THE SACRAMENT OF RECONCILIATION
It is your desire and purpose to make a good mission; otherwise, you would not have decided to make one at all. That means you must make a good confession, for there is no detail in the making of a mission more important than the proper reception of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. You have either been living under the weight of sin and wish to be free of it, or, recognizing the dullness and mediocrity of your spiritual attainment, you wish to respond with a new vigor and freshness to the life of grace that is in you. In either case, God is calling to you, and especially is He inviting you to this sacrament which in His mercy He has designed as a means of bringing about your spiritual renewal.
This holy and life-giving institution was established by Jesus Christ Himself because He wanted you, and all other souls who labor and are burdened, to come to Him and let Him give you rest. To make this possible, He said to His Apostles, before His Ascension into heaven, "As the Father hath sent me, I also send you. When He had said this, He breathed upon them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained" (Jn 20:22-23). In these words he commissioned His Apostles and through them the bishops and priests who were to continue their work, to carry to troubled souls down through the ages the divine gift of forgiveness.
But the priest, to whom this wonderful power of reconciliation has been given—who is sent to you even as Our Lord was sent by the Father—cannot help you unless you are ready to do your part. You must yourself want to be united to God through this sacrament; you must see to it that you are made apt and ready for its worthy reception. But for this your own unaided efforts will not be sufficient, for what human power could adjust and dispose you for so wonderful a thing as union with God? God's help will be necessary, and this help will not be wanting. Already, in some measure, you have it. Your heart has been touched, and God is drawing you to the confessional. Whatever other help you need He will certainly not deny you, if only you will raise up your heart to Him in fervent prayer and earnestly ask for it.
Many Catholics today have come to believe that individual confession of sins is no longer necessary. This idea is against the explicit teaching of the Church. Confession and reconciliation are always necessary in the case of mortal sins and highly recommended in the case of venial sins. One should never receive Holy Communion unabsolved of mortal sin, for this is a sacrilege. Frequent, habitual confession, even of non-serious sins, is a practice of long standing in the Church. Pope Paul VI has on numerous occasions recommended it to the faithful. Although reconciliation is total and complete in the case of mortal sin, even venial sins are valid matter for the sacrament, whereby we are reconciled to the love of God and are given the precious, special graces of this sacrament.
Confessions and communions are sometimes unfruitful, and may at times even be sacrilegious, because of a neglect of preparation. One can be too confident in self, not bothering to seek the help of God. There are men and women who engage in worldly thoughts or conversations up to the moment of entering the church to make their confession, and once in the church they go into the confessional with no more than a casual and perfunctory preparation. Such a one shows little realization of the sacredness of the Act in which he is about to engage. Can we wonder if he derives small benefit from his confession?
To avoid this danger, be sure to allow yourself sufficient time for preparation. And before all else, let your preparation begin with prayer —devout and earnest prayer that God will give you the grace to make a good, humble, sincere and worthy confession. Nothing can be wanting to a confession which proceeds from that kind of prayer.
I. SORROW FOR SIN
After your prayer for God's help, it is most necessary that you should excite within yourself a sincere disposition of sorrow or contrition for the sins of which you have been guilty. Your preparation should therefore be chiefly concerned with the stimulation of sorrow. This is more important than the examination of conscience which will reveal to you the sins that you ought to confess, more important even than the actual confession of your sins. For no matter how carefully you examine your conscience, or how clearly and precisely you are able to confess, your confession will do you no good whatever unless you have a true sorrow of heart for having offended God.
Nothing then is more important than that you have sorrow for your sins, and it must be a true interior sorrow of heart, not just an empty formula of words framed with the mouth. God will forgive us if we are truly sorry for our sins, but He will not forgive us if we only say that we are. It is not the words we use, but their truth, that really matters.
Furthermore, the motive from which your sorrow proceeds is important. If you have regret having sinned only because your sin has brought some temporal evil upon you—such, for example, as the loss of your good name or honor or health—then your motive is merely natural and has no relation to God. You cannot expect forgiveness from God on the basis of a sorrow of that kind. In the Sacrament of Reconciliation, you are seeking reconciliation with God, and therefore the motives of your sorrow must have some relation to God, or, as we say, it must be supernatural.
