Confession and contrition dilemma after several years

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BriN

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Hello everyone.
I am new to the forum. I have been lurking for a few days now. I am glad to have come across this forum.

As my title says, my question is about confession and contrition. I haven’t been to confession in years. Dating back to 2011. Over the years, I had turned my back on God and the Church. I even considered myself atheist at one point, then agnostic. But one thing that stayed with me was to pray, usually Hail Mary when I felt desperate, scared. All the while I’d tell myself that I don’t believe on God. But I would sometimes pray.
It would even happen that I’d pray in my sleep/dreams. Or my thoughts would be drifting and I catch myself saying a Hail Mary in my head.
I don’t know if my prayers were heard but I can say that I would feel peace of mind whenever I did pray - when desperate and scared. I also remember having prayed the Rosary years ago (months after my last confession), for my father to turn back to Catholicism. That was before I turned my back on my faith. And he has since then.

I digress. I am planning to go back to church and go to confession. To help me, I looked at the 10 Commandments and the virtues and sins, as per the catholic faith. I can’t remember everything but I wrote down what I could. Every now and then, I remember another sin to add to my notes.

My dilemma is this: I want to confess. I want to ask for forgiveness but something stops me. Fear of sinning again. I know that I must have a sincere desire not to so again. Yet, knowing that I will again (since many saints and other people went/go to confession monthly, sometimes weekly), how can I feel true regret and remorse when I know it will happen again? I am torn between fear of going to hell and love for God. I feel as though it’s the former that drives me rather than sorrow for having offended God. As much as I would like to return fully to the Church, I don’t know if I’m doing it out of love but out of fear. I don’t feel as though I love Him as much as I should in order to experience genuine contrition.

This stops me from going to confession (although I want to go this week). I’m afraid to go because I feel I don’t meet the requirements as far as contrition goes.

Have any of you dealt with this? Has this ever entered your mind if you know that you would be back in confession in a week or two or a month? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
 
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Fear of going or fear of not having been I a while? Resolution not to sin and to avoid occasions of sin is not “sinning no more”. Chances are most of will fall again. If not, reconciliation would be a one time Sacrament.
 
In my spiritual life, I’ve been surprised when a big sin I’ve dealt with for years suddenly stops becoming a problem after confession one day. You’re right that it can seem like it will never get better. But none of us know for certain it will happen again (unless we are psychic!)
 
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BriN said:
I’m afraid to go because I feel I don’t meet the requirements as far as contrition goes.
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What you’re talking about here is called “perfect contrition”. Perfect contrition will get you to Heaven with or without confession to a priest. But how do we know we have perfect contrition? We don’t, but Jesus has given us Sacrament of Reconciliation to avoid that issue. Through the sacrament imperfect contrition would be enough. I.e. even if your ONLY reason for confessing is out of fear of going to Hell, you won’t be denied absolution.
My advice is: go to confession this week, and in addition to all of the sins on your list, add your lack of perfect contrition to your confession. God will forgive this also. ❤️
Welcome home, I’m praying for a good and thorough confession.
 
TheMortenBay said:
and in addition to all of the sins on your list, add your lack of perfect contrition to your confession.
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In all my years of being a Catholic, all of my time listening to and reading about our Faith, I have never heard of confessing a lack of perfect contrition. Will you point me to where this is called a sin?
 
Even just the fear of Hell is enough. So don’t worry about it. God is love. Why would a loving Father wish to see you so anxious?
 
An act of perfect contrition made in extremis in enough but the penitent should also then go to confession if spared. Imperfect contrition in enough in the confessional and does not need to be confessed as an added ‘sin’ (because it’s not).
 
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Welcome to CAF! Don’t worry that you sense your motives are mixed. You do not need to be solely motivated by love of God when you go to confession. Perfect contrition is not required there. Here is a quote from the Catechism:
1453 The contrition called “imperfect” (or “attrition”) is also a gift of God, a prompting of the Holy Spirit. It is born of the consideration of sin’s ugliness or the fear of eternal damnation and the other penalties threatening the sinner (contrition of fear). Such a stirring of conscience can initiate an interior process which, under the prompting of grace, will be brought to completion by sacramental absolution. By itself however, imperfect contrition cannot obtain the forgiveness of grave sins, but it disposes one to obtain forgiveness in the sacrament of Penance.
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I think it is a great plan for you to go this week. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:
 
When you were a baby, you had a natural fear of falling. This did not prevent you from learning to walk. Even though you fell many times, you got back up each time and tried again, right? You risked falling again. Life is like learning to walk spiritually rather than physically. We fall.

We are sinners. We sin. Over and over. We are weak and despite our firm intention to amend our lives, we sin.

For this reason, and since God knows what we are made of, He instituted the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Rule 1: DO NOT die with mortal sin on your soul. Therefore…
Rule 2. Go to confession as needed

What you can do right now is go before our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Spend time in His presence and you will come to know His mercy.
 
I was away from confession for 18 years and during about 15 of those years I was a Christmas and Easter Catholic or not even that.

We’re human and of course we’re going to sin again, but that shouldn’t keep us from trying our best not to. An Olympic gymnast knows that no matter how good she is, she’s going to flub some moves from time to time, but that doesn’t keep her from training and doing her very best to avoid flubs or at least minimize the damage from the ones she does make.

