Confession was the part of returning to the Catholic Church that scared me the most. It was also the most important and the biggest step to becoming one with the church again.
I was not looking forward to sitting in front of a priest and saying out loud the sins I had carried for years. I was afraid of being judged and that the penance would be severe. The thought kept coming into my head that after my first confession, I would no longer have to state that it’s been over 2 decades since my last confession.
But what I found in confession was not humiliation, but mercy. When I finally confessed my sins, I walked out feeling as if a weight been lifted from my soul. The sins I had been carrying, hiding, explaining away, or trying to manage on my own were finally brought into the light. And for the first time in a long time, I knew I could receive Holy Communion again, not because I had fixed myself, but because Christ had forgiven me through the sacrament He gave to His Church.
After Baptism: What Happens When We Sin?
At baptism, original sin is forgiven. For an adult who is baptized, all prior sins, original and personal, are washed away, and the person begins life in Christ with a clean slate.
But baptism is not the end of the moral life. We remain free and still feel the the human inclination or tendency to sin (concupiscence), we can still sin. This raises an obvious question: how are sins committed after baptism forgiven?
The answer is the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation also called
- Sacrament of conversion
- Sacrament of Penance
- Sacrament of confession
- Sacrament of forgiveness
- Sacrament of Reconciliation
It is God’s provision for the long road of discipleship: a means by which any sin committed after baptism can be forgiven, and the grace of friendship with God recovered. What makes all of this possible is divine mercy. God’s mercy moves the sinner to repentance and grants the forgiveness of the sin; our part is to turn back, and his part is to receive us.
What Is Sin, and What Does It Do?
To understand confession, we first have to understand the problem it answers: sin.
When Jesus was asked which commandment is the greatest, in Matthew 22: 36-40, he replied:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”
This is a good place to begin thinking about sin. Sin is anything that turns us away from the love of God and the love of neighbor. When we place our career, relationships, desires, comfort, reputation, money, or any other created thing above God, our relationship with him begins to weaken. And once that relationship is weakened, it becomes easier to ignore his commandments and justify choices that lead us further away from him.
Because God gives us free will, we are capable of choosing either good or evil. Sin is not simply a mistake or a bad habit; at its root, sin is a free choice to turn away from God. Some sins damage our relationship with God in a lesser way, while others are so serious that they rupture that relationship entirely. The Church calls these most serious sins mortal sins.
For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must all be present:
- Grave matter– the act itself is seriously wrong.
- Full knowledge- the person knows that the act is gravely wrong.
- Deliberate consent- the person freely chooses it.
If any one of these conditions is missing, the sin is not mortal, though it may still be sinful. For example, a person may act under serious fear, coercion, habit, confusion, or genuine ignorance. These factors can lessen a person’s guilt, even when the act itself remains wrong.
This distinction matters because confession is not just about “feeling guilty” or listing failures. It is about recognizing the ways we have turned away from God, bringing those sins into the light, and allowing Christ to restore us through the sacrament of reconciliation.
Common examples of grave matter include:
Against God
Missing Mass on Sunday or a holy day of obligation without a serious reason; receiving Holy Communion while conscious of unconfessed mortal sin; blasphemy; deliberately rejecting God; serious misuse of God’s name; involvement in occult practices, divination (seeking insight to future using occult, supernatural, or ritualistic means), or superstition.
Against life and the body
Murder, abortion, euthanasia, serious physical violence, hatred that seriously desires harm to another person, reckless endangerment of life, use of drugs outside controlled medical guidance, abuse of alcohol, and deliberately causing grave harm to one’s own body.
Against chastity
Adultery, fornication, pornography, masturbation, prostitution, sexual abuse, contraception, lustful actions, and acting on homosexual tendencies.
Against marriage and family
Adultery, abandoning one’s spouse or children, serious neglect of family duties, abuse within the family, and deliberately leading children away from the faith.
Against truth and justice
Serious lying, perjury, fraud, calumny (the act of making false, malicious statements about someone to damage their reputation), detraction (the act of maliciously disparaging someone by revealing their hidden faults or true, but damaging, information without a valid reason), blackmail, major theft, cheating someone out of wages, corruption, tax fraud, exploiting the poor, and refusing to make restitution when one has seriously wronged someone.