Now there are two kinds of supernatural sorrow. The first and better kind arises if not exclusively at least primarily from a love of God. The sinner, recognizing that he has offended a good, a loving and tender Father, recognizing all that Christ has done and suffered for him, is grieved and regrets in his heart that he has so offended Him. This is known as perfect contrition. On the other hand, imperfect contrition arises rather from a fear of God's just judgment, or from a knowledge of the baseness of sin and of its evil effects upon the soul. This sorrow is supernatural because it is grounded in faith. We would not fear God's wrath, nor detest sin because it separates us from God, if we did not believe. But it is not a perfect kind of sorrow like the first.
When it is joined with confession, and the sinner determines to amend the past and receives absolution from the priest, even imperfect contrition is sufficient to obtain forgiveness. But it should always be your aim to have as perfect a sorrow for your sins as possible. God will help you to a proper sorrow if you earnestly ask His help, and do what you can, on your part, by prayerful reflection to stir up the necessary sentiments within yourself. You can be sure that this help will not be wanting to you. Our Savior is the Good Shepherd of souls who would leave the ninety-nine and go after the one of His flock which is lost until He finds it. He became man, lived humbly and poorly, and in the end gave Himself as a Victim on Calvary to cleanse us from sin, to win back from the dominion of evil that which was lost, to restore us to our Father's house, to renew within us the life of grace which our sin had extinguished. If He was ready and willing to do so much, can you doubt that He will gladly enkindle true compunction of heart within the sinner who asks that mercy of Him?
II. REFLECTIONS TO EXCITE CONTRITION
Think first upon God and His infinite goodness, His tender mercies. Consider who He is against whom you have sinned. He is your Creator, infinitely great and powerful, who nevertheless does not disdain to be lovingly concerned about so insignificant a portion of creation as yourself. He made you out of nothing. He gave His Only Son to die for you, that He might make you His child in Baptism and draw you to Himself. He has prepared Heaven for you. He has watched over you with a love you did not deserve and enriched you repeatedly with His blessings. Consider His great patience with your waywardness, manifest in this latest of His mercies, by which even after you have failed Him, perhaps many times, His grace is calling you and moving you to repentance.
Now reflect upon the infinite wickedness of sin. Let Him open your eyes and show you the enormity of your offenses against Him. Only God can understand properly the malice of sin, because only God appreciates to the full the Divine Good which is violated by moral evil. But He has given you the Passion and Death of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, that you might read in it, in concrete and understandable terms, something
of the evil and hatefulness of sin. Try to behold Him on the Cross, torn and wounded, His sacred Body streaming with Blood. That is the work of our sins. Try to read in His Wounds the greatness of the guilt and malice of your sins. By the greatness of His pains and sorrows try to measure the wickedness of your offenses.
Consider now the consequences of your sins. For one mortal sin—for a single unrepented, deadly sin, you might justly be banished from God's presence forever. Mortal sin blackens and defiles the soul unspeakably. One single mortal sin changed the brightest angels of God into hideous demons. And similarly, mortal sin, especially repeated mortal sin, will produce the most ugly deformity in the soul of the man who is guilty of it. "Mortal", in connection with sin, means "deadly" or "death-producing", because such sin causes the death of the soul by depriving it of the grace of God which is its life. The soul in grace lives as a child of God; the soul in a state of sin has lost that life. The body, after its life has departed, becomes a corrupt and disgusting object. Yet the corruption produced in the soul by the loss of its life is even more loathesome, inasmuch as the life which is lost is far more precious and beautiful than the life of the body. The soul which has defiled itself in this way has made itself worthy of rejection and God could justly cast it into the eternal darkness of hell.
It is true that venial sin does not rob the soul of its life, but we should not on that account be indifferent to its menace, because it prepares and disposes the soul for more serious violations of God's law. It is related to mortal sin much as sickness is related to death. It weakens our moral health, saps our spiritual energies, and can, if it is unchecked, leave us a ready prey to deadly sin.
Reflect upon the great gratitude which you owe to God for not cutting off the thread of your life in the midst of your sins. If you have fallen grievously, then before you sinned Heaven was your home, your country, your inheritance, your blessed resting-place. But by your sin you gave up your title to all that. To gratify yourself for a moment you were willing to lose the love of Jesus, the sight of Mary, the communion with the Blessed Saints and with the Angels forever. How foolish was your choice! Surely you can regret your folly and detest the sin which has made you hateful to God; surely you can renounce it and all else that would draw you away from Him and deprive you forever of heaven, if He had not mercifully brought you to repentance. Make as fervent an act of contrition as you possibly can.
