Examination of Conscience for Confession

“THOU shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets.” (Matt. xxii.)

AGAINST GOD.

1. HAVE I performed the penance enjoined in my last confession?

2. Have I neglected any spiritual duty through sloth, or without leave, viz., Meditation, Mass, Communion, Examen, Rosary, etc.?

3. Have I discharged those duties carelessly and with wilful distractions?

4. Have I yielded to diffidence in God's mercy, and dejection of mind?

5. Have I spoken with levity or disrespect of anything belonging to religion?

VOWS.

1. HAVE I received or disposed of anything without permission? Of what value?

2. If tempted against the virtue of purity did I neglect to pray?

3. Have I disobeyed any order or murmured against any direction?

4. Have I neglected or carelessly discharged my appointed duties in the service of the children, the sick, the poor, etc.?

AGAINST MY NEIGHBOR.

1. HAVE I wilfully entertained feelings of jealousy, aversion, resentment, or contempt?

2. Have I held uncharitable conversations, or been unkind in act or manner?

3. Have I judged or suspected others rashly?

4. Have I yielded to impatience or irritability in word or manner?

5. Have I told lies?

AGAINST MYSELF.

1. HAVE I yielded to thoughts or feelings of vanity, pride, or impatience?

2. Have I yielded to sensuality, sloth, or idleness?

3. Have I neglected or carelessly done my appointed work?

4. Have I indulged idle, useless thoughts?

ACT OF CONTRITION.

O MY God, I love Thee above all things. I hope, by the merits and Passion of Jesus Christ, to obtain pardon of my sins. I grieve from the bottom of my heart for having by them offended Thy infinite goodness. I detest them more than all imaginable evils. I unite my grief for them to that by which Jesus Christ was oppressed in the Garden of Olives. I firmly resolve, by the assistance of Thy grace, nevermore to offend Thee.

(Whenever you will have said this prayer, with the requisite determination of avoiding all sin, go in peace to confession, without scruple and without fear.—St. Liguori.)

A More Detailed Method of Examination.

Sacraments.—Defective examination of conscience; want of contrition and purpose of amendment.

Equivocation.—Dissimulation in accusing one's self; neglecting the penance or deferring it too long; paying no attention to the advice of the confessor; receiving holy communion without preparation; neglecting thanksgiving.

Meditation.—Want of promptitude and recollection on first awaking; neglecting the remote or immediate preparation; not giving all the time prescribed to it; not following method in making it.

Holy Mass.—Dissipation at the moment of preparation; losing part of it by one's own fault; wilful distraction (say if it was on a day of obligation).

Examination of Conscience.—Not giving the time prescribed to it, or passing all the time in distraction; not making an exact search for one's faults; giving way to discouragement; being vexed, instead of exciting one's self to contrition.

Spiritual Reading, Prayers, Divine Office.—Not giving the prescribed time to it; reading through curiosity, without choice, without preparation; saying morning and evening prayers, Rosary, and other prayers hastily or without attention; distractions, carelessness during the offices of the Church; want of attention at sermons and instructions; want of confidence in God; want of perfect resignation to His holy will; coldness, indifference; seldom calling to mind God's presence; irreverence toward the Blessed Sacrament.

Obedience.—Contempt, criticising, censures, judgments against Superiors; want of respect, whether in speaking to them, or of them; interior or outward murmuring; disobeying the command, or not complying with the desire manifested, or the advice given by them; criticising the command; obeying through compulsion, or in a manner entirely human, without viewing the matter in the light of faith; want of indifference for employments, places, etc.; breaking the rules.

Poverty.—Giving or receiving without permission; lending or taking without permission; having anything superfluous either in what belongs to one's office, or in anything else; being out of temper when deprived of such things, or in want of anything; not taking care of things which are given for one's use or for one's work; breaking, tearing, soiling, or losing by too much haste, carelessness, or frivolity.

Chastity.—Transgressions of the rules of modesty.

Charity.—Detractions, aversions, contempt of one's neighbors, indiscreet reports; sharp words, railleries; rough or impatient words; want of complaisance, meekness, and gentleness; rash judgments and unjust suspicions, whether communicated to others or not; envy, jealousy, contentions, reproaches, antipathy, sourness, impatience; particular friendships.

Humility.—Voluntary thoughts of pride or vanity; excessive self-love; preferring one's self before others; being vexed at their success; speaking in one's own praise; speaking with haughtiness and disdain; proud, disdainful, imperious in gestures, gait, or looks; excusing one's self, flying from humiliations, avoiding them by every means, even by falsehood and evasions; being excessively taken up with one's self; acting through human respect, or to attract the esteem of others.

Mortification.—Following one's own ill-humor or caprice; gratifying the senses, as the eyes, by dissipation or curiosity; the hearing, by the desire to hear or know unprofitable things; the smell, by taking pleasure in sweet scents, and showing great dislike for bad; the taste, by eating with sensuality or gluttony.

Employments.—Discharge them faithfully; conscientious regard for particular rules of one's employment.

Instruction of Youth.—Acquitting one's self of it negligently, without viewing it in the light of faith; want of application to study; not preparing lessons of catechism, and other branches of knowledge; want of careful watchfulness, of firmness, of sweetness of temper, and of patience; antipathy, undue preference; little or no zeal for the instruction of children, for the reformation of their hearts, for their perseverance in good; too great familiarity with them, or their relatives.

Domestic Employments.—Want of subordination to Superiors, or to those in the higher offices; acting too much upon one's own ideas; acting with too great haste; having little or no zeal and care for one's employment; not actuating one's work with a spirit of faith.

Care of the Sick.—Watchfulness; punctuality; diligence; kindness; patience; supernatural motive in all actions.

1. Consult the Index for other Examinations of Conscience. ↩