Come Holy Spirit into my soul. Enlighten my mind that I may know the sins I ought to confess, and grant me your grace to confess them fully, humbly and with a contrite heart. Help me to fimly resolve not to commit them again.
Supreme and adorable majesty, God of heaven and earth, I firmly believe You are ever present, and that You see me and know the disposition of my heart. I adore You, and render to You my humble homage, acknowledging You for my God, my Creator, my Sovereign Redeemer. In testimony of this, my faith, I prostrate soul and body before the throne of Your infinite majesty, and offer You the adoration which is due to You alone. O Father of light, who enlightens everyone who comes into the world, send into my heart a ray of light, of love, of sorrow, that I may know, detest, confess the sins I have committed against You. I wish to see my sins in all their enormity, just as they are in Your sight. I wish to detest them for my love of You, and to confess them with the same sincerity now that I would give at the moment of death. I know, my God, that this knowledge of my sins, the sorrow for them, the sincerity in declaring them to your minister can come only from Your bounty. As You wish that the sinner should not die, You sent Your Son into the world to purchase his forgiveness, I implore this grace through the merits of Jesus Christ, who died upon the cross of my sins, and who is now sitting at Your right hand, where He continually shows You, in my behalf, the wounds He endured for me.
O Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, worthy of all my love, I humbly present myself before You. Look upon me with merciful eyes and help me to be reconciled to You by a good confession. But as I can do nothing if You do not help me, I implore You in Your tender mercy to enlighten me, that I may know all my sins and detest them with my whole heart.
O Jesus, ever flowing fountain of compassion, I approach You to cleanse me from all my sins. O Divine Physician heal my soul. O infinite Love, enkindle the flames of Your Love in my soul that it may love nothing but You. May this Confession bring about in me an entire change in my life so that I may be fully reconciled to You.
Mother of God, You are so charitable to sinners who desire repentance, assist me to make a good Confession. My Guardian Angel, help me to discover the sins I have committed. My Patron Saint and all you Saints of Heaven, pray for me that I may bring forth worthy fruits of repentance. Amen.
Minor or venial sins can be confessed directly to God, but for grave or mortal sins, which crush the spiritual life out of the soul, God has instituted a different means for obtaining forgiveness—the sacrament known popularly as confession, penance, or reconciliation
As students in catholic elementary school, we always saved the "tough" questions for the monthly visit by the parish priest.
"But, Father, what if your family drags you to a friend's house for dinner on a Friday and they serve you something that contains meat ... but, you didn't know it until after you swallowed it ... would that still be a sin and would you have to confess it?" I'm sure that many priests qualify for sainthood simply by their virtue of witholding corporal punishment for the "demon" kids who plotted these convoluted questions.
As I recall, a sin is mortal when:
1. you know that the action is a sin.
2. you agree that it is a sin, and
3. you do it anyway.
Right?
Now I'm not saying one should air out all their dirty laundry to everyone in the middle of a church meeting(while truthfully it might be a good Christian ideal I don't think it's going to catch on!!) but I'm not sure I see the reason to pick a priest in particular. Because in verse 20 the public deed in confession was used to spread the Word and the power of God. Wouldn't my confession be a witness and furthermore show other Christians if God can overcome what He did in my life than He can be just as powerful for them? A confession to a priest alone wouldn't allow that the way I see it because it would be kept between the priest and myself
The priest who said Mass today told us it was the Feast of St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars! What a nice post just in time for his feast day.
Father gave a very short, very excellent homily on the value of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
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