An Act of Contrition
O my God! I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell; but most of all because I have offended Thee, my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life. Amen
III. THE EXAMINATION OF CONSCIENCE
Consider now how you stand before God. Take account of yourself and see in what way and how many times you have failed in His sight since your last confession. To do this is to make what we call an examination of conscience.
The priest has been empowered to speak the healing words of absolution to you. But it is not a power that is his to use arbitrarily as his whim or private inclination may dictate, nor independently of all circumstances and conditions on your part. The priest is in the confessional as an agent and minister of Christ to dispense God's pardon on condition that the penitent confesses his sin, is truly contrite and prepared to make satisfaction for it. Consequently the penitent must reveal the state of his soul before the priest may pronounce absolution. This supposes a clear self-knowledge on the part of the penitent. How, normally, will he be able to be sure of the adequacy of his sorrow, the sincerity of his purpose to make satisfaction and amendment, and how can he reveal the state of his soul to the priest unless he recognizes distinctly and clearly the extent of his failures. It is the object of the examination of conscience to provide us with the consciousness of our guilt necessary for the making of a good confession. It is an important part of our preparation for this sacrament, and its neglect can be the source of unfruitful and perhaps in some cases even unworthy and sacrilegious confessions. The person who hurries into the confessional without first making some reasonable effort to recall his sins, has little or no excuse for the incomplete confession that may result from his carelessness.
Think of how long it has been since your last confession. The priest will expect to be told this, for it is important for his understanding of your spiritual condition. Have this information ready for him, so that he will not have to enter into a prolonged dialogue to draw it from you. If you cannot remember exactly how long it has been, determine the time as nearly as you can.
Next, reflect upon what your conduct has been during this time. In doing so, bear in mind that you are expected to confess your sins not only according to their kind, together with all circumstances which alter their nature, but also according to their number. That is to say, you should confess what kind of sins you have committed, and how many times you have committed them. People who confess infrequently sometimes tend to be vague and indefinite in telling of their sins. This makes it necessary for the confessor to ask questions and to probe into the poorly examined conscience of the penitent. The loss of time, the trouble and possible embarrassment involved in such interrogation could easily be avoided by taking a reasonable amount of care in the examination of conscience made before entering the confessional. Prepare yourself, therefore, to tell the priest simply, clearly and in as few words as possible, exactly what sins you have committed.
Do not forget that it is important to add, m confessing a sin, the number of times you have been guilty of it. Your confessor needs this information to give him a clear insight into your spiritual condition. It is one thing to fall into a sin rarely, and quite another to lapse again and again. You would not think of seeking the advice and help of a physician without telling how often you are troubled by the condition which disturbs you. The priest in the confessional is a physician of souls, and he must know the extent as well as the nature of your spiritual maladies before he can judge your condition and advise you prudently. In examining your conscience, therefore, do not be content simply to recall the different kinds of sin into which you have fallen, but try also to determine as accurately as possible the number of your failures. Then keep the number in mind and be prepared to tell it to the priest when you confess the sin.
In the case of sins you rarely commit, this will not be difficult, unless perhaps you have been away from the sacraments for a long period of time. But it may not be easy to estimate accurately the frequency of your commoner failings. However, absolute precision is not necessary when the weakness of human memory makes this impossible. Do the best you can. Try to estimate the number approximately at least, so as to be able to tell your confessor you have fallen into the sin in question about so many times a year, or a month, or a week, or a day, as the case may be.
The person who receives the sacraments frequently will be used to examining his conscience. Experience makes him familiar with the practice. He knows, without need for much thought, exactly where his weaknesses lie. Normally, therefore, he will be able to bring his sins to mind without the help of any printed form of examination, such as is offered below for the convenience of those to whom it may be useful. However, even the frequent penitent can derive some benefit from the occasional use of such a form, especially at times such as a mission, when he will want to take rather more thorough stock of himself than usual. Faults can creep into one's life by almost imperceptible degrees and lie unnoticed until they have grown serious and entrenched themselves as habits. It is one of the purposes of a mission to provide against that kind of spiritual deterioration by freshening one's outlook and awakening insensitive spots in one's conscience. To this end, a complete outline of points for consideration can be a most useful monitor and guide. But for the soul who has not confessed for a considerable period of time, the use of some such aid as this is even more advisable. If one lives carelessly and without much thought of God, it is inevitable that his moral consciousness will diminish and grow dull, and for such a one the examination of conscience can be a heavy task through which he cannot make his way without something to direct his attention and suggest the points upon which he ought especially to reflect.
