One of the greatest gifts that God gives us is the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession). I understand at the same time though that this can be a very frightening experience if one does not know or remember what to say. It is my hope that this guide maybe helpful in preparing you to celebrate this great sacrament of God’s love.

Below is a Guide to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and to the left under the "submenu" you will find different reflections on the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

The following is an awesome video on the Sacrament of Confession.

Preparing Oneself
While one may come to the sacrament with very little preparation, it is almost certain that one who takes the time to prepare for the sacrament will find him or herself more aware of God’s grace working through the priest. It is not that God is not working but rather we become more aware of it.
Many of the great saints encourage people to make a daily examination of conscience before they go to sleep each night. This great act allows us to see the patterns of sin that we may be more prone to fall into. It is important though that right before one goes to confession that he or she takes time to perform a more detailed examination of conscience. For an examination of conscience click on the link below

Celebrating the Sacrament
As a priest, I normally invite the penitent to begin with the Sign of the Cross. Some people prefer to start with the words: “Bless me father for I have sinned…” Either way is acceptable.

The priest will then invite you to state how long it has been since your last confession (if you cannot remember just admit that) and what sins that you wish God would forgive. At this time it is important to admit any sins that you can remember. Do not worry if all of sudden you forget some of the sins because of nervousness. The important thing is to show your trust in God’s mercy by not being afraid to tell God (through the priest) your sins. It is not important to remember every sin since your last confession. The priest may offer some advice on how you may prevent the sins you mention from becoming a habit or how to put an end to this bad habit of sin. He will then ask you to perform a penance. It is important to note that through the sacrament your sins are forgiven whether or not you do your penance. We cannot earn God’s mercy but rather He freely gives it to us. The penance is an attempt on our part to make up even if it is a small way for the sins of the past and to demonstrate to ourselves that we really do want to change our lives for the better.

The priest will then act you to pray the Act of Contrition (contrition means sorrow). You may make one up telling God how sorry you are and that you will try to do better with His grace or you can use one of the formal Acts of Contrition like the one below.

ACT OF CONTRITION
O my God,
I am heartily sorry for having offended You
, and I detest all my sins
because I dread the loss of Heaven and the pains of Hell,
but most of all because they offend You, my God,
Who are all good and deserving of all my love.
I firmly resolve, with the help of Your grace,
to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life.
Amen.

The priest will then say the prayer of absolution. As a priest, I think this is truly an awesome prayer because it goes beyond forgiveness. We believe that our sins our so overwhelmed by God’s mercy that they cease to exist. Like a spoonful of sugar in a swimming pool. The sins are absorbed into God’s mercy. The priest will then say something like: “Your sins are forgiven, Go in the peace of Christ,” and it is appropriate to answer “Thanks be to God.”

A personal penance service is a prayerful way of preparing oneself for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Each personal penance service contains an opening prayer, Scripture Reading, short reflection, examenation of conscience, and a prayer of thanksgiving. All of these items are to help you prepare for the Sacrament of Reconciliation and to give thanks to God for the forgiveness of your sins.

Personal Penance Service Link

From Steubenville Youth Conferences

1. Examine your conscience. What sins ahve you committed since your last good confession?

2. Be sincerly sorry for your sins.

3. Confess your sins to the priest.

4. Make certain that you confess all your mortal sins and number of them.

5. After your confession, do the penance the priest gives you.

6. Pray daily for the strenght to avoid the near occassion of sin, especially for those sins from which you were just absolved.

A few years ago a priest classmate of mine came over and was telling me about an experience he had while celebrating high school confessions. He said a girl came into the room and told him how she hated confession because it seemed like every time she went she confessed the same sins over and over again and all the priest (no matter who it was) would give her a very similar penance. My classmate responded by saying “sounds like a broken record,” and he became amazed when she had no idea what he was talking about. (For those of you in the digital age, music used to be placed on round vinyl objects called records and when they broke they would often repeat themselves over and over again and hence a common slang phrase in the 1970’s and 1980’s “you sound like a broken record” simply meant that you keep repeating yourself. This girl and I am sure many adults feel the same way when it comes to the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

I recently heard a talk about the Sacrament of Reconciliation that forever changed the way that I personally celebrate the Sacrament as a Penitent. The priest started off by stating that for most of us going to confession is like picking apples. We name a sin (pick an apple off the tree) and we tell the priest and he takes it away. Then we come back a time later to discover that there are new apples on the tree. This should not surprise us for apple trees produce apples. If we truly desire to stop the apple tree from producing apples then we must get to the roots of the matter. What in particular causes us to sin?

One of the major causes of our sins is our fear of being unlovable. We can fear that God despite all He tells us and does for us does not truly love us and thus we try to do things our ways. We can also fear others or the lost of something and these fears can motivate us to sin.