Against charity
Serious hatred, racism, cruelty, refusing forgiveness in a hardened way, knowingly causing scandal by leading others into grave sin, and grave neglect of the poor or vulnerable when one has a real obligation and ability to help.
Whatever its degree, sin is displeasing to God, and mortal sin in particular ruptures our relationship with him.Confession exists precisely to repair that rupture.
What Is Confession?
Confession is the popular name for the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation. Its purpose is healing: it restores a person’s relationship with God and with the Church after that relationship has been wounded by sin.
Confession is where individuals confess their sins to a priest, who acts in the person of Christ and the Church. The Catholic Church teaches that priests do not forgive sins, “only God can forgive sins and by virtue of his divine authority gives this power to men to exercise in his name. The priest’s role is not to be a judge, but to facilitate God’s forgiveness. The sacrament requires four essential elements on the part of the penitent: contrition (sorrow for sins), confession (telling one’s sins to the priest), an act of penance (satisfaction), and absolution given by the priest (CCC 1450-1460).
A critical aspect is the “seal of confession” which obliges the priests absolute secrecy regarding anything heard in confession. It is the absolute obligation for a priest to keep secret all sins confessed to them, even if threatened with prison or death, or even to prevent a crime. This seal allows penitents to make themselves vulnerable before God with profound humility and confidence in his mercy.
The Main Parts of the Sacrament / Structure of Confession
1. Examination of Conscience. Before confessing, the penitent prayerfully reviews his or her life since the last confession. The main thing to focus on Scripture and the 10 commandments which was listed in the previous section. I looked at several guides which really go in depth and gives examples:
- Examination of Conscience Guide given by my priest
- A more detailed list
- List of lists from United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)
- I also looked at several videos on Youtube about confession and listening to the videos helped me remember other examples
This is the preparation that makes a sincere confession possible.
2. Contrition. Contrition is genuine sorrow for sin, joined to a firm resolution not to sin again. The Church names two kinds of contrition: perfect contrition and imperfect contrition. Perfect contrition is sorrow for sin because it offends God, who is deserving of all our love. Imperfect contrition, by contrast, comes from other motives, such as fear of God’s punishment or recognition of the ugliness of the sin we have committed. For example, a person may be sorry for missing Mass because he fears the judgment of God, or because he sees that he has failed to give God the worship He deserves. The first motive is imperfect contrition; the second, when rooted in love for God above all else, is perfect contrition. Contrition is necessary because, without sorrow for sin and the desire to turn away from it, confession becomes only a list of wrong actions rather than a true return to God.
3. Confession. Confession is when you disclose your sins to the priest. It begins by stating: “Bless me Father for I have sinned, it has been (how long) since my last confession”. One is obliged to confess all mortal sins according to their kind and number. For example, if you missed Mass, you would confess that sin and give the approximate number of times it happened. Confessing venial, or less serious, sins is not strictly required, though the Church strongly recommends the practice. Individual confession of grave sins is the ordinary way of receiving absolution and being reconciled with God and the Church. When you are finished confessing your sins, you may close by saying, “I am sorry for these and all my sins.”
After you listen to the priest you’ll be asked to pray the Act of Contrition:
“O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins because of Thy just punishments, but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve with the help of Thy grace to sin no more, and to avoid the near occasion of sin. Amen.”
4. Absolution (the act of the priest). The priest may offer guidance and suggest ways to avoid sin in the future. This is a time to listen with humility and be open to his advice, including the penance he assigns. The priest then extends his hand and pronounces the words of absolution: “…and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” The penitent responds, “Amen.” This is the moment of forgiveness, accomplished by God through the ministry of the priest.
5. Satisfaction (Penance). Absolution takes away sin, but it does not automatically repair all the damage sin has caused. For this reason, the priest assigns a penance: a prayer or concrete action suited to the penitent’s situation and proportionate to the sins confessed. Penance helps repair the harm caused by sin and renews the penitent’s commitment to living as a disciple of Christ. It should be completed as soon as possible, often immediately after leaving confession.
A note on order. In the lived experience of the sacrament, the sequence is usually: examination beforehand, then confession, then an act of contrition, then absolution, with the penance performed afterward. Theologically, however, the Church groups contrition, confession, and satisfaction together as the three acts that belong to the penitent, and treats absolution as the distinct act that belongs to the priest. Both ways of describing it are correct; they simply emphasize different things.