EXAMINATION OF CONSCIENCE
FIRST COMMANDMENT
I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not have strange gods before Me.
1) Have I neglected prayer? Have I failed to make an effort at prayer to keep my mind on what I was saying? Have I gone to places of false worship? Have I consulted fortune tellers, attached undue importance to dreams, omens and the like, or been guilty of other superstitious practices? Have I misused the sacraments, been guilty of bad confessions or bad communions? Have I profaned places or things consecrated to God? Have I sinned against Faith by denying it or culpably trying to conceal it? Have I ever wilfully doubted the truths of Faith, or made light of the teaching authority of the Church? Have I assented to books or writings which attacked Catholic belief or practice? Do I trouble to keep as well informed in matters pertaining to my religion as I should? Have I offended against Hope by despairing of God's mercy, or failing to have confidence in the power of Divine Grace to support me in trouble or temptation? Have I murmured against the dispositions of Divine Providence? Have I rashly presumed upon God's mercy? Have I sinned against Charity by entertaining rebellious thoughts towards God?
SECOND COMMANDMENT
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
2) Have I made irreverent use of God's Holy Name? Have I cursed or profaned holy things in my speech? Have I provoked others to cursing or profanity? Have I taken rash or unnecessary oaths, or made false statements when under oath?
THIRD COMMANDMENT
Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath Day.
3) Have 1, through my fault, missed Mass on Sundays or Holydays of Obligation? Have 1, through carelessness, been late for Mass? Have I always made a reasonable effort to assist at Mass attentively and prayerfully? Have I engaged unnecessarily in work on Sundays or Holydays of Obligation? Have I caused others to do so?
FOURTH COMMANDMENT
Honor thy father and thy mother.
4) (For children.) Have I shown contempt or disobedience to my parents? Have I spoken to them disrespectfully? Have I provoked them to anger or caused them grief? Have I neglected to show them affection? Have I harbored resentment or ill-will against them? Have I neglected them in their necessity, or failed to do my share in helping with the household duties? Have I been disrespectful or disobedient to other lawful superiors?
(For parents.) Have I borne ill-will toward my children, or been angry and impatient with them? Have I been harsh or cruel in correcting them? Have I given them bad example? Have I been allowing them to grow up in ignorance, idleness, or sin? Have I taken due care with regard to their religious instruction, sending them to Catholic schools when this was possible? Have I encouraged them by work and example to prayer and to the formation of solid habits of virtue? Have I been careless in watching over their bodily health, or attending to their needs? Have I shown undue partiality to one or another of them? Have I shown them due affection? Have I allowed myself to be too possessive with them, forgetting that it is my duty as a parent to train my children to self-sufficiency rather than to expect them to remain always dependent on me? Have I taken care, proportioned to my means, to see that they are trained and fitted to make their own life?
(For husbands and wives.) Am I doing my share toward making of a happy and peaceful home? Have I grieved or abused my partner in marriage? Have I been guilty of bad temper, sulking, quarreling or nagging? Have I shown a want of gentleness or consideration in regard to my partner's faults? Have I been unreasonably jealous? Have I given cause for jealousy? Have I put any obstacles in the way of my partner's practice of religion? Do I cheerfully show the marks of affection which my partner has a right to expect of me in marriage? Do I show respect for my wife (or husband) before the children?
FIFTH COMMANDMENT
Thou shalt not kill.
