- BY Seminario de Monterrey
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Love God above all things.
- Do I love God above all things?
- Is God the highest priority in my life or do I place myself before Him?
- Have pleasure and money become more important for my than God – who made me for Him? Do I pray frequently?
- Have I neglected my relationship with God by not praying?
- Have I participated in occult or superstitious practices, such as divination of the future? Did I receive the Holy Communion under mortal sin?
- Did I lie in confession or did I deliberately omit to confess a mortal sin?
Do not take the Lord’s name in vain.
- Have I committed perjury, that is, have I lied in a sworn declaration before a court of law?
- Have I ever lied after swearing “in God’s name” that I was saying the truth? Have I ever uttered God’s name when angry or together with bad words?
Keep holy the Lord’s day
- Did I fail to attend the Holy Mass deliberately on Saturday afternoon or on Sunday? Did I fail to attend Mass on a precept holiday or on an important holiday in the liturgical calendar (that is, Holy Thursday, Holy Friday, Easter Sunday, Christmas, Saint Mary Mother of God, etc.)?
You will honor your father and mother.
- Am I disobedient to my parents? Am I unrespectful to them?
- Do I insult them? Am I ashamed of them?
- Do I tell them I love them? Do I lie to them?
- Do I rob them? Do I obey and respect those who take the place of my parents, such as my teachers and directors?
- Do I miss classes? Do I lie to my teachers?
- Do I insult them?
You will not kill.
- Am I killing myself by using drugs?
- Do I drink alcohol? Have I had an abortion?
- Have I ever advised someone to have an abortion?
- Do I defend the right of unborn children to life or have I merely accepted our society’s anti-life way of thinking?
- Have I used abortive contraceptives or have I encouraged someone to use them?
- Did I sterilize myself in any way or did I encourage someone to do so?
- Did I participate in an act of euthanasia or agreed to it?
- Have I ruined a person’s reputation by deliberately circulating rumors of by keeping them alive by relaying them to others?
- Do I feel rage against a person? Am I resentful?
- Do I refuse to forgive? Have I cursed someone?
You will not commit adultery.
- Have I had sexual intercourse with someone?
- Have I had sex with myself?
- Have I ever watched pornography in the Internet or through any other means?
- Have I ever had impure thoughts freely and deliberately?
- Have I applied any contraceptive method?
- I’m I decorous as to dress?
You will not steal.
- Do I rob my parents? Do I rob my friends?
- Have I ever stolen something from a stranger?
- In other words, have I ever taken something that really belonged to someone else? Do I bet too much?
- Do I seek to share what I have with the poor?
Do not bear false testimony against your neighbor.
- Am I a liar?
- Am I guilty of detraction, that is, of making others’ faults known?
- Am I guilty of slander, that is, of spreading lies about other persons? Do I gossip about other people?
- Do I disclose information that should be kept confidential?
- Am I false, that is, have I been a certain kind of person for some and a completely different kind for others?
You will not covet your neighbor’s wife or others’ property.
- Am I envious of other people?
- Do I desire others to be deprived from their property or talents?
- Am I jealous of other people?
- Do I fail to forgive others or keep resentment to them?
- Am I resentful?
- Do I despise others?
Prayer before confession:
Father, You show pity for the whole human kind, you embrace us and give us your assistance when we need it. Now open my eyes so I can see the evil I have committed and the good I have failed to do and touch my heart so I sincerely convert to you. Heal and strengthen my weakness, renew your love in me, so the image of your Son will shine in my deeds, I will bear witness of your goodness among the human kind and I will live in communion with my brothers in the Church. Grant me, oh Father, your light, in the name of Jesus Christ, brother and guide of all human kind.
Almighty Father, full of goodness and mercy, I kneel here before you. I wish to confess to you the sins with which I have offended you, my Father.
Father, set your merciful sight on me. Look at me, as you did through the eyes of your Son Jesus Christ, who saw that sinning woman before Him and did not condemn her. Grant me the grace of contrition and a firm purpose of amendment, so that I am able to appear before you, willing to start a new life under the light of your Word.
Good Father, grant your grace to me so I can rejoice, while I prepare myself to encounter you in the Sacrament of reconciliation. Make all fear and hesitation disappear from me, so that I know how I must confess my sins. Send you Spirit upon me, so I remember all of them and feel sorrow for them. Give me courage not to keep any sins in secrecy and so that I open my soul before you with complete simplicity and sincerity.
Amen.
Act of contrition:
I am sorry, my God, and repent from the bottom of my heart to have offended you. I am sorry for the hell I deserved and for the heaven I lost; but I am much sorrier because, by sinning I have offended such a good and great God as you; I would rather have died than offended you, and I firmly intend, with the assistance of your divine grace, not to sin anymore and to avoid future occasions of sin.
Amen.
The Church proposes five steps to follow in order to make a good confession and so take full advantage of the graces of this wonderful sacrament.
Examination of Consciousness.
Set ourselves before God, who loves us and wishes to help us. Analyze our life and open our heart without deceit. You can have the assistance of a guide to do this properly.
Repentance.
Feel true sorrow for having sinned because we have hurt he who loves us the most: God.
Purpose not to sin again.
If I truly love, I cannot go on hurting who I love. Confession is useless unless we wish to be better. We can fall again out of weakness, but what matters is the struggle, not the fall.
Tell our sins to the confessor.
The priest is an instrument of God. Let us put aside “shame” or “pride” and open our soul, with the certainty that it is God who listens to us.
Receive absolution and carry out penance.
This is the most beautiful moment, because we receive God’s forgiveness. Penance is a simple act that represents our redress for the faults we committed.