Confession --- being truly sorry vs knowing its a sin

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I use to be a once or twice a year go to confession kind of person. Now, I understand the grace involved vs just going through the motions. Mentally, I’ve noticed a few common sins popping up when I go to confession, ones that I’m having a hard time shaking (when the phrase “a slave to sin” is used, I think that’s a very accurate description).

I’ve noticed that when I go to confession, I do recall my sins. Most are ones in which I’m truly sorry for-- while a few others happen to be ones that I know are sins, and I feel guilty for having done them, or I feel bad for having committed them… but feeling sorry isn’t quite the same feeling.

Well, when the priest said “My dear child of Christ, would you say that you are truly sorry for all the sins you’ve just confessed?” I instantly replied “yes” … but upon reflection , i realized that I wasn’t truly sorry for 100% of that which I said.

Maybe I’m splitting hairs, maybe I’m not… I guess I’ll compare it to a couple real life events. I would be truly sorry if I accidentally broke someone’s good vase off a table, especially if I knew it was very dear to the person. Where as, if I was in the middle of no where, in plain daylight, and thought I stopped at a stop sign but was told by a cop who was writing me a ticket that I rolled through the stop sign, I wouldn’t quite be as sorry as in the 1st incident, but I would feel bad that did do something wrong.

During confession, must one truly be sorry, of could one be truly sorry for some sins, and just feel bad about others?
 
some sins may not have the same emotional impact on you as others—but ask yourself that if you had the chance to do it over again and NOT sin, would you? If the answer is yes, then you are sorry.
 
jmoburg said:
During confession, must one truly be sorry, of could one be truly sorry for some sins, and just feel bad about others?
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If you accept that they are sins and confessed them you’ve done all that you humanly can. God must provide a deeper repentance. It could be that you are only ready to give up your sins in an intellectual, formal sense, so the full sense of them is being withheld.
 
Ravyn_Guiliani - Thanks for your response - it makes sense. What’s hard is, if given the situation over again, knowing the situation is a sin… would I not do it?.. I know I shouldn’t, but I don’t know if I always have the strength not to… the situation I’m thinking of, I knew it was a sin before I committed it, toyed with the idea of trying to avoid it, but was unsuccessful at that.

McLean-- thanks for your response as well. I guess without feeling like I’m giving up trying to do my best when given an opportunity of God’s grace, but your thoughts seem correct-- you can only humanly do what you’re humanly capable of.
 
The beauty of Confession is that it works even when our contrition is only imperfect. 🙂

If you confessed it, then you were sorry enough about it for the Confessional. (After all, if you really didn’t think there was anything the matter with what you did, it would not have occurred to you to want to confess it.)
 
jmoburg said:
I use to be a once or twice a year go to confession kind of person. Now, I understand the grace involved vs just going through the motions. Mentally, I’ve noticed a few common sins popping up when I go to confession, ones that I’m having a hard time shaking (when the phrase “a slave to sin” is used, I think that’s a very accurate description).

I’ve noticed that when I go to confession, I do recall my sins. Most are ones in which I’m truly sorry for-- while a few others happen to be ones that I know are sins, and I feel guilty for having done them, or I feel bad for having committed them… but feeling sorry isn’t quite the same feeling.

Well, when the priest said “My dear child of Christ, would you say that you are truly sorry for all the sins you’ve just confessed?” I instantly replied “yes” … but upon reflection , i realized that I wasn’t truly sorry for 100% of that which I said.

Maybe I’m splitting hairs, maybe I’m not… I guess I’ll compare it to a couple real life events. I would be truly sorry if I accidentally broke someone’s good vase off a table, especially if I knew it was very dear to the person. Where as, if I was in the middle of no where, in plain daylight, and thought I stopped at a stop sign but was told by a cop who was writing me a ticket that I rolled through the stop sign, I wouldn’t quite be as sorry as in the 1st incident, but I would feel bad that did do something wrong.

During confession, must one truly be sorry, of could one be truly sorry for some sins, and just feel bad about others?
Click to expand...
Perfect contrition is not required for absolution in the Sacrament of Reconcilliation.
 
Ravyn_Guiliani said:
some sins may not have the same emotional impact on you as others—but ask yourself that if you had the chance to do it over again and NOT sin, would you? If the answer is yes, then you are sorry.
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What happens if you commit the sin again, even though you were truly sorry before? Like if someone confesses and they are trully sorry, they resisted the temptation for almost a week then gave in. Can one be truly sorry afterwards?
 
red_eye_chimera said:
What happens if you commit the sin again, even though you were truly sorry before? Like if someone confesses and they are trully sorry, they resisted the temptation for almost a week then gave in. Can one be truly sorry afterwards?
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Yes, you can be sorry after that. 👍 There is no magic thing you can do to make it impossible to be sorry afterwards. At least, until you are dead. Don’t ever be fooled into thinking you cannot repent, be sorry, and go to confession for something you did the other day, or last week, or 60 years ago. I’m sure the devil would love it if he could trick us into not going to confession because we think we did a particular string of sins that make us personally no longer eligible to repent and go to confession.

Be sorry and go to confession. (I mean, if you need to, of course. You were no doubt asking as a hypothetical, so I’m saying this just in case…) 🙂
 
Lhhs said:
Yes.

It is one thing to commit the same or similar sin.
It is another thing to have no real purpose of amendment though
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But why would one bother to go to confession if they aren’t going to amend it.
 
red_eye_chimera said:
What happens if you commit the sin again, even though you were truly sorry before? Like if someone confesses and they are trully sorry, they resisted the temptation for almost a week then gave in. Can one be truly sorry afterwards?
Click to expand...
In the book My Imitation of Christ, Jesus talks about how difficult it is to overcome one’s self. Some of our behaviors are easier to overcome than others. I think one of the great blessings is God giving us the grace to see our faults and we work on them. Also in this same book Christ talks about overcoming one’s faults, if you can do then do it, if not strive for it, and if even still you cannot then desire it. In other words, start where you can. He continues to say it is not the fact that one overcomes their faults with ease, it’s the fact that you don’t give up. The only way we fail is when we give up.
 
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