5) Under this commandment it is forbidden to take one's own life or that of another human being, to destroy the life of the unborn, or to endanger human life by negligence or carelessness. Under the same prohibition there also fall lesser aggressions against the bodily welfare or integrity of ourselves or others. Just as we are forbidden to kill, so also are we forbidden to maim, injure or mutilate. Neither may we take a secondary or accessory role in the commission of such crimes by counselling, encouraging, consenting to them, or helping in any way to bring them about. Happily, however, the more violent offenses against this commandment are rare, and detailed points for consideration concerning them need not be included in an examination of conscience meant for general use. Our most common violations of the fifth commandment are indirect and include all kinds of thoughts, words, deeds, willful feelings and emotions, which can dispose and incline a man to acts of violence. Hence, in coming to this commandment, the penitent can generally content himself to ask such questions as these:
Have I been careless in exposing myself or others to danger without reasonable cause? Especially, have I been careless or taken chances while driving an automobile? Have I nourished a desire for revenge, or been quarrelsome and given to bickering? Have I shown contempt or aversion for others, or refused to treat them with courtesy and consideration? Do I harbor class, racial, or religious hatred or prejudices? Have I ignored offers of reconciliation, or refused to forgive wrongs that were done to me? Do I refuse to speak to anyone when courteously addressed? Have I ridiculed or insulted others, or irritated them by my words and actions? Have I envied another's prosperity or rejoiced at his misfortune? Have I refused to help others in their need? Have I induced others to sin by my word or example? Have I been temperate always in the use of food? Have I taken too much to drink? Have I encouraged others to drink, knowing that they would abuse it? Have I injured my health by over-indulgence in tobacco, sedatives or foods which are harmful to me, or by neglecting to take necessary rest? Have I procured, aided in or recommended an abortion? Have I used artificial contraceptive devices?
SIXTH AND NINTH COMMANDMENTS
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife.
Have I willfully entertained indecent thoughts, taken deliberate pleasure in them or been negligent in repelling them when they came unbidden to mind? Have I enpapers, magazines; by attending moving pictures or watching television programs which I had reason to know were dangerous? Have I desired to offend in any way against purity? Have I been unclean in my speech, or conversed with others upon immodest topics? In my association with others, have I offended in any way against decency? Have I allowed another to take any liberties or to be dangerously affectionate with me? Have I committed an act contrary to holy purity? (Note: In confessing any deed contrary to purity, one should declare briefly and without any unnecessary detail what kind of action it was. Furthermore, the fact that one is married, or has allowed himself to become involved with a married person, is significant and should be confessed.)
SEVENTH AND TENTH COMMANDMENTS
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods.
Have I stolen anything or done culpable damage tc the property of another? Have I in my possession any ill-gotten goods? Have I charged exorbitant prices for things which I have sold? Have I misrepresented or adulterated things which I have sold? Have I taken unfair advantage of the ignorance or simplicity of another in any transaction? Have I failed to return things which I have borrowed from others? Have I appropriated things which I have found without taking reasonable pains to find the owner? Have I been guilty of culpable delay in paying my just debts? If I have done an injustice to anyone, have I made restitution for it—or, failing that, do I sincerely intend to make restitution as soon as I am able to do so? Have I lived up to the obligations that I have assumed by entering into contracts and agreements with others? Do I always make a reasonable and conscientious effort to make a good job of whatever I am employed to do, so that my employer always gets value received for the wages which he pays me? Have I been guilty of wasting time or otherwise neglecting my work? Have I been careful with my employer's property? In case I employ others, am I considerate in my dealings with them? Have I dismissed employees arbitrarily or without serious reason? Have I paid them an adequate wage and provided decent working conditions? Have I encouraged the growth of avarice in me by letting money and external goods mean too much? Have I allowed myself to become so preoccupied in the pursuit of wealth that I neglect my family, religious or social obligations? Am I overly elated by financial success, or unreasonably dejected when I suffer a loss?
EIGHTH COMMANDMENT
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
Have I told lies? If so, have any of these lies been injurious to my neighbor's character, or caused him to suffer loss? Have I been guilty of detraction—that is, have I published discreditable secrets about others, even though what I told was true? Have I caused trouble by carrying stories? Have I engaged in gossipy conversation, or encouraged it or listened to it with pleasure? Have I failed to defend my neighbor's character when my silence could be understood as approval of discreditable or false statements that were made against him? Have 1, in my own mind, been guilty of rash judgments or groundless suspicions to the discredit of my neighbor? Have I revealed other matters about which I was bound to secrecy?
THE COMMANDMENTS OF THE CHURCH
1) Have I neglected, without good reason. to hear Mass on Sundays or Holydays of Obligation?
