Honor your father and your mother.

• Do I honor and obey my parents?
• Have I neglected my duties to my spouse and children?
• Have I given my family a good religious example?
• Do I try to bring peace into my home life?
• Do I care for my aged and infirm relatives?

5. You shall not kill.

• Have I had an abortion, or have I encouraged or helped anyone to have an abortion?
• Have I physically harmed anyone?
• Have I abused alcohol or drugs?
• Did I give scandal to anyone, thereby leading him or her into sin?
• Have I been angry or resentful?
• Have I harbored hatred in my heart?
• Have I mutilated myself through any form of sterilization?
• Have I encouraged or condoned sterilization?
• Have I engaged, in any way, in sins against human life, such as artificial insemination or in vitro fertilization?
• Have I participated in or approved of euthanasia?

6. You shall not commit adultery.

• Have I been faithful to my marriage vows in thought and action?
• Have I engaged in any sexual activity outside of marriage?
• Have I used any method of contraception or artificial birth control in my marriage?
• Has each sexual act in my marriage been open to the transmission of new life?
• Have I been guilty of masturbation?
• Do I seek to control my thoughts and my imagination?
• Have I respected all members of the opposite sex, or have I thought of other people as mere objects?
• Have I been guilty of any homosexual activity?
• Have I indulged in pornography?
• Have I watched immoral programs on television or the Internet, or have I gone to immoral movies?
• Do I seek to be chaste in my thoughts, words, and actions?
• Am I careful to dress modestly?

7. You shall not steal.

• Have I stolen what is not mine?
• Have I returned or made restitution for what I have stolen?
• Do I waste time at work, school, and home?
• Do I gamble excessively, thereby depriving my family of their needs?
• Do I pay my debts promptly?
• Do I seek to share what I have with the poor?
• Have I cheated anyone out of what is justly theirs — for example, creditors, insurance companies, or big corporations?

8. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

• Have I lied? Have I gossiped?
• Do I speak badly of others behind their backs?
• Am I sincere in my dealings with others?
• Am I critical, negative, or uncharitable in my thoughts of others?
• Do I keep secret what should be kept confidential?
• Have I injured the reputation of others by slander?

9. You shall not desire your neighbor’s wife.

• Have I consented to impure thoughts?
• Have I caused them by impure reading, movies, television, conversation, or curiosity?
• Do I pray at once to banish impure thoughts and temptations?
• Have I behaved in an inappropriate way with members of the opposite sex?

10. You shall not desire your neighbor’s goods.

• Am I jealous of what other people have?
• Do I envy the families or possessions of others?
• Am I greedy or selfish?
• Are material possessions the center of my life?

2. LOOK AT YOUR LIFE

The Church recommends using the Sermon on the Mount to examine your conscience. You can find it in Matthew 5. Jesus set out the beatitudes, and calls Christians to a high level of moral living. Also, use the Catholic formulations from the previous chapter (beginning on p.34).

3. LOOK AT YOUR LOVE

The whole thirteenth chapter of I Corinthians is brief and excellent to read while reflecting on one’s life. Especially read verses 4-Z Think of each word and ask yourself honestly, “Have I failed to love in this way?” “Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, [love] is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

4. LOOK AT YOUR WORDS

St. James sees charity in speech as a key to the moral life. “If anyone does not fall short in speech, he is a perfect man, able to bridle his whole body also. If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we also guide their whole bodies. It is the same with ships: Even though they are so large and driven by fierce winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilots inclination wishes. In the same way the tongue is a small member and yet has great pretensions. “Consider how small a fire can set a huge forest ablaze. The tongue is also a fire. It exists among our members as a world of malice, defiling the whole body and setting the entire course of our lives on fire, itself set on fire by Gehenna. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. This need not be so, my brothers. Does a spring gush forth from the same opening both pure and brackish water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, produce olives, or a grapevine figs? Neither can salt water yield fresh” (las 3:2-12).

5. A NEW YOU

In his letter to the Colossians, St. Paul sums up what you have to leave behind if you are to be a new person in Christ: “If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ your life appears. then you too will appear with him in glory. “Put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly: immorality impurity passion, evil desire, and the greed that is idolatry Because of these the wrath of God is coming [upon the disobedient]. By these you too once conducted yourselves, when you lived in that way. “But now you must put them all away: anger, fury, malice, slander, and obscene language out of your mouths. Stop lying to one another, since you have taken off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed, for knowledge, in the image of its creator” (Col 3:1-10).

6. LOOK AT YOUR RELATIONSHIPS

1. My relationship with God

• Am I generous in the way I live the precepts of the Church?
• Did I skip Sunday Mass? Did I skip it with my heart and/or my mind? Did I try to make the most of it, even if distracted? Did I tune it out and not try to tune back in?
• Have I been “saying” my prayers instead of praying my prayers?
• Do I send God away and block him out of certain areas of my life — social life, leisure life, work life, studies, etc.?

2. My relationship with others

• Am I generous in the way I love my neighbor as myself?
• Do I put myself at the service of others, or do I more or less use them?
• Do I show my spouse love in words and actions? Do I respect my spouse enough to be honest?
• How am I with my children? Am I careful about the example I set? Do I realize they’re watching me?
• How am I with my friends? Do I always make things go my way? Do I go along with them, even in what is morally offensive? Do I initiate or participate in gossip?
• How am I with my employer? Do I make the best use of my time? Do I treat my employer with gratitude for employing me?
• How about my parents and others in my family? Do I honor them all with the respect they deserve?

3. My relationship with myself

• Do I battle the seven capital sins?
• Am I another person when I am alone? Am I another person in my thoughts? Do I think things about others I would never say? Or do I strive to live the Golden Rule, even in my heart?
• Do I live my Christian principles when no one is watching? Online? At work? In what I read? In what I watch? In what I listen to? In the car?
• Every Sunday I confess to faults in what I have done and in

7.   20 QUESTIONS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

1. Did I pay attention at Mass? Have I fooled around in Church?
2. Did I say my prayers every day?
3. Did I say mean things to my mom or dad?
4. Did I always say “Thank you” when I should have?
5. Am I hard to get along with (at school, at Grandmas, at home)?
6. Did I do what my mom and dad told me to do? My teacher?
7. Was I lazy around the house? Did I do my chores?
8. Did I hurt other people’s feelings by calling them bad names?
9. Have I started fights with my brothers and sisters at home?
10. Have I blamed other people for things I do? Did I get other people into trouble?
11. Do I hit people when I get mad?
12. Have I forgiven people, or am I holding a grudge?
13. Have I cheated or been unfair in games?
14. Did I refuse to play with someone for no good reason?
15. Was I lazy about my schoolwork?
16. Did I fail to do my homework?
17. Did I cheat in school?
18. Did I ever lie to my parents? My teachers? My friends?
19. Did I take anything that didn’t belong to me?
20. Did I avoid medicine? Did I refuse to eat food I didn’t like?