Examination of Conscience
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EXAMINATION OF CONSCIENCE AND ACT OF CONTRITION
How to begin confession...
- Say the following: “Bless me Father for I have sinned.”
- Say how long it has been since your last confession.
- Then state: "These are my sins...”
Some helpful tips:
- Confess your sins clearly and distinctly in number and kind and do not tell the surrounding "back story" unless absolutely necessary to the matter of the sinful event.
- Confess only your own sins, not the perceived sins or failings of a family member.
- Remember that the Sacrament is not a time for personal counseling or spiritual direction.
- Understand the difference between a sin (a willed act or thought in violation of God's will or law) and a temptation. A temptation - in and of itself - is not a sin.
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.
Precepts of the Church
- Am I married in the Catholic Church according to Church law?
Did I keep the fast, abstinence and penance during Lent and do penance?
- Do I tithe or regularly give to the Church, support my pastor and charities?
- Do I try to evangelize and spread the gospel?
1. I am the Lord your God. You shall not have strange gods before me.
- Do I pray every day?
- Have I intentionally been distracted during Mass by my technology (cell phone) or by other means?
- Have I been involved with superstitious practices, occult, witchcraft?
- Have I ever received Holy Communion in the state of mortal sin? How many times?
- Have I intentionally failed to confess some mortal sin in my previous confessions?
2. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
- Have I used God's name lightly or carelessly?
- Did I curse or take a false oath?
- Did I use bad language?
- Have I wished evil on anyone?
3. Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day.
- Did I miss Mass on Sundays or holy days of obligation through my own fault? How many times?
- Do I try to keep Sunday as a day of rest?
4. Honor your father and your mother.
- Do I honor and obey my parents?
- Do I care for them in their old age?
- Have I neglected my family responsibilities to spouse and children?
- Is my family life centered around Christ and his teaching?
- Have I broken any ethical norms in the workplace?
5. You shall not kill.
- Have I harbored hatred, anger or resentment in my heart towards anyone?
- Have I discriminated against anyone based on race or how they look?
- Did I quarrel with anyone or desire revenge?
- Did I destroy someone’s reputation on social media, Facebook or other?
- Did I refuse to forgive?
- Was I disrespectful?
- Have I harmed anyone?
- Did I try to commit suicide or harm myself?
- Have I abused drugs or alcohol?
- Have I binged on media, video games or all-night TV sessions?
- Did I consent to, recommend, advise, or actively take part in an abortion or in euthanasia? How many times?
- Did I use IVF? Did I allow the doctors to kill unwanted embryos? How many embryos?
- Did I donate any embryos for others people or for research? How Many?
- Have I given scandal to anyone by my sins, thereby leading them to sin?
6 and 9. You shall not commit adultery / You shall not desire your neighbor's wife.
- Have I been unfaithful to my marriage vows in action or thought? How many times?
Did I choose to divorce my spouse or counsel someone to divorce who was in a sacramental marriage?
- Have I been engaged in sexual activity with a member of the opposite sex or the same sex? How many times?
- Am I envious of another's spouse or family?
- Have I consented to impure thoughts?
- Have I indulged in pornographic material? How many times per week?
- Did I send or text sexually explicit material about myself?
- Have I visited sexual chat websites?
- Have I masturbated? How many times per week?
- Did I engage in impure jokes or conversations?
- Am I modest in dress?
- Have I practiced any form of artificial contraception in marriage?
- Did I use any form of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART). sperm injections etc.?
7. You shall not steal.
8. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
- Have I lied, gossiped or spoken behind anyone’s back?
- Have I ruined anyone’s good name?
- Do I reveal information that should be confidential?
- Am I sincere in my dealings with others?
- Did I judge others rashly?
10. You shall not desire your neighbor's goods.
- Did I steal or damage another's property? How much?
- Am I honest with my employer / employee?
- Do I gamble excessively?
- Do I seek to share what I have with the poor and needy?
- Have I envied other people?
FOR MARRIED PEOPLE
- Do I threaten divorce as punishment to my spouse?
- Do I regularly forgive my spouse? Do I hold grudges?
- Do I forgive my in-laws?
- Do I pray with my spouse?
- Do I sacrifice for my spouse?
- Do I live as a bachelor or bachelorette?
- Do I physically abuse my spouse?
- Do I emotionally abuse my spouse, through constant ridicule, sharply restricting finances or travel?
- Have I withheld sexual relations from my spouse for extended periods? (For reasons not related to health)
FOR SINGLE YOUNG PEOPLE
- Do I think that I have to be sexually active when dating?
- Do I bring my Catholic Faith into my dating?
- Do I build relationships based solely on emotions and do not bring them under the guidance of Reason enlightened by the Holy Spirit?
- Do I dwell on past hurts, past divorce?
-Am I afraid of the commitment that leads to marriage?
- Do I give of my time, talent and person to the Church and community?
- Do I sacrifice for others?
- Did I ever make a proper discernment of my vocation?
FOR HEALTH CARE WORKERS
- Have I participated in or condoned Euthanasia, or hastened someone’s death through high doses of drugs?
- Have I prescribed, promoted or passed out Contraceptives, condoms, pills etc.?
- Have I neglected any patients?
- Have I unnecessarily prescribed or given away potentially addictive drugs?
- Have I promoted quackery (dubious medicine)?
- Do I make a profit motive more important than persons?
- Do I refuse to treat the poor?
- Do I promote chastity and marriage as I can in my practice?
- Do I regularly study Catholic medical ethics?
FOR PRIESTS AND RELIGIOUS
(Mention during confession “I am a religious, I am a priest” etc.)
- Do I live my vows, chastity, poverty, obedience?
- Do recite the Liturgy of the Hours according to rules of my order, diocese?
- Do I practice mental prayer daily, adoration other?
- Do I live as a bachelor, bachelorette?
- Do I have a plan of life?
- Have I kept the daily rules of my religious order?
- Have I been charitable in my dealing with other religious?
- Do I live a balanced life with exercise, social activities with other religious or priests, spiritual conferences?
- Do I witness to my religious life when not dressed in habit or clerics on vacation or in other places?
- Did I give my scandal to others by unreligious activities?
- Am I prudent and discrete during counseling? Is the place and time discrete, without potential scandal?
- Do I maintain healthy boundaries in pastoral work?
- Do I have a special concern for the poor?
- Do I disdain or ignore certain types of ethnic groups, those of a particular political orientation, those who seem too devotional to me or those with some kind of mental illness?