Another “root of sin” can be past hurts. When someone who has hurt us in the past approaches us again or we find ourselves in a similar situation we may find ourselves unwilling to do the right thing out of fear of being hurt again.

Another major cause of sin in people’s lives is the misconceptions they have about themselves. People who think of themselves as being “unlovable” despite being loved beyond measure by God find themselves committing sins in the hope of getting some form of attention even if that attention is negative.

An additional “root” of sin is a mistaken idea of what “happiness” really is. We believe as Catholics that God created us out of love so that we will one day have eternal happiness. Sometimes though we can distort our idea of how to achieve happiness -some people believe material possessions can be the key to happiness and others relationships. Jesus though gives us eight beatitudes to direct us toward true and everlasting happiness.

Another cause of sin in our lives can simply be a lack of trust in God. How many times in the desert did the Israelites not trust in God despite all that He had done for them?

Another cause of our sins is often a misconception about God. Instead of seeing God as the loving Father that Jesus reveals Him to be, we sometimes believe that God is at best a distant uncaring being and at worst God is a divine being in competition with humanity and He desires to enslave us. Once again though God is not against us but rather for us - He sent His Son into the world not to condemn us but to give us life (John 3:16).

One last “root” of sin in our lives could possibly be the fact that we have made some “inner vows”. These “inner vows” (promises to oneself) which were often made so that we will not find ourselves hurt again can prevent us from loving and being loved in the ways that God wants us to.

FIRST COMMANDMENT
"I am the Lord your God. You shall not have strange gods before Me." (Ex 20:2,3)
- Did I doubt or deny that God exists?
- Did I refuse to believe what God as revealed to us?
- Did I believe in fortune telling, horoscopes, dreams, the occult, good-luck charms, tarot cards, palmistry, Ouija boards, séances, reincarnation?
- Did I deny that I was Catholic?
- Did I give time to God each day in prayer?
- Did I have false gods in my life that I gave greater attention to than God, like money, profession, drugs, TV, fame, pleasure, property, etc.?
SECOND COMMANDMENT
"You shall not take the Name of the Lord your God in vain." (Ex 20:7)
- Did I blaspheme or insult God?
- Did I take God's name carelessly or uselessly?
- Did I curse, or break an oath or vow?
- Did I ask God to bring bad upon someone else.

OTHER SINS
- Did I fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday?
- Did I eat meat on the Fridays of Lent or Ash Wednesday?
- Did I fail to receive Holy Communion during Easter time?
- Did I fail to contribute to the support of the Church?

I. I am the Lord your God; you shall not have strange gods before me.
1. Have I treated people, things or activities as being more important than God?
2. Have I spent more time on the internet/phone/etc. then I needed to?
3. Has the use of social media taken away from my prayer time and relationship others?

II. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
1. Have my words or actions put down God, Church, or others?
2. Have I mocked Church leaders, teachings, or fellow Christians openly online?
3. Have I brought scandal to others by drawing undue attention to problems within the Church between people?

III. Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day.
1. Have I attended Mass at the appropriate times?
2. Have I allowed commenting on Facebook, Twitter, or blogging to replace my prayer life?
3. Have I spent too much time on the internet to the neglect of prayer and family time?

IV. Honor your father and your mother.
1. Do I show my parents proper respect both offline and online?
2. Do I maintain good communication with my parents or do I hide a lot of my behavior?
3. Do I criticize my parent to others especially online?

V. You shall not kill.
1. Have I physically, verbally or emotionally abused someone through anger, gossip, or rumor.
2. Have I destroyed another reputation online?
3. Have I joyfully ridiculed others online and rejoiced in their setbacks?

VI. You shall not commit adultery.
1. Have I respected the physical and sexual dignity of other and of myself?
2. Have I used the internet to visit porn sites or engage in sinful conversations about sex?
3. Have I used the internet in such a way that I could be leading others into sin?

VII. You shall not steal.
1. Have I taken or wasted time or resources that belonged to others?
2. Have I spent valuable work time on the internet?
3. Have I used the internet to perform any sort of crime?

VIII. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
1. Have I gossiped, spread lies, or exaggerated stories in order to hurt another?
2. Have I posted or reposted comments online that I suspect may not be true?
3. Have I used posted false information about myself on social media pages in order to get in appropriate attention?

IX. You shall not covet your neighbor’s spouse.
1. Have I given all my relationships the appropriate time and energy?
2. Do I spend too much time online dreaming of a different life than the one I have?
3. Do I fantasize about different people that I have “met” online?

X. You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods.
1. Do I spend time browsing online stores desiring things that I cannot afford leading me to become jealous and angry at those who can?
2. Do I spend too much money online?
3. Am I giving an appropriate amount of my income to charity?