2) Have I faithfully abstained from the use of meat on the days appointed by the Church? Have I observed the law of fasting when obliged to it?
3) and 4) Have I confessed my mortal sins within a year? Have I gone to Holy Communion between Ash Wednesday and Trinity Sunday?
5) Have I contributed to the support of my pastor and to the needs of the Church according to my means?
6) Have I violated the laws of the Church with regard to marriage by entering into it without due preparation and instruction from my pastor, or did I attempt it before a state official or a non-Catholic minister, or without dispensation from some impediment?
If you have a hard time in examining your conscience, do not worry. Ask the missioner and he wifl be glad to help you.
IV. THE PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT
A part of your preparation should consist in bringing yourself to a sincere resolution to amend your sinful ways and to make whatever satisfaction may be necessary for the sins you have already committed. In a way, of course, this purpose of will is already implicitly contained in your contrition or sorrow for your sins. For you cannot be really sorry for what you have done, unless you are resolved to avoid falling again in the future. But you should not therefore leave your purpose of amendment implicit and unexpressed. You should rather formulate it expressly and distinctly. For one thing, this will serve to test the sincerity of your contrition, for if you find, on looking to the future, that you are doubtful of your intention to avoid certain sins, you should know by that fact that something is wanting to your sorrow for the past, and it is not yet clear that you truly regret and repudiate your sins. Again, attention specifically directed toward the purpose of amendment will make the good resolutions involved in your repentance stand out more clearly in consciousness, and when you leave the confessional or reconciliation room, you will carry away with you a better and more distinct memory of them.
If you do not remember your good resolutions after you leave the confessional or reconciliation room, how ever sincerely you may have meant them as you confessed your sins, they will have small influence on your life and you will have little progress to show for your use of this sacrament. It is important, therefore, that you should form your purpose of amendment as a distinct act. Make it as earnest, as sincere and emphatic as you can. Have the feeling that your confession is a turning point in your life, and you are picking yourself up to make a new beginning. Plan to take that determination away from the confessional with you.
If you wish your good resolutions to be truly effective, it is well that you should give some thought to the ways and means necessary to carry them out and put them into effect. If you merely intend, in a vague and indefinite way, to live a better life, yet have no intelligent plan for doing so, it is not likely that you will be successful. It is all very well to say you mean to avoid this or that particular sin to which you are especially inclined, but what are you going to do when you are faced with the old familiar temptations to which you have yielded many times in the past? Take into consideration how those temptations can be avoided, and make your plan for avoiding them a part of your resolution to avoid the sin. If the temptations are unavoidable, consider what means you are going to use to arm yourself in order to succeed in the future where you have failed in the past. In this matter, as in physical warfare, an intelligent plan of campaign can be as important as the will to fight, and without the one, the other may well prove useless. How ever, in planning your amendment, do not put too much trust in the natural means which may occur to you, such, for example, as the avoidance of the occasion, the renewal of your resolution from time to time, and so on. Means of this kind are necessary, but do not forget that in your struggle with evil, God is your chief strength. It is His grace which will subdue your unruly nature and overcome your sin. Regard divine grace therefore as the one altogether indispensable means for succeeding in your purpose of amending your life. And remember always that God's grace will not be wanting to you if you sincerely desire it and ask it humbly of Him in prayer. If you formulate your purpose of amendment intelligently, therefore, you will also resolve to pray regularly and faithfully in the future and beg of God to strengthen you and keep you firm in your resolve. Be sure that God's grace will not fail you, if you do not fail first to want it and to ask for it.
If you have struggled long against some particularly stubborn inclination to sin, you may find it difficult to devise a plan of attack upon it which seems to hold any promise of success. If this is so, mention the fact to your confessor and ask his counsel. He will be happy to give you all the help he can, and very likely he will be able to point out means which have not occurred to you of overcoming the particular weakness from which you suffer.
V. HOW TO GO TO CONFESSION
When you have prepared yourself for confession, go to the confessional or into the reconciliation room in a humble and contrite spirit. If it is necessary for you to wait your turn in line, continue your prayers as you wait, renewing your act of contrition and asking God's help to enable you to make a worthy confession. Think that you are approaching Jesus Christ Himself to throw yourself at His feet and ask His forgiveness. For that, in a sense, is what you are doing. The personal identity of the priest who sits in the confessional is irrelevant; the significant thing is that in the exercise of this office he has been commissioned to act in the name of your Blessed Savior, to sit in His place, to hear your sins as His representative, and to pronounce the words by which His pardon is given to you.
