By The Catholic Evidence Guild of Guam
For the purpose of explanation we recognize four steps toward making a Good Confession. These steps include: an examination of conscience, contrition, actual participation in the Sacrament of Penance (Reconciliation), and the completion of one’s penance.
The first step to making a good confession is the examination of conscience. Before we go to confession, we must mentally review our sins and determine what needs to be confessed. There are a variety of methods for doing this, but one good way is to consider our duties to God, Church, family, society and to see where we have personally failed to honor them. We can also reflect on whether we are guilty of any of the chief sources of sin, namely, the “seven capital sins” of pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth.
Keep in mind that there are sins of commission and of omission. Sins of commission occur when we actively do something wrong, such as murder, theft, or fornication. Sins of omission, on the other hand, occur when we fail to perform an action that we should have, such as failing to discourage a friend from having an abortion when she comes to you seeking advice. Actually recommending to a friend that she have an abortion would be a sin of commission--and a mortal sin at that! Sins of omission are more difficult to recognize, but can be serious faults, so should not be neglected from our considerations.
Another important way of looking at
sin is that a particular sin is either mortal or venial. This distinction
is important as we read in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “Mortal
sin destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God’s law; it
turns man away from God, who is his ultimate end and his beatitude, by
preferring an inferior good to him. Venial sin allows charity to subsist, even
though it offends and wounds it” (CCC 1855). As St. John says in his First
Letter, “All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that is not deadly” (1 John 5:
17). Now, “deadly” and “mortal” mean the same thing here and that means mortal
sins are serious sins. They deprive us of the sanctifying grace that is
necessary for salvation!
After an examination of conscience, contrition is necessary for a good confession. Contrition is willful regret for one's sins. It is not a matter of one "feeling guilty,” but rather a matter of conviction of the evil of sin and the resolution to sin no more. In other words, contrition is rooted in the will, not in the emotions.
Some people are more emotional than others. Some get a case of the "scruples" and feel shame or guilt over any little thing, whether it's sin or not. Others can commit murder and never "wallow" in guilt but are still truly contrite. The one is not necessarily more "holy" or making a better Confession than the other. What matters is our contrition – our will to offend God no more, our resolution to make reparations as far as possible, and our patience to bear the temporal effects of our sins. The “temporal effects” of sin are those real and often unseen effects of our sins we mentioned at the start of this article. It is important to note that forgiveness of sins does not occur without contrition.
It is also necessary to understand that there are two types of contrition. "Imperfect contrition" is regret out of fear of God's punishments for sin. This type of contrition is sufficient for forgiveness of sins in the Sacrament of Penance. "Perfect contrition" is regret for having offended God, for love of God, rather than for fear of God. We must strive for perfect contrition, which always absolves sin in itself if it is coupled with the will to receive the Sacrament of Penance.
After we have examined our conscience and repented of our sins with contrition, we are ready to confess our sins to a priest and make satisfaction for our sins by doing the penance appropriated to us.
The Sacrament of Penance, also
known as confession and reconciliation, involves the verbal confession one’s
personal sin to a priest who then indicates an appropriate course of action to
remedy the real and often unseen damage our sin has done. Following our prayer
of contrition, the priest then will absolve us of our sins, at which point we
will proceed to take the action indicated by the priest. This “action” is also
known as our “penance.”
Most Catholics understand these last two parts of Confession, but
few seem to understand the first two parts discussed in some detail in this
article. If you have questions for the Catholic Evidence Guild of Guam about
this article, another article we have written, or any teaching of our Holy
Mother Church, please drop us a line at our website: www.cegguam.org.
Parts of this article are taken from an online article at: www.kensmen.com/catholic/penance.html and are printed with permission of their author Tracy Elizabeth Tucciarone López.