It’s a big journey towards holiness. You need to start it with one step towards confession and back to the Church and then if you fall, keep getting up and right back on the bike each time.

I suggest you schedule a time and talk to your priest about this. He has likely heard it all before and can help you.
 
BriN said:
Hello everyone.
I am new to the forum. I have been lurking for a few days now. I am glad to have come across this forum.

As my title says, my question is about confession and contrition. I haven’t been to confession in years. Dating back to 2011. Over the years, I had turned my back on God and the Church. I even considered myself atheist at one point, then agnostic. But one thing that stayed with me was to pray, usually Hail Mary when I felt desperate, scared. All the while I’d tell myself that I don’t believe on God. But I would sometimes pray.
It would even happen that I’d pray in my sleep/dreams. Or my thoughts would be drifting and I catch myself saying a Hail Mary in my head.
I don’t know if my prayers were heard but I can say that I would feel peace of mind whenever I did pray - when desperate and scared. I also remember having prayed the Rosary years ago (months after my last confession), for my father to turn back to Catholicism. That was before I turned my back on my faith. And he has since then.

I digress. I am planning to go back to church and go to confession. To help me, I looked at the 10 Commandments and the virtues and sins, as per the catholic faith. I can’t remember everything but I wrote down what I could. Every now and then, I remember another sin to add to my notes.

My dilemma is this: I want to confess. I want to ask for forgiveness but something stops me. Fear of sinning again. I know that I must have a sincere desire not to so again. Yet, knowing that I will again (since many saints and other people went/go to confession monthly, sometimes weekly), how can I feel true regret and remorse when I know it will happen again? I am torn between fear of going to hell and love for God. I feel as though it’s the former that drives me rather than sorrow for having offended God. As much as I would like to return fully to the Church, I don’t know if I’m doing it out of love but out of fear. I don’t feel as though I love Him as much as I should in order to experience genuine contrition.

This stops me from going to confession (although I want to go this week). I’m afraid to go because I feel I don’t meet the requirements as far as contrition goes.

Have any of you dealt with this? Has this ever entered your mind if you know that you would be back in confession in a week or two or a month? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
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Fear of hell is imperfect contrition and is sufficient disposition to worthily receive absolution.

Contrary to what someone told you above, lack of perfect contrition is NOT a sin, and is not something to be confessed.

And further, what you need is a firm resolve to not commit the sins and to avoid the voluntary near occasion of sin, even if you know that you will still likely fall. But all you need to do is at that moment sincerely resolve and try to not commit those sins again. Knowing you will likely fall does NOT prevent you from worthily approaching confession, and is NOT the same as “after all, I can confess and be forgiven.”
 
You ask if your prayers were heard. Yes, God inclines His ear to hear you.

I would suggest you make an appointment or wait until. You’ve are last in line. Priest love hearing confession from those who have been away for some time.

I think you have received good information about contrition. Perfect contrition will take some practice.

I look at confession as I do a shower. No matter how hard I try I seem to pick up dirt and need to be cleansed.
 
BriN said:
Yet, knowing that I will again (since many saints and other people went/go to confession monthly, sometimes weekly), how can I feel true regret and remorse when I know it will happen again? I
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Don’t confuse contrition with firm purpose of amendment.

Sorrow for sin is good. Regretting our sins is good if that helps us in our firm resolution to not sin again “yep, I’m not gonna do that again!”

Knowing that we will most likely sin, in some way, again after confession does not negate our confession if at the time of confessing we have the firm resolution to not sin again.

We should avoid the near occasions of sin especially mortal sins ie change friends if in their company we commit serious sins, if drunkenness is a problem avoid going to the liquor houses, if gambling avoid gambling premises etc.

With regards to venial sins, we should also do our best to avoid those, but realize that we may not be able to avoid all near occasions due to these involving family or work situations - but we are still to do our best to not sin in these situations. And God accepts our best - he knows we are not perfect.

There is more rejoicing in heaven over one repentant sinner than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance!

So go to confession this week as you want! And welcome back home 😃
 
TheLittleLady said:
Will you point me to where this is called a sin?
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It’s not a sin. It’s something the OP feels ashamed and doubtful about. When we take something like that to the confessional, chances are we’ll be told it’s not a problem or not to worry.
 
Thank you all for the insight and the help. It has helped me. I will go to confession and in addition get as much guidance as I can. Your words brought a lot of comfort and encouragement.
 
Great to hear you will be going to confession.

One thing to add - you mention seeing other people go to confession monthly or even weekly.
Some of them may be going because they have big sins to confess.
But probably some of them only have little venial sins, the type that don’t absolutely require confession and that could be gotten rid of through other means like receiving Eucharist (which removes venial sins). They’re going because frequent, regular confession gives a person the grace to better avoid sin.
Once every month or two is a good habit to get into and will help you to sin less.
 
If your parish offers a free subscription to Formed.org, sign up (if not, you can get a free trial and then it is about like NetFlix subscription wise). They have a series on Confession that is so very good. It is called “Forgiven”.
 
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