The new Rite of Penance provides alternative ways to confess. You may confess in the old way, unseen by the priest, or you may confess face-to-face. Reconciliation rooms and usually, confessionals, provide for both opportunities. The choice is completely yours. Many people prefer the old way and are more comfortable with it. Others prefer the more personal approach in face-to-face confessions. In either case, however, you should remember that confession is a sacrament and a ritua/, not the same thing as a parlor call on the priest. You should strive to limit yourself to the confession of your sins. This is particularly true during a parish mission, when many people are waiting to confess.
The Rite of Individual Reconciliation
When you are in the confessional or reconciliation room and the priest signifies that he is ready to give you his attention, make the sign of the cross. The priest will then invite you to have trust in God. You respond ''Amen." Then the priest may read a short, appropriate text of Scripture. You then proceed to tell the priest your sins. It would help if first you were to tell him your approximate age and state in life, whether you are single or married. You are free to use the old formula: "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I am a married (single) man (woman). (Or: I am a widow(er), divorced; a teenager, etc.) It has been . . . weeks (years) since my last worthy confession, said my penance and received holy Communion. I accuse myself of the following sins. " Then proceed to name the sins which your examination of conscience has revealed, indicating the number of times you have been guilty of each different kind of sin. In confessing, try to bear the following points in mind:
1) Your confession should be entire; that is to say, you must not knowingly conceal any mortal sins. If you deliberately keep back a single mortal sin, your confession, instead of bringing you forgiveness, will be sacrilegious and add to your sins.
2) Your confession should be simple. Your confession is essentially a declaration of fact, and hence it should avoid the defects that make a declaration less clear, such as obscurity, ambiguity, digression, and the like. Tell everything sincerely and exactly, without disguise or dissimulation. If you are certain of a thing, declare it as certain; if you are doubtful, declare it as doubtful. In general, remember that you are in the confessional to accuse rather than to excuse yourself, except where it is clear that some circumstance modifies your responsibility to an important degree. Thus, for example, if you missed Mass because you were ill, you should mention that fact and not leave the confessor to understand that you violated the law willfully and without reason. Avoid all mention of your virtues or of the sins of others, except when those sins are inextricably connected with your own, or when another's conduct creates special problems for you about which you need some direction and advice. But even in such cases as these, you should never mention another's name.
3) Your confession should be humble. You are receiving the Sacrament of Penance, standing before God as a penitent. Hence it ill becomes you to tell your sins in a boastful, jocular, proud or indifferent manner.
If, since your last confession, you have committed no grave offense, and if you have any reason whatever to wonder about the depth and sincerity of your sorrow for the relatively lesser faults which you are confessing, it is recommended that you should conclude your accusation by mentioning some sin of your past life, already confessed in earlier confessions, about which you are unquestionably sorry. This will serve not only to increase your humility by reminding you of your past failures, but will also ensure the effectiveness of your present confession will not be valueless. You can add this declaration of a past sin by saying, after you have confessed your sins: And I also wish to include mention of such and such a sin of my past life. Then go on to say: For these and all my other sins which I cannot now remember, and for all the sins of my past life, I am heartily sorry and humbly ask pardon of Cod, and penance and absolution of you, Father.
At the conclusion of your confession, the priest will speak. Listen attentively and humbly to the direction and advice which he will give you, and be resolved to do what he tells you to do, either by way of penance, or restitution, or reparation, or for the avoiding of sin in the future. If he asks you any questions, it is in your interest that he asks them, and you should answer as simply and clearly as you can. He will then ask you to declare your sorrow, which you may do in the old familiar Act of Contrition, in the words on the card, or in your own words. The priest will then extend his hand and pronounce the words of absolution, after which, in appropriate words, he will dismiss you.
On leaving the confessional it is decent and proper that you should remain for a short time at least in the church in order to offer some prayers of thanksgiving to God for the grace of pardon which you have received.
Your sacramental penance should be performed as soon as possible. If some prayers have been given you to say by way of penance, and no definite time assigned at which they were to be said, it is better to say them immediately, before you leave the church, lest by chance they slip your mind and you leave your penance